Although I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, in retrospect, I realize that Gooch’s easy acceptance hinged on the fact that his testimony reinforced a complex choreography of white supremacy. The powerfully built black man wore his prison-issued clothes and performed under the watchful eye of an armed white prison guard who would escort him back to prison after the service. His personal narrative evoked stereotypes of black inner-city ghettos and dangerous black male bodies that needed to be subdued and disciplined by white authorities before surrendering and submitting to a Jesus introduced
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