“Is God an Uncle Ruckus?”

Last updated on: September 21, 2016 at 8:02 am by Andre E. Johnson

“Is God an Uncle Ruckus?” 2016-09-21T08:02:50-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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I have to admit, I was not surprised when State Prosecutor Bob McCulloch read as part of a 25 minute oration, the decision of the grand jury in the State of Missouri vs. Darren Wilson. By the way, I had to remind myself that is the correct name of the case, State of Missouri vs. Darren Wilson—because on hearing McCulloch, the media and a host of others put Michael Brown on trial, you would have thought that Michael Brown was the one that the grand jury was attempting to indict. It was Darren Wilson who killed an unarmed Mike Brown whose body laid dead in the street for hours.

Maybe I was not surprised because I had seen this movie before—we have all seen it before. Cop shoots unarmed black person, cop claims she or he feared for her or his life, black folk outraged, while others seem not to care. Mothers of dead victims crying and fathers having to be so called “strong” in the face of the public, many people write on about it, others write about it, while the first thing everyone wants to know is “what did he do to get shot by the police” as if the previous times that police shot and killed some black person that person had to have done something to cause her or his killing.

No, I wasn’t surprised, but I was tired—tired of seeing this same old movie. Tired of seeing black men and women gunned down in the middle of street by scared and ineffective officers. Tired of hearing Charles Barkley and respectability proponents touting the same tired cliches’; “well if he didn’t do this,” “if he didn’t do that,” “if he would have done this,” “if he would have done that, then maybe he would still be alive. Tell that to Tamir Rice’s family, the 12 year old boy who police gunned down in Cleveland, Ohio. Tell that to Akai Gurley, the black man who was just walking down a flight of stairs in New York with his girlfriend. All of this led me to meditate on that age old question, “Where was God in all of this?

When James Cone wrote his important work on Black Theology he argued that God is on the side of the oppressed, and at the time of the writing, he declared that the oppressed are Black people in America. They were the ones with their backs were against the wall and that God was actively liberating Blacks from their position in society. Using the Exodus story as a theological starting point, Cone argued that the same God who delivered the saw the deliverance of the Hebrews as God’s deliverance of Blacks.

However, William R. Jones, in response to Cone’s liberation ethic asked, “What proof do you have that God is on the side of the oppressed genuinely and black people specifically? In other words, for Jones, he asked in essence, “show me where God has done anything liberative for black people and oppressed people at the bottom.” He argued that Black folks were in pretty much the same position as they always were; different times, but same stuff. Then he asked a question that still can get people up in arms: “Is God a White Racist?” What Jones surmised was that the hell many black folks go through, surely this God, who Black folks continue to cry out to and wait upon, this God must be a white racist.

However, Cone and his supporters had an answer—God is not a white racist because we serve a black God. For so long, God whether said or unsaid, was seen to be white. White of course equaled good and evil equaled black so when Cone boldly claimed what other black theologians and preachers said before him, it sent shock waves throughout the academy and gave many black people a different view of God.

Today, many black believers claimed God’s blackness because it strengthen us, it helps us to understand what made in the image of God is all about. To know and understand that “God is black,” to see “God as black,” and to talk about a “Black God,” empowers us and gives us a sense that God is for us—that despite everybody and everything else that God is there and though evil persist in this world, God is right there to somehow or someway make it right by snatching the good out from the evil.

But as I continued to reflect on the death of Mike Brown, rioting, corrupt systems and justice as a whole, as I reflect on Cone’s theologies of liberation and the blackness of God, I come in the spirit of William Jones to ask “Is God an Uncle Ruckus?” In short, if God is black and stands with black people, is God a Ruckus type of God?

Uncle Ruckus, from the Aaron McGruder show, the Boondocks, is a self-hating, self-loathing black man who really hates black people and blackness itself. Though dark skinned, he thinks that all black people are lazy and shiftless, they do not amount to anything, and they get what they deserve. In return, he worships anything white and believes that path to salvation for a black person is to renounce her or his blackness. He simply hates black people.

When we see all that is happening across this country; when we see dead bodies in streets or in parks; when we see cops beating up black women without any hesitation, when we see the prison industrial complex still making millions off of black and brown bodies; when we see churches, especially black churches still not saying anything about black death in the street, when we see all of the hurt, pain, tears, sorrow; when we see all of this, I am almost tempted to believe that the “black God” we serve is nothing but an Uncle Ruckus. In short, I wonder aloud if God is black, then God must really have some problems with dark skinned folks. So is God an Uncle Ruckus?

To be Continued…….
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Andre E. Johnson

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