What is Jesus’s Message To Black Men?

This is not a bait and switch. But I won’t pretend to know in this present moment what would be the message of Christ for all Black men in the wake of weeks of deadly violence towards Black women and children at our hands. What I will reflect on is what I believe Jesus is saying to ME. I first hear Jesus saying not to distance myself. This is difficult to do. The violence done to Shanequia Elkins and Christina Snow in Shreveport, to Cerina Fairfax, Nancy Metayer Bowen, Tammy McCollum and sadly many others is so extreme that it doesn’t seem to come from any universe that could also live within me. It does. Because that universe is patriarchy. Jesus lived in an agricultural society and so he often used agricultural metaphors in his teaching. Trees, soil, earth, seeds. Even the smallest seed of Jesus’s time, the mustard seed, had the potential to become something large enough to impact the entire community. As a man raised in this nation the seeds of patriarchy have been socialized into me at the earliest of ages. Sung into me right alongside my ABC’S. Seeds sewn through television, movies, music, sports, pornography, politics, education, religion, the workplace, and more. To distance myself from this reality is to delude myself into thinking that I have somehow walked this earth without ever touching the soil. The absurdity of the acorn, to see no relationship to the oak tree.  Instead of distancing myself due to the violence, I believe I’m being called to closely reflect on the conditions that created and condoned it in the first place. Conditions that impact me. Conditions that I am complicit in maintaining.

Speaking of which, the conditions that created patriarchy as we know it here in the United States were first created by men determined to make themselves white. Fully content with the creation of whiteness being a thing of absolute barbarism. Some forget this. I saw a sign from a recent “No Kings” rally that read “rejecting kings since 1776.” The sign had a silhouette of George Washington, this nation's first president. This nation's first president who was not only an enslaver of African peoples, but who wore the teeth of those who he held captive as dentures. This is the origin of patriarchy as we know it here. This is true, but it can also lead me to something that is untrue. It can lull me into a false sense of immunity. As a Black man I didn’t invent patriarchy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t inflict it. It also doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of desiring and being guided by the fulfilment of its promises. I cannot distance myself from this. Patriarchy whispers deceitfully into me the things it does to all people socialized as men in this society; “control your woman”, “keep your kids in check”, “lead and rule your household”, “lead and rule society”, “you’re in charge and if not you should be”, “You’re a man, you’re special.” Enticing me into the belief that I’m entitled to be coddled and crowned all at the same time. Telling me the lie that “anything and anyone weaker than you is yours to possess, control and dominate.” If society, my family, my job, my school, my community, my nation, or even my god are preventing me from exercising this they should be altered or eliminated. Bent and broken until I assume my rightful place. There are versions of this lie that appear more benevolent and that coach men to handle this power with “wisdom” and “gentleness. They all still lead to the same conclusion. I cannot deny this reality. To deny it is to increase its hold. To deny it is to surrender my opportunity to examine it. To be freed from it. 

One of Jesus’s most famous sayings is “whom the son sets free, is free indeed.” What I hear and have been hearing Jesus say to me as a Black man, is that freedom is not the access and impunity to cause harm at the same rate that white men get to. That version of “freedom” is lethal, literally. What I hear Jesus saying is to “take the board out of my own eye.” To heal. To follow my anger until it takes me to what I'm grieving. To own my shit. To love Black women I’m not related to. To love the Black woman I’m married to and our Black children as if I’m loving God because when I do, I am. To love myself. That is the calling of God on my life in this moment. To heed the words of Malcolm X which remind us that the Black woman is still the most disrespected and unprotected person in America. Statistics show that the most dangerous person a Black woman will ever meet is an intimate partner. This is also true for Black trans women. So Jesus is reminding me that if I truly want to protect Black women the first place to begin is in the mirror, where there is no distance at all.

Photo Cred: Abiola Agoro