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Slide Notes

With the case of my cousin, who suffers from both bipolar as well as schizophrenia, at one point during proceedings and hearings in juvenile court, his mother pleaded with the judicial system for assistance in helping her child, as she was incapable of doing so, nor did she have the economic means. In response, the courts threatened her with removal of her youngest child into the foster care system if she did not take back my cousin, into her home. She was ill equipped and emotionally devastated of how she could safely live in the same space as someone who had been diagnosed as being mentally ill. However, beyond the brokenness of the system was the startling aspect that as I inquired to my cousin whether or not her church was serving as a resource to her with wading through the legal and mental health systems, her response was, no. That ultimately she would feel as if she was a failure, and that the only answer from her church was that she should continually be in prayer as they would continually pray for her. There were no offers of advocacy, assistance for herself and her other children, no counseling, no meals delivered-nothing but the assurance that God would work things out and bring her son
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Final Presentation: Mass Incarceration, Public Policy and Theology

Published on Nov 14, 2016

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1.

Shame, Guilt and the Role of Plationized Christianity in the prison system

With the case of my cousin, who suffers from both bipolar as well as schizophrenia, at one point during proceedings and hearings in juvenile court, his mother pleaded with the judicial system for assistance in helping her child, as she was incapable of doing so, nor did she have the economic means. In response, the courts threatened her with removal of her youngest child into the foster care system if she did not take back my cousin, into her home. She was ill equipped and emotionally devastated of how she could safely live in the same space as someone who had been diagnosed as being mentally ill. However, beyond the brokenness of the system was the startling aspect that as I inquired to my cousin whether or not her church was serving as a resource to her with wading through the legal and mental health systems, her response was, no. That ultimately she would feel as if she was a failure, and that the only answer from her church was that she should continually be in prayer as they would continually pray for her. There were no offers of advocacy, assistance for herself and her other children, no counseling, no meals delivered-nothing but the assurance that God would work things out and bring her son
Photo by krystian_o
2.

72,196 represents the numbers of Persons of African Descent currently incarcerated

"In conversation with a young Person of Color of African Descent, I inquired of him how he would rectify his faith while he was working in the prison system as a prison guard-with his own personal goals of becoming a Cook County Sheriff's deputy. He didn't find anything wrong or amiss, and only reiterated that this was the best path for him, since he could have been one of those on the inside. That they perhaps just hadn't heard the Gospel enough to steer them away. When I inquired about would he would interact with those imprisoned, he informed me he would try to preach to them that they had to live right, otherwise there was no salvation"
3.

Shame, Guilt and the Role of Plationized Christianity

  • Richie offers: "ideologies and public policy shifts that have led to the increased criminalization of disenfranchised communities of color, more aggressive law enforcement strategies for norm violating behavior and an undermining of civil and human rights for marginalized groups.”
  • Parable of the Prodigal Child- they had an opportunity to work towards restoration, whereas there are no vehicles currently to establish restorative justice for those currently incarcerated
  • Glorifying of Suffering: Moltmann, quoted in Taylor's Cruificed God "the results of such pious worship of suffering have included quietism, acceptance of suffering (for self and for others), and in the extreme, a kind of sacralizing of destructive sadomasochistic impulses”
"At this juncture, and depending on the context of the conversations, faith has had a role in potentially damaging those persons who are in the process of restoration and rehabilitation, based on the concentration that many religious bodies have on shaming- “I am something bad” and the subsequent airing of that social sin, using their bodies as an example of fear. "

Photo by Thomas Hawk
4.

Untitled Slide

  • Townes: "it seems as though human beings are valued or devalued in our society not on the basis of their identity as children of God…. but on the basis of characteristics that are inherited socially or biologically, that is, their national identity, race, gender, class.”
  • Beginnings of this through the Curse of Ham-Africa and the Bible, Yamauchi states "Ham’s frivolous looking, a moral flaw, represents the first step of the abandonment of the moral code.”
  • Yamauchi states "Ham’s frivolous looking, a moral flaw, represents the first step of the abandonment of the moral code.”
I will explore the question of how has the wider expression of the Christian Church been also a participant in the more or less, been a stumbling block in the healing of those who are both currently and formerly incarcerated.

I will also explore the historical aspect of shame, guilt and the damage of Platonized Christianity both within the prison systems as well as how it has impacted marginalized communities of color.
5.

Untitled Slide

  • Kelly Brown Douglas and Plationized Christianity " the task for Platonized Christianity was to support white cultural presupposition without contesting the “truth” of the biblical witness.”
  • "..every race of animals seems to have received from their Maker certain class of extension at the time of their formation…below these limits they cannot fall or rise above them.” Jefferson, quoted during the Enlightenment movement
  • "Plationized Christianity characteristically promotes a dualistic dynamic between the soul and body in which the body is demonized."
  • "Plationized Christianity does not have the same sacred regard for the human body that is typical of African religious and cultural tradtitions"
"Although Dr. Douglas argues that the “platonized faith tradition has been key for black people’s well-being,” with regards to a higher standard of living and self-preservation, inducing this tradition into Christianity for people of African Descent, I would argue that it has demoralized and disabled the cultural identity and their humanness, with the propaganda which they were and continue to be subjected to through modern day"
6.

SHAME, GUILT AND THE ROLE OF PLATIONIZED CHRISTIANITY

  • Sexuality, in a healthy definition, is the process whereas humanity is immersed and extends invitation into personal community with one another
  • “then to virtually reject one’s sexuality is to reject that which cultivates healthy relationships…not just merely a rejection of sexuality, but an unwitting rejection of one’s blackness.”
  • "the Negro pays for that guilt which white people have about flesh.”
  • "The body is seen only as a cauldron of sexual activity"
"I concur and offer the observation of any Black community suffering under urban plight and abandonment of the community, simply because their bodies were not deemed sacred enough to be worth saving, should be proof enough."
7.

SHAME, GUILT AND THE ROLE OF PLATIONIZED CHRISTIANITY

  • "Those who benefit from the current structural arrangements structural arrangements and patterns of relationships are often insensitive to the negative impact of racism, sexism and classism upon the quality of their own and other person's lives."
"Throughout my research at the impact of Plationized Christianity and its damage upon Black bodies, there was not too many public narratives of the abuse of Black male slaves with regards to sexuality by their slaveowners, which then explains this particular depiction of a paperback sold in the 1940;s and 1950's. However, it should be noted that the violence, often times deadly, was an eradication of the Black male as a way to cripple and subjugate the entire Black race exiled in the United States."
8.

SHAME, GUILT AND THE ROLE OF PLATIONIZED CHRISTIANITY

  • The Story of George Stiney, the youngest African American to be executed for murder, a crime that he could have not committed.
9.

SHAME, GUILT AND THE ROLE OF PLATIONIZED CHRISTIANITY

  • The question then which is open ended and based on context how to go beyond abstract thinking into concrete action about how the wider expression of the Church, especially in faith communities of color and LGBTQA can be retrained into searching past the shame or the sin that many felons are labeled as and working toward restoration of the whole person so that there is a return to community outside prison walls
10.

SHAME, GUILT AND THE ROLE OF PLATIONIZED CHRISTIANITY

  • Any theology, especially the theology of the cross that does not address this ever present communal black suffering reveals the bankrupy and false laims of the ross for all persons
  • Black suffering and the theology of the cross challenge the churh to take seriously the church's theology of the cross in its witness with all relationships
  • Challenge the church to beome one with those who stand with their baks against the walls and struggle against the earthly powers of domination
11.

SHAME, GUILT AND THE ROLE OF PLATIONIZED CHRISTIANITY

  • Paris "There is a practical, ethial obligation intrinis to the Afrian theologial affirmation of divine harmony-that is that human beings are to mirror divine harmony in their own living"
  • Thesis: to explore the issues such as mass incarceration and other public violence against Black bodies and the re-introduction that the resources and theology of African traditional religions and have on the transformation and restoration of African descent's humanity

Kwame Pitts