Reviewed by Deck Guess
If you see the season of Lent as a time for soul-searching, Cheri Mills’s Lent of Liberation: Confronting the Legacy of American Slavery functions as a pocket-sized spiritual Hadron Collider for those, particularly of the dominant culture, willing to look at things they had never seen—or never seen clearly. Each daily reading includes an excerpt from the experience of escaped slaves preserved in The Underground Railroad: A Record, by William Still, who escaped slavery as a child and devoted his life to helping others reach freedom. Alongside each personal vignette is a passage of scripture, either reflecting a similar reality, or challenging it, or both.
In a scant 120 pages, including notes, Mills addresses the role of religion in the lives of both oppressor and oppressed, the long-term debilitating effects that failed Reconstruction had and continues to have on the Black family, the assumption of White innocence and Black guilt at all levels of the justice system and society in general, the plight of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) compared with Predominately White Institutions (PWIs), comparisons of racist, non-racist, and anti-racist, the concept of reparations for descendants of slaves, among other things. She also offers helpful insight on how non-Blacks can enter “Black space.” The introduction and appendix both include facts and statistics of which most Americans are ignorant (since Black History Month so often plows the same well-worn furrows).
Mills pulls no punches. She admits that many of the questions at the end of each devotion appear to be aimed at Whites. (e. g. – Based on the history of this nation and its treatment of enslaved, Jim-Crowed people, does America know God? Or, based on the message of this story [Lazarus and Dives], is the White church in America going to hell?) But she explains that she sees White supremacy as an ideology in which our whole society is steeped. Consequently, many ethnic groups, perhaps unconsciously, absorb that worldview to assimilate into the dominant culture. (I was shocked to realize that the leader of the Boogaloo Boys arrested for destroying a Black Lives Matter banner on a church just before the insurrection in Washington, DC, is himself a person of color.)
It is “too simplistic a definition,” she says, to limit understanding White supremacy as violence (emphasis added) toward Blacks. It may be painfully obvious in the history of slavery, which, Bryan Stevenson observes, “didn’t end in 1865; it just evolved (quoted on page 1).” The sad evolution of today’s White supremacy through Black codes, aborted Reconstruction, sharecropping, Jim Crow, public lynching, redlining and racial restrictive covenants in the real estate industry, reverse-redlining and subprime mortgage practices in the banking industry, and almost carte blanche tolerance by the justice system of mistreatment of minorities by law enforcement, culminating in mass incarceration, is a profoundly guilt-inducing prayer of confession. Quoting Yvette Carnell of #ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery), Mills insists, “There can be no peace without justice, but there can be no justice without truth” (p. 3). And the truth goes marching on through the whole book.
More subtle and sophisticated than in days past, White supremacy operates in corporate boardrooms through laws enacted by governing bodies from town councils to congress, through administrative structures of public schools, colleges and universities, among others. Sometimes it has been calculated; sometimes stumbled into by people whose vision is clouded by never having experienced prejudice, therefore, being blind to their naïve practice of it. Nevertheless, the result has meant relentless damage to the Black population, compounded over decades and centuries. The study is a direct attack on “the mythology that everything great…in America was created by Whites, and if this greatness…is going to be sustained, Whites must continue to be in control” (Dr. Kevin W. Cosby, quoted on p. 4).
Many vignettes observe the hypocrisy of slave-holding Christians, faithful in their daily prayers and worship on Sunday, who have no hesitancy or pang of conscience in berating, belittling or beating their “property.” Mills insists that two completely different approaches to scripture are required to describe the parallel realities of believing oppressed and believing oppressor. The “hermeneutic of the oppressor” is to spiritualize disparities between the biblical directives and accepted practice to excuse blatant departures from the expressed will of God. The “hermeneutic of the oppressed” requires listening with different ears. One example would be prayer. The prayer for deliverance from slavery would be seen as “unanswered”—even unanswerable—by the oppressed. The oppressor, however, would say that the slave is “spiritually free” in Christ, even though captive in body. Mills concludes that such “transactional prayers” are unbiblical. When she points out the myriad ways the White churches ignore clear biblical demands for justice, she is right to wonder whether they can claim the name Christian. Some postulate, says Mills, that White Christianity is responsible for much Black atheism.
Even when the possibility of real “Reconstruction” still existed, in 1865-66 White-controlled governments passed Black codes that declared unemployed Blacks with no permanent address to be vagrants. Owning nothing, with few resources, vast numbers of freed slaves, through no fault of their own, fell into that category. They were subject to arrest. If unable to pay the fine, as would be true of many unemployed, they could be jailed and exploited as a source of free labor. It was another form of legalized slavery, and the trajectory was set for the creative forms of exploitation yet to be devised.
It is heartbreaking to read of the many who fled bondage, leaving spouses and/or children to their plight. It is easy to consider them callous, but the fact is that Massa could sell any of them down the river on a whim at any moment. Often one slave was “married” (subject to involuntary dissolution) to another on a different plantation. Either master could decide to sell, compounding the complicated calculus of staying or making a break for freedom. It was a surprise to learn that a master’s decision to break up a family often was mentioned as the catalyst for escape. It seems that if some slaves could just be assured of staying with their loved ones, they would willingly, if reluctantly, put up with the wicked system. Today, many in the dominant culture criticize what they might describe as the “instability” of the family constellation of many Black families, which they observe is often headed by a mother (frequently single), with an absent father. It is not difficult to draw a straight line from Black codes to the employment of desperation that was sharecropping, to the legalized discrimination of Jim Crow, to continued bias against employment of qualified Blacks, to employment of last resort in the illegal drug and sex industries, to mass incarceration to understand the predicament of many Black families today. Many “absent fathers” are in prison. Many in the dominant culture smugly declare Black families to have inferior moral character while ignoring the culturally conceived and condoned conditions that created and continue many of the circumstances that Blacks also deplore.
The introduction and appendix, each, alone would have been worthy of study. The introduction, probably a late addition capitalizing on the raised consciousness of the events surrounding George Floyd’s murder and its aftermath (the page numbers given in the study guide are off by the exact number of pages in the intro), is a powerful, up-to-the minute rehearsal of obstacles faced by Black people in America, particularly Descendants of American Slaves. It is a direct challenge to White Christians to take a hard look at where we are, how we got here, and what it will take to bring about justice. The appendix includes charts and statistics that document the disparity between the resources and influence of White and Black Americans. Of particular relevance are the charts revealing the White Monopoly of Power (p. 100) and the rampant wealth inequality between the two races (p. 112). It also includes the Black Agenda of ADOS making the case for reparations specifically for Americans descended from former slaves. The Black Agenda is helpful in presenting the case for reparations and including options like educational opportunities and tax credits that do not necessarily involve a transfer of money. Other suggestions include payouts, but some seem vague.
Mills is adept at stoking outrage in the reader (along with a healthy dose of shame). Among facts particularly disturbing to me were:
- A New Orleans doctor published an article in which he proposed that enslavement was a natural state for Blacks; therefore, any Black who wanted to be free was mentally ill.
- Some antebellum currency of Southern states had likenesses of slaves on them because they were the basis of the economy.
- Slavery spawned modern credit markets which allowed slaves to be mortgaged and used as leverage to buy more slaves. Such securities traded on European markets. It is the same system used today in the home mortgage industry.
- The 3.2 million slaves held in the American South were valued at $1.3 billion, almost equal to the entire Gross National Product.
- Lynching was treated as a form of entertainment. Some were advertised, including the availability of a special train to take spectators, including women and children, to the spectacle.
But Mills rightly refuses to let the reader think outrage is nearly enough and refuses to let us settle for easy lip service. Many of the provocative questions each day include a call to action such as, Besides praying about Black oppression, what tangible things can you do to be an answer to your own prayers? When will you begin? (emphasis added). Or, in remembering the popular slogan, White silence = White consent, are you willing to risk ridicule and scorn for speaking up and standing alongside African Americans? What would make this sacrifice too high a price for you to pay? (emphasis added).
As an appropriately chastised White Christian who has not been nearly anti-racist enough over my lifetime, I hesitate to offer any critique. Mills holds the unassailable high ground of the righteously indignant Old Testament prophet crying for justice; so, I enter “Black space” with trepidation and what I hope is recognizable as the humility Mills encourages. There is a bit of overstatement and hyperbole in the book that I do not find helpful. Did the enslaved contribute much to the building of this country? Absolutely. Was it all built on their backs? Hmm. There is usually a legitimate argument against it to be made when someone speaks in absolutes, even if implied. It can empower detractors and give pause to people of goodwill who otherwise could agree enthusiastically. I had a similar concern with the slogan Black Lives Matter, which I wholeheartedly support. All the detractors had to say was, “All Lives Matter” to undercut the force of the movement. This suggestion may be offensive to those who inhabit Black space in every moment; but to this visitor to Black space, Black Lives Matter Too would have needed no explanation or qualification and left no question as to the racism of those who could not affirm it. The statement is also made in the book that “Blacks in America, by definition, cannot be racist. Racism is prejudice plus power.” A recent article in the Atlantic addresses how slippery the definition of racist or racism has become; but to say “by definition” raises the immediate question of by whose definition? The suffix -ism is generally applied to a set of beliefs, in this case beliefs about members of a race different from one’s own. Within the last two or three years, an article in the Christian Century quoted an African American woman who said (and I paraphrase from memory), that everyone is racist to some degree. The difference, she said, is that Black people do not have the power to impose their racism upon others as the predominantly White culture does. That power is a key factor in how racism affects society is undeniable; that not having power absolves a person or group from being racist is arguable. To make such sweeping statements can unnecessarily hinder people of good will from making common cause and make it easier for opponents to gain a toehold.
Reading Lent of Liberation was an experience I needed and recommend to everyone. I believe that reading it as a member of a group study took it to a level that an individual reading would not have. Our group of lily-white, mostly Southern, “people of a certain age” benefited from the participation of an African American friend, who, with great tact, kept us honest and helped us notice things people from the majority culture tend not to see. She, like Mills, challenged us to dig deeper and move beyond mere awareness to action. We all are better for the experience.
— Deck Guess, a minister of the PCUSA, is Transitional Pastor of Banner Elk Presbyterian Church in Banner Elk, NC.
