God Is a Black Woman Quotes

“As scholar Heide Göttner-Abendroth is quick to point out, matriarchal societies aren’t simply the reversal of patriarchal societies, with women ruling over men. Rather, they are need-based societies that are centered around the values of caretaking, nurturing, and responding to the collective needs of the community.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“I was by no means a Goody Two-shoes; I was just more effective than most at silencing my need. But in silencing my need, I silenced myself almost to the point of self-erasure.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“We are unable to imagine a God who is with us while we wonder if our beloved sister will survive the night. We are unable to imagine a God who proclaims #blacklivesmatter, a God who says #metoo, a God who stands not atop the social hierarchy, but at the bottom with the people who have been cast aside, silenced, and forgotten. When god is solely male, he can only show up as fatherskygod who is nowhere near us.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“Imagination is theology; we can only believe what we can imagine. And our cultural landscape hasn’t given us many tools to imagine a non-white, non-male God.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black Mother within each of us—the poet—whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.” — Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider —”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“Indeed, social science scholars agree that what’s good for Black women is good for all people. The liberation of all Black women requires the dismantling of all systems of oppression—white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and more. These systems harm all of us. So, if Black women are thriving and free, it also means the oppressive systems have been eradicated and we are all thriving and free.1”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“into whitemalegod’s hands. Interestingly, we didn’t fast and pray for anything other than marriage. By putting marriage on a pedestal, my parents taught me that my main objective in life was to please God by pleasing men. First, I was to please my dad, who enforced the fasting, and then I was to please my future husband, who was the prize for fasting.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“The prevalence of white male images of God easily lead us to conclude that God is definitively and exclusively white and male. And like many culture-shaping ideas, we don’t even question the idea or how it shapes our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. For most of us, regardless of what we might want to believe or claim to believe, the image that immediately comes to mind when we imagine God is that of a powerful white man who is for and with powerful white men. It’s a deceptive idea that flies under the radar, powerfully shaping us without our consent.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“In fact, this behavior is modeled in the book of Psalms: “I look to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.” Especially when we feel our own power crumbling, spirituality offers a loving connection to a steadfast, reliable Power. But what happens when you can’t trust the Power you’re supposed to rely on? What happens when that Power is so closely linked to human greed, political power, patriarchy, and white supremacy that it is no longer recognizable? What happens when that Power has been irrevocably corrupted? What happens when that Power is printed on the coins and bills, gets Donald Trump elected,”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“This election is so devastating. . . . Is there any hope? Where is God in the midst of this? This is a question Black people have been collectively asking for centuries as we have been traumatized by one bogus elected official after another. It’s a question that Black LGBTQ+ people have been asking as they encounter persistent condemnation and rejection in many Black church spaces. It’s a question that more and more white women like the New Orleanian sculptor have been asking since Donald Trump was elected and Judge Brett Kavanaugh was appointed to the Supreme Court despite being accused of sexually assaulting Dr. Christine Blasey”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“As I awaited the worst, I realized that the terror in my bones was a familiar one. As a Black woman in a white male God's world, I had been a fugitive my entire life.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“fact, the more a white person was exposed to the cultural idea of the white christ, the more despicably they treated Blacks.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“Sociologist Jessie Daniels confirms, “To the extent that liberal feminism articulates a limited vision of gender equality without challenging racial inequality, then white feminism is not inconsistent with white supremacy. Without an explicit challenge to racism, white feminism is easily grafted onto white supremacy and useful for arguing for equality for white women within a white supremacist context.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“Whatever hospitality the Mall of America officials had extended to us abruptly ended as soon as we began to disrupt capitalism—one of whitemalegod’s prized drugs.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“Imagine the terror of slowly losing your grip on reality and not knowing what is happening to you and being told by your parents and your spiritual community that you need to pull yourself together in order to receive God’s touch? Where is God then?”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“can’t tell if you’re sloppy or mischievous. Right off the bat, as if it were already locked-and-loaded, his attack on my Blackness and femaleness was so precise, he might as well have said, I can’t tell if you’re Black or female. I can’t tell if you’re sloppy or mischievous.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“Rather than offering a legitimate critique of my lecture, he fired off a racial-gender slur that cut to the core of my identity as Black and female. Sloppy is a delegitimizing stereotype launched at Black people. Sloppy, dirty, lazy, worthless; these are some of the labels society uses to brand us. And ever since good ol’ Eve in the Garden of Eden, women have been saddled with the mischievous stereotype, especially when we disregard social norms and do unthinkable things like call out a scholar’s racism. Mischievous, deceptive, untrustworthy, morally weak; these”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“As I stood at the edge of the Black Madonna of Mauriac’s altar, I recalled the numerous beatings I had endured as a Black woman, much like this one: I can’t tell if you’re sloppy or mischievous. Those were the words a male audience member publicly said to me at the end of my academic lecture at Cambridge University.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman