JC

“Black theology must also avoid the opposite error of speaking of Jesus Christ without reference to black liberation. The post-Civil War black church committed this error. It turned to the white Jesus who always speaks to blacks in terms of white interest and power. He tells blacks that love means turning the other cheek; that the only way to win political freedom is through nonviolence; he even praises Martin Luther King, Jr., for his devotion to him, though he knows that King was always his enemy in spirit and that he chose King because he thought King was the least of the evils available. The white Jesus tries to convince us that there is no difference between American democracy and Christian freedom, that violence is no way to respond to inhumanity. Black theology must realize that the white Jesus has no place in the black community, and it is our task to destroy him. We must replace him with the black messiah, as Albert Cleage would say, a messiah who sees his existence as inseparable from black liberation and the destruction of white racism.”
― James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation

“Mine is not an argument about being “absent” from literary texts; we were not absent. We were in the texts. Potent as life. But we (and others) were trained to remove or skirt our presence, or to observe that presence as something like background, immutable, not subject to the action of the text.”
― Dionne Brand, Salvage: Readings from the Wreck

“The latecomer, male, had a guitar and reddish hair. He was short and hippie-like. She relaxed; she'd met his type. He reminded her of many years ago, "white liberals... when the shit starts to fly, they'll leave you in the street." She took this note of him with derision and ease.
He said that he was going to Kingston; that he used to write and sing and that he was now working as merchant marine like his father. He was writing a book. She was glad that he had sat beside her. They talked about the old days, the Soviet Union and the United States. He said that the superpowers were going to blast us all to hell. Maoist, she thought. She said that the Soviet Union never did anything to Black people. He said that he was a bit of a pacifist now. They talked until Kingston, a jarring kind of talk.
"And besides who supported us in Africa? The United States never gave us any weapons. It's them that we're fighting."
And he, "I abhor violence of any kind. I don't care which side you're on."
"God!"
"I just don't know about that sort of action," not noticing her response.
She exhaled wearily. Jesus, why was she talking to him about Africa!
"In Germany, where was the history for it?" he looked to the ceiling of the train earnestly, then at her.
"I don't know; I wasn't there. Germany, now or then, is not a place that I understand." she replied, looking at him as if to ask, Do you?
"Well, what did it accomplish?" he, continuing, "It seems useless and wasteful to me, at any rate - kidnappings, bombings."
She was regretting talking to him. He was so comfortable with himself. And after all, she thought, what had he done — probably worn flowers in his hair and played his guitar. That was easy enough. He probably loved his father; this odd musing crossed her mind. She hated him already. She realized that she had hated him, even before he came onto the train. At the corner of her eye, she noticed his face, like a child's with its conceit, its petulance.”
― Dionne Brand, Sans Souci: And Other Stories

“To my mind, these futuristic works are a continuation of the racial imaginary of late seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works of literature by writers like Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, William Thackery, Jane Austen and Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë. Those earlier works and their subjects foregrounded individualism, middle-class making, religiosity and industry—which were, no doubt, their concerns but were also the patina over the colonization/education/eradication/exploitation of the “savages.” Giving these works the imprimatur of great literature indemnified the violence of the bourgeoisie. It couched the extreme violence of chattel slavery, colonization and genocide in what was purportedly benign, in the affects of good manners, proper decorum, high graces, great balls, great passions, great ambition; and it granted licence to ignore those events (in the name of good taste). But in these works you might find, if you read well and closely, the “great historical moments” against which these seemingly domestic dramas took place, and the studied innocence of the deep violence that eradicated populations of Indigenous peoples, that murdered and enslaved millions, that immiserated continents and made fortunes.”
― Dionne Brand, Salvage: Readings from the Wreck