Almost Interesting

I found this at Comics.com. I found it funny and depressing at the same time:

Monkey gets a visit from a friend while he’s serving life for felony living while not human.

I wrote the following for my American History (Colonial Times through the Civil War) class. For the essay, we were asked to write about some theme in Harriet Jacobs’ Memior Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. I chose to highlight the slave’s religious ties as oppression. I’m putting the essay up here with the (linked up) bibliography at the end. I highly recommend reading this book and please feel free to check out that awesome Book of Luke reference at BibleGateway.com!

Over the course of the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the word “God” was used one hundred and thirteen times. “Christ”/“Christian”/”Christianity” was used thirty-five times, “church” thirty-three times, “heaven” seventeen times, “Lord” fourteen times, “Bible” seven times, “bress” (bless) five times, “Jesus” three times, and “Good Book” only once. For a book 208 pages in length, one of the aforementioned Christian references were used once per every 0.91 pages – more than once per page. Where the word “question” was used twenty-one times, not once did it apply to the presumption of the existence of a higher power. It does not surprise me, in our so-called modern society, that the fourth form of oppression endured by the author of this memoir, Ms. Harriet Jacobs (AKA Ms. Linda Brent), is discussed as a positive thing. The multifarious roles that religion played in the slave’s life were – and are – considered indispensable, but I shall seek to highlight several of these roles and explain why belief in a supreme being, namely Jesus Christ, has only served to hinder and ultimately refuse true liberty to our kind narrator, her friends, and her family.

A large part that religion had played in the life of bondsmen and bondswomen was the fostering of cohesion and community among them. The only place where a slave was free to congregate in large groups with other slaves was inside Christian churches. These places were, up until the Nat Turner revolt, a place for the enslaved to share their joys and sorrows as one. In the writer’s own words, “The slaves begged the privilege of again meeting at their little church in the woods, with their burying ground around it. It was built by the colored people, and they had no higher happiness than to meet there and sing hymns together, and pour out their hearts in spontaneous prayer” (Brent 69).

As Americans are wont to do, however, the slave’s own religious heritage had long ago been ripped from him or her and replaced with idolization of one particular cosmic superman. America has historically attempted, with a great degree of success, to force Christianity on all humans whom come under their yoke. The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir bin Mohammad, has said of the situation, “[People] who were abducted from Africa were brought to [the U.S.] and made slaves, tortured and forced to change their religion, including Muslim slaves, [they] were forced to convert.” The church that Ms. Jacobs and her friends held so dear was nothing more than an icon for the collective oppression of their native cultures. In countries such as the Philippines, about which President McKinley claims that he was called upon by God to spread the word of the Bible, and the islands of the Pacific, the American-facilitated Christian replacement of native religion has gone and still goes mostly unchallenged.

For slaves, God also played the dual role of benefactor and scapegoat for times when the human need for “a reason why” has outweighed and outpaced the need for rational assessment. Harriet recalls that upon the death of her father, her grandmother had comforted her with the words, “‘Perhaps your mother and father are taken from the evil days to come.’ My disappointed heart could now praise God that it was so” (Brent 61). Why did the author blame God instead of the cruelty of slavery? About the topic of her Aunt Nancy’s children dying soon after birth, she remarks and quotes, “I well remember her patient sorrow as she held the last dead baby in her arms. ‘I wish it could have lived,’ she said; ‘it is not the will of God that any of my children should live. But I will try to be fit to meet their little spirits in heaven’” (Brent 147). It is remarkable that her aunt chose to blame God for the loss of her infants instead of the cruel treatment of her masters! Was it not her mistress’ incessant calls for the pregnant woman’s attention and forcing her gravid vassal to sleep upon the floor outside her bedroom door that prompted those subsequent expiries? What exactly does a diety have to do with it?

This role that religion plays for the slave also takes the form of solace. Without any access to a proper understanding of philosophy or the sciences, the uneducated have little recourse except to accept a mode of reasoning which requires the least thinking. African-American atheist and author of Bad Faith, Frances E. Parker, writes that, “One should not be surprised by high levels of religiosity among oppressed peoples. In regard to the African-American community, I often think of the oft-quoted words of Marx, ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses and the sigh of the oppressed.’” Indeed, throughout this memoir we see God used as such over and over again. Who could blame the slave for grasping at straws? In a life so rife with injustice, who would not wish so earnestly for a final retribution? Without their belief in unfounded things, all would have been lost to despair.

Oftentimes, the author tried to equate the teachings of the Bible to freedom and equality, particularly in the question of the abolition of slavery. This is most certainly an egregious fallacy. She writes, “[The pro-slavery people] seem to satisfy their consciences with the doctrine that God created the Africans to be slaves. What a libel upon the heavenly Father, who ‘made of one blood all nations of men!’” (Brent 45). Throughout her narrative, Harriet Jacobs repeatedly invokes the “authority” of the Bible to plead her case to the reader, yet she blithely overlooks that the Bible sanctions slavery far more often than equality. (This is a point oft cited by Jefferson Davis, the president of the confederacy, himself!) She and others use the archaic book to satisfy themselves that their own freedom is God’s will, and in a religion-clouded mind yearning for freedom this is indeed a vital role.

Of course, our author is wrong. Vaughn Roste, a well-regarded staffer at the United Church of Canada said that, “If we apply sola scriptura to slavery, I’m afraid the abolitionists are on relatively weak ground. Nowhere is slavery in the Bible lambasted as an oppressive and evil institution.” Indeed, Christ himself, said, “And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.” (Luke 12:47-48) (The word used as “servant” in this quote was doulos, which means “slave” in Greek, and is correctly rendered “slave” by other English versions.) Jesus said this, in lieu of condemning the vile institution, in answer to a question posed by Peter, whom also advocated slavery. This is not even to mention that Isaac, Jacob, and even the “righteous” Job were slaveholders! Certainly, the South had the Biblical high ground in the abolitionist debate.

Truly, no person is free so long as their mind is held hostage to notions ingrained and left unquestioned. As a Mormon-born atheist feminist, I can personally attest to the damage that such dubitable beliefs inflict upon their bearer. To exalt a being that oppresses you, whose edict keeps you from being truly and completely free, and limits rational discourse is dehumanizing to say the very least. The slave woman’s oppression, thus, manifests fourfold: the bondage of servitude, sexual subjugation, suppression of knowledge, and the crippling of critical thinking. This final oppression of African-Americans thrives to this very day as a sad testament to the greed of our nation’s slaveholding ancestry.

Works Cited

Associated Press. “Mahathir Fires Parting Shots.” CNN. 30 Oct. 2003 <http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/10/30/mahathir.retire/index.html>

Brent, Linda. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1973

Freedom From Religion Foundation. “What You Really Know About the Bible?” Freedom From Religion Foundation. <http://ffrf.org/quiz/scripts/bquiz_results.php>

Parker, Frances E. “African American Atheism and the Appeal to Culture.” Enlightenment. 11 Apr. 2004 <http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/essays/text/francesparker/blackatheism.html>

Robinson, B.A. “What the Bible Says About Slavery.” Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 18 Jan. 2007 <http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl.htm>

The leader of the free world spends time each day attempting to telepathically transmit messages to his favorite invisible friend in the sky. CNN has put up yet another piece of Christian-ass-kissing drivel about the terrible events which occurred at Virginia Tech.

“People who have never met you are praying for you,” Bush said. “They’re praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There’s a power in these prayers, a real power. In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God.”

It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to pray, you know. A rich, powerful man like George W. Bush could probably find better ways to help the bereaved families of these unfortunate students. Pay for funerals? Pay for a counsellor to see them? Give them a hug?

Everybody else praying out there for the victims’ families aren’t that much better. Simply closing your eyes and thinking words in your head isn’t helping anybody. Tell you what, close your eyes right now and start praying that all the people in Africa afflicted with HIV/AIDS to be instantly cured. Go on, do it. Done yet? Check your newspapers tomorrow; if HIV/AIDS is cured, I’ll get baptized in the religion of your choice. Why not donate funds to the families to pay for the funerals? Maybe for a memorial? Memorials are utterly useless, but they still will do more good than a damn prayer. Praying is what people who really don’t want to lift a finger to help do to make themselves feel somehow accomplished.

What’s worse is that people don’t even try to pray for bona-fide miracles anymore. They want soft, cushy things like comfort and healing: things that come over time to the believer and the non-believer alike.

President Bush says he prays for comfort for the victims of a day that turned “dark.”

Funnier yet:

They’re praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured.

This, even after a scientific, double-blind study has proven prayer positively ineffective as a medical augment. In fact, those “who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms”.

Yet, even therein the very article about the study’s results reads:

“A person of faith would say that this study is interesting,” Mr. Barth said, “but we’ve been praying a long time and we’ve seen prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started.”

Now allow me to quote Benjamin Franklin:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

If you don’t think ol’ Ben knew what he was talking about, I’d advise you to stop or never wear bifocals and to cease using electricity.

Of course, I definitely think this study should be conducted again, just so I can get another good chuckle out of the believers. (Not to mention to establish veracity. Science likes to prove itself, unlike some types assertions about the nature of reality out there.) They’ll never change their minds because they’ve been too heavily indoctrinated since early childhood to cling to the very hand that holds them down.

I’m sitting here in the cutest new Hello Kitty PJs, having eaten a mushroom sandwich prepared fresh with organic veggies from our CSA & local co-op, listening to an awesome new CD, feeling good. I guess I haven’t been writing much because things are just good for now. Sweet contentment has embraced me, though my apartment may be a little messy and my grades not where I want them. (My midterm grades were 4 A’s and 2 B’s. I’ll get them up, no worries! Last semester I had 2 A’s, 2 B’s and 1 F at midterm because of my hospital stay & I ended up with straight A’s.) I think I’m going to go in for a little tutoring in math, otherwise I’ll be just fine. Can’t hurt, right?

I should be posting new pictures up later this week after I get my new glasses. Yeah, I’m nearsighted, which explains some of the headaches I’ve been getting in class. We went to Eyedare Optometric and received excellent service. All they had in the way of frames were designer wares. I picked one, but I don’t remember what brand it was; it just looked good. I can’t wait to be able to see people’s faces from more than three meters away!

I’ve taken to shopping local lately. No big-ass stores, be they Virgin Megastore, Borders, Barnes & Noble, Safeway, what have you. (Forgive me for Sanrio, please! No local places have this stuff.) Books? Cody’s Books & Stacey’s Bookstore are there for me. DVDs, CDs, and video games? Well, if I can’t get it plastic-less on iTunes, I get it at Rasputin Music, preferably used. Safeway heavily supports the Republican Party and ships food in from all over the country, using up all kinds of oil and ignoring small farmers in your own backyard. Why not check out some local co-ops, CSAs or farmers’ markets? (If you live in the SF Bay Area, may I recommend Bariani Olive Oil? Its quality is superior to any I’ve tried before.) Going to the gym? Forsake Global-Hyper-Chain-That-Treats-Employees-Like-Crap, go to a small, local gym!

As you can see, I’ve been doing alot of reading about how our consumer choices affect our communities. I don’t think we should go so far as to ban hyper-chains as to educate people about how supporting locally owned businesses keeps money in your community, supporting your neighbors, not the fat cats with their own personal assistants and $6000 suits. That’s how capitalism should work: educated consumers knowing how their everyday financial choices weigh on the world as a whole. If you check out your locally owned stores, you’ll probably find out that all the products you buy anyway are the same price or cheaper than the megachains charge! I have. Plus, can we say good customer service?

Check it out, try it out! You won’t be any worse for the wear.