“Beautiful mornin', you're the sun in my
mornin' You're the help I know”
The African Diaspora is widespread and diverse. You can find our scattered hundreds of millions
in communities across the globe, largely due to the impact of Trans-Saharan, Trans-Atlantic,
and Indian Ocean slave trades, as well as voluntary migration. Many millions of stories could be told about
our histories, but very few of those stories have been told so far. Outside of academia, little discussion has
been had on the ways that those stories of the African Diaspora overlap, intertwine,
diverge, and coexist with each other and with stories of anti-colonialism, international
feminism, international socialism, Indigenous struggles, and environmental justice. Due to the concealed nature of these relationships,
contemporary Diasporic African’s interaction with each other tend to occur only in major
cities, college campuses, or on the Internet, where we often both carry on together and
clash with each other.
The so-called “Diaspora Wars,” that obscure
our real enemies—white supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and the State—are fuelled by
misconceptions, stereotypes, miseducation, and internalized anti-Blackness, and are the
natural result of both our ignorance of our interconnectedness, but also of our unrecognized
differences. These are discourses I intend to unpack in
the future. Look out for that. Knowledge truly is power, as cliche as that
phrase may be. Through education, we can come together as
a powerful force and uplift each other in solidarity. Let’s learn a little something today about
how spirituality, culture, and technology have woven together a true quilt of resistance
across the diaspora. This video was made in collaboration with
Saber, so check out the video I feature in on his channel on The Black God’s Drums
and the Haitian Revolution. Let’s begin. Spirituality & Resistance
Saber discussed Haitian Vodou’s influence in the Haitian revolution in his video, but
Haiti isn’t the only place where spirituality has played a role in resistance. Wherever Africans have settled, they have
found a way to incorporate, synthesize, and recreate the spiritualities of both their
ancestors and their colonizers.
One of the most influential of these has been
Christianity. While as much as 30% of enslaved Africans
were originally Muslim, many of them were violently coerced into Christianity by their
masters or prosletyzed by preachers, who may have been pro-slavery or anti-slavery. At risk of generalizing, in the US, Baptists,
Methodists, and Quakers tended to be abolitionists, involved in the Underground Railroad, though
overtime, regional splits would lead to the establishment of pro-slavery and anti-slavery
subdenominations. In the South, Methodist and Baptist preachers
would preach Bible stories that reinforced people's keeping to their places in society,
urging slaves to be obedient and loyal to their masters and emphasizing their role as
property.
They cited a multitude of both Old and New
Testament verses that they viewed as promoting better treatment of slaves and arguing for
a paternalistic approach. Meanwhile, other Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian
churches made abolitionism a condition for church membership and sponsored Black congregations,
who were developing their own thing. Black congregations found their own interpretations
of the Scriptures and found inspiration in stories of deliverance, especially in the
story of Exodus out of Egypt. Nat Turner, Baptist preacher turned armed
revolutionary, would spark an uprising that would change the course of history in the
US in 1831. The aftermath of the revolt would lead to
state legislatures passing new laws prohibiting education of enslaved people and free Black
people, restricting rights of assembly and other civil liberties for free Black people,
and requiring white ministers’ presence at all worship services. But the underground churches of enslaved people
would endure, with nighttime meetings of one or several plantation populations occurring
without the supervision of white masters or ministers. Usually led by a single preacher, these meetings
would blend Christianity with traditional African beliefs and rhythms, creating the
spirituals that would come to shape the past five centuries of music history.
These churches provided psychological refuge
from the hell world that enslaved people had to endure, and became a place for communication
and a catalyst for rebellion. The churches of free Black folks, especially
in the North, would provide refuge and support for escaped slaves. The Free African Society, founded in 1787,
established some of the first independent Black churches in US history and were centers
of mutual aid. After emancipation, Northern churches founded
by free Black folks would send missions to the South in order to minister and teach. As more and more Black churches and organizations
sprung up, they would continue to exercise their autonomy from white supervision. These churches established and/or maintained
the first Black schools, funded by their community members. However, tensions would sometimes arise between
Black churches in the North and Black churches in the South, who wanted to do things their
own way.
There was also the issue of classic Biblical
patriarchy, as women were barred from ordination and had to find other ways to assert themselves,
such as through missionary societies, which sought to address various social issues organizing
politically and providing food banks, education, daycare, and job training in the Black community. Black Muslim temples would also provide support
and centers of activism to the comparatively smaller but enduring Black Muslim community. As writer Cord Jefferson put it, “For a
long time, black houses of worship doubled as war rooms to plan protest actions and galvanize
people made weary by centuries of racist violence and legislation.” Black liberation theology and womanist theology
were also born out of the Black church, and particularly the African-American Episcopal
Church, emboldening Black communities in their fight against racism and Black women in their
struggle against church patriarchy.
Black churches also place a lot of their focus
on addressing poverty, gang violence, drug abuse, incarceration, and crumbling infrastructure. Today, as in history, the Black church isn’t
a monolith. As Dr Julia M Speller would describe in her
1996 PhD dissertation, Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian, there are several
interpretive models of Black churches. Some are Assimilationist, largely made up
of middle-class Black folks who are willing to disassociate themselves from their ethnic
identity in order to integrate with white society. Some are Isolationist, made up of lower-class
Black folks who emphasize "other worldliness" and deemphasize social action within "this
world." Some fall under the Compensatory Model, where
congregants find acceptance, appreciation, empowerment, and applause which is often denied
them within dominant society.
Others fall under the Ethnic Community-prophetic
Model, which categorizes the Black churches who spoke out and undertook activism against
economic and political injustices from a heightened awareness of Black pride and power. The final model is the Dialectical Model,
describing a tension in some churches between the priestly and the prophetic; other-worldly
and this-worldly; universalism and particularism; communalism and privatism; the charismatic
and the bureaucratic; and resistance versus accommodation. In essence, a form of double consciousness,
core to Black Existentialist thought, which I already have a video on. The Black Church and Haitian Vodou, however,
aren’t the only religions involved in Afro-Diasporic resilience. Across the Diaspora, distinct yet similar
syncretic faiths have emerged, with varying levels of Christian influence.
In the US, Hoodoo, also called Lowcountry
Vodou, incorporated various traditional West and Central African religions and practices,
Haitian Vodou, and various elements of Indigenous botanical knowledge. Historically, hooodoo was developed by rootworkers
as a form of spiritual survival and resistance against slavery. Conjure, the practice of spiritual invocation,
united the various African ethnic groups, particularly in the form of ring shout, where
counterclockwise circle dancing was vital for ancestral communication and spirit possession.
Many rootworkers served as healers, counselors
and pharmacists to enslaved people, and despite the suppression of Hoodoo by white authorities,
practitioners still gathered and maintained their practices. Rootworkers even helped lead slave uprisings
across the continental US. For example, in 1712, an uprising in New York
was empowered by a rootworker named Peter the Doctor who made a magical powder for the
slaves to be rubbed on the body and clothes for their protection and empowerment.
Goofer dust was used to hex slave masters
and mojo bags were used as protection against the brutality of slaveholders. The extensive botanical knowledge of rootworkers
also assisted with the poisoning of their masters. Today, Hoodoo practitioners are still active
and still involved in resistance. Black spiritual churches have incorporated
Hoodoo in their practices while lending food and other services to the Black community
and rootworkers, like other religious folks, have played a role in the Black Lives Matter
movement, lending spiritual protection against police brutality. In Trinidad & Tobago, Shango and Spiritual
Baptist faiths have been traditionally linked together, though they are distinct belief
systems. Shango, also called Trinidad Orisha, is complex
and multilayered, reflecting the diverse origins of Trinidad’s citizenry. It brings together elements of Orisha, Christianity—both
Catholic and Protestant—Hinduism, Sufi Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Baháʼí, Kabbalah, and
other traditional African religions. In the early 19th century, West Africans in
Trinidad were baptized into Catholicism en masse.
Orisha worshippers, devotees to the spirits
of the Yoruba pantheon, used the paraphernalia of the Catholic church to hide their African
beliefs and practices. Saints were used as substitutes for African
deities on the altars while the real emblems of the divinities were hidden away. Outward identification of African deities
with saints served the purpose of protecting adherents from persecution, but not all deities
have a place in the Catholic pantheon and not all the saints are identified with African
divinities.
The Spiritual Baptist faith, though small,
is a distinct practice that syncretizes many different elements of traditional African
religions in the Anglophone Caribbean. While developing organically on the plantations
of various islands, a distinct form of the Spiritual Baptist religion is believed to
have been introduced to Trinidad & Tobago in the 19th century by a group of formerly
enslaved Baptist African-Americans who had been given land for supporting Britain during
the War of 1812. Most of these settlers were Gullah, an African
ethnic group settled in the states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina. More on the Spiritual Baptists later. In Cuba, the Afro-Cuban religions of Santeria,
Palo, and Abakuá have been a source of empowerment in the face of brutality, from the Catholic
church, the governments of Cuba, and white supremacist society at large.
Similarly to Trinidad Orisha, Santeria also
syncretized Yoruba beliefs with Catholicism and Espiritismo, while Palo syncretized Kongo
beliefs with the latter. Since the late 20th century, Santeria has
undergone Yorubization in order to remove Roman Catholic influences from the religion. In Brazil, the distinct yet related practices
of Candomblé, Umbanda, and Quimbanda are spread across the Afro-Brazilian population. In North East Brazil, through enslaved people,
Candomblé emerged, the first of the three, syncretizing Catholicism with Yoruba, Fon,
and Bantu religions and, like Santeria and Trinidad Orisha, using the cult of saints
to hide their practices.
Like Santeria, it is currently undergoing
a process of re-Africanization. Umbanda, born at the beginning of the 20th
century in South Brazil, syncretizes various African traditional religions with Catholicism,
Espiritismo, and Indigenous American beliefs. Umbanda and Quimbanda, which syncretizes various
African traditional religions with Indigenous American beliefs, both originate in the earlier
system of Macumba. However, they split as Umbanda is perceived
as representing the “whitened” aspects of Macumba, while Quimbanda rejects those
aspects. In the 20th century, legal protections combined
with the Movimento Negro, would bring Umbanda, Quimbanda, and especially Candomblé into
the public limelight as Afro-Brazilians began embracing previously stigmatized aspects of
their identity. For Maroons, African people who escaped slavery
and formed their own settlements across the Americas, religious practices were thoroughly
liberated from the watchful eye of slave masters, though few records are available about these
practices. I’ve spoken about the maroons before, but
I plan on discussing what we can learn from the strategy of the Maroons even more in the
future, so stay tuned.
As you can probably tell, suppression is a
common theme in the history of Afro-Diasporic religious practices. The Shouter Prohibition Ordinance banned the
Spiritual Baptist faith in Trinidad from 1917 to 1951, supposedly cuz they “disturbed
the peace,” though the real reason is due to traditionalist, conservative elements of
society who saw their practices as heathen and barbaric because of their African origin. The police had already been persecuting them
for several years and the traditional religious boards worried about the large number of people
who were leaving their churches to join the Spiritual Baptist faith. So the government responded to their complaints
and the prohibition was put into effect. Worshipers were arrested, beaten and jailed
if they were caught practising their religion, so they had to flee to the hills and forests
of the island, where they would still be pursued and brutalized by the police. Nevertheless, they survived and fought many
court battles in defense of their faith. Finally, the prohibition was lifted and these
days, though still somewhat marginalized, Trinis got a national holiday from them: Spiritual
Baptist Liberation Day on March 30, marking the prohibition’s repeal.
Mainstream society, including many Africans
in the Diaspora, continues to ignorantly perceive marginalized African religions as evil demon
worship, with little interrogation of the mainstream religions’ deep ties to conquest,
murder, slavery, patriarchy, and other forms of violence. Across the Diaspora, different forms of spirituality,
whether condoned by the mainstream or not, have been, and continue to be, a source of
support and resilience in the midst of repression, a force for social and cultural connection,
and an avenue for resistance. Unrestricted by orthodoxy or orthopraxis,
our ancestors refused to allow European slave masters to dictate their full humanity, giving
them a strong sense of identity, inspiration, and spiritual grounding that liberated their
minds to think differently and understand themselves differently. Even if you’re fine with where you’re
at right now, religion- or non religion-wise, and you don’t feel the need for the strength,
identity, or heritage that African Diasporic religions may provide, I still think it’s
important to at least do your own research, apart from the dominant narratives and misconceptions,
to decolonize your mind.
For some Afro-Diasporic people, spirituality
isn’t an avenue that they are willing or able to lean on. Religion has been very closely tied to Black
history and culture, but it definitely isn’t for everyone. The Black church, while active in coordinating
a lot of community organizing, isn’t without its flaws. People in the Black community, and especially
Black women, who speak out against the church risk estrangement from their families and
support networks and risk loss of social status. Patriarchal ideas continue to harm predominantly
female congregations, while respectability politics plagues many Black churches’ approach
to social issues. In the socially conservative space of many
Black churches, queer Black folks are often openly opposed, while issues like HIV/AIDS
are stigmatized and ignored. Fear of damnation is weaponized to keep the
congregation in check, while prayer is used as a substitute for much needed mental or
physical healthcare. And some preachers have gotten absurdly wealthy
off of their poor congregations. So many Black folks have left the church over
the years. Still Black atheists and agnostics are made
invisible by popular perceptions of atheism as a “white thing.” Black atheists and secular humanists know
all too well the social consequences of their lack of belief.
But they too have been involved in the struggle
against white supremacy and capitalism, despite the widespread ignorance of their involvement,
and they aren’t going anywhere. So where do they fit in? A humanist current has been present in the
Black struggle for a long time now, and I plan on delving into Black Humanism in a future
video, but for now, all you need to know is that humanists are concerned with life here
and now, and what we can do as human beings to solve our problems and take control of
our destiny.
For Black humanists and atheists like Chandler
Owen, A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer, James Foreman, and Tai Solarin, this meant getting
involved in civil rights, workers rights, and socialist struggles. Though many of them had to conceal their lack
of faith, their influence on the movement was great nevertheless. As our intersectional struggle builds its
momentum, if we wish to live in a truly liberated society, we will need to make space for a
plurality of voices and perspectives unlike our own. A world of many worlds. The cultural communication between enslaved
people and between free Black people was and is central to the development and proliferation
of Afro-Diasporic religions and philosophies.
As we continue to intermingle today, developing
more resilient and effective forms of communication will be vital for our continued struggle for
freedom. Culture & Resistance
Our cultures have been cultures of expressive communication. Carnival, which I’ve covered before on this
channel, has its roots in flamboyant acts of resistance. Reggae, calypso, hip hop, and more have been
vehicles for political thought and emotional expression. We’ve managed to find solace in the spirituals
of our cultures and found power in the precision of a well-worded chant.
We’ve incorporated our bodies in our forms
of resistance, whether through the hidden messages in the canerows of our hair or through
the fighting force hidden in the apparent dance and acrobatics of capoeira. Today, the covert and overt communicative
power of art plays a pivotal role in our resistance, from street art to protest music to poems
to e-pamphlets. But I think we can take things much further. We need secure, private, and communally controlled
social media that can connect us, confederate us, and coordinate our efforts towards building
an alternative to capitalist society. The Black Socialists in America are working
to build a Dual Power app to assist with this. For those curious, the concept behind dual
power describes a situation of coexistence, where two powers, one working class and one
capitalist, compete for legitimacy in the transition away from capitalism.
According to the Dual Power App website, it’ll
be a platform that “provides a framework for building direct democracy in every sphere
of society, including the economy, with tools for founding, funding, governance, and internal
+ external communications.” The design so far looks amazing. But I’ll let Saber take it from here, as
he delves into the role of technology in diasporic resistance. Technology & Resistance
Homo sapiens have used technology throughout history to extend our capabilities to bring
into being tools that would've only existed in our imaginations. Early forms of technologies come in the form
of tools that helped us control fire, produce more food and to build shelters. People develop and use technologies based
on their needs, and those needs can vary greatly. For example, nuclear energy can potentially
be used to produce enough sustainable energy to meet all of our needs, but that same energy
has been used as a weapon to devastate societies and can potentially render this planet a baron
wasteland.
In the past 500 years, colonizers have oriented
their entire way of life around controlling and restraining our bodies, and that has been
reflected in the kinds of technologies that arose. In order to maintain that system of enslavement,
it required massive investment in the development of weaponry, chains, branding devices, ships
and whips. After the slave trade ended, sophisticated
systems of mass surveillance and social control were implemented by the US to ensure that
we didn't step out of line.
In his Book, Surveillance Valley, Yasha Levine
explains how the development of the internet has been tied to US military interests since
the mid 20th century through ARPA (now known as DARPA), which is an arm of the US defense
department that developed ARPANET, which laid the foundations for the internet that we see
today. These tools of mass surveillance were used
at any given opportunity to shut down any threats to US hegemony, both inside and outside
of the imperial core. This perspective counteracts the commonly
held notion that the internet was fine until blood sucking FAANG companies came to prominence
from the 90's onward.
Their rise was just an extension of this network,
which is further highlighted by the continued allegiance between the US Military and big
tech companies. Although we live in a world in a world where
the a handful of tech companies own and control most of the technologies that we rely on,
not all hope is lost. It is possible to use these tools to our own
ends, just as our ancestors have used tools of the oppressors to liberate themselves,
such as the Haitians their revolution in the late 18th century who seized any weapon they
could find, whether it was a gun or a canon, and turned it onto those who enslaved them. In this sense the masters tools does have
some potential to dismantle the masters house. In the 21st century, we are confronted with
an exponential increase in digital technologies; and we must factor that into our analysis
of our conditions considering how much they are impacting our lives.
Social networks are currently being used to
addict us, manipulate us, and to surveil us, and even if you delete all of your accounts,
data is still being gathered about you and stored for reasons both known, and unknown. Controlling our own data is one way to push
back against this. It won't solve all of our problems, but it
will allow us to have some semblance of security as we navigate cyberspace.
A communication protocol that I've come across
is called Matrix; despite its dystopian name, it's rather promising. Matrix allows us to run servers that can be
used for peer to peer conversations, meaning there's no middleman. Additionally, it can be configured to be end
to end encrypted, which means that only those with the correct keys can decrypt messages. There are a wide array of interfaces that
can be used on Matrix, and we could even create our own. Another cool feature is the ability to create
bridges to existing platforms like Discord and WhatsApp. Considering those platforms aren't p2p, or
e2e encrypted, those Matrix bridges won't be either, however it can act as a stepping
stone for those of us who can't quite let go of current platforms.
Leveraging a platform like Matrix may only
be one step in the long road towards our liberation, but we must use all of the tools available
to us to solve existential problems we face in the 21st century. Thanks Saber. All that’s needed now is diasporic solidarity. I’ve already spoken extensively about building
international solidarity in the past, so I won’t repeat myself here. The connections are there. We just need to transform our dialogue into
something more meaningful.
Mutual aid already forms the backbone of many
of our communities and I believe we can put prefiguration into practice. All power to the people. All power to all
the people. Peace. Outro
Thank you for watching. Thanks once again to the Famalay, Ongrad,
Coby Tamayo, John Vechey, Ori Shimony, Len P, SomeGuy, Seth, J. Dorrance, Eepa, y@, Beyond
Binary Podcast, Mamish Disgusting, Eshi The Mad, Hoie, Geoff Massey, kimonoko, Alki, Forrest
Alvarez, PoodleHawk, Håkon Kleppe Normann, Spencer Harmon, Matt, Jason Baker, Jordan,
Redenbush, Tom S, bean, Scott Trinh, Tyler Brant, Brandon Barney, Moomooshin, Christopher
Hunter, Sian Charles-Davis, Derrick Hsu, TJ Daddio, Joseph Willoughby-Rainsford, Jonathan
Pharis, Khadija Mbowe, Will Alecock, Knight-of-Space, Alex Kona, Seedling Attempt, ardyTV, Catsi,
Lindsay Oliver, and Suavacado Jones.
You can join these beautiful humans and support
me too on Patreon.com/saintdrew. Please like, comment, subscribe, and share
with your fellow peoples. Feed the algorithm. Check out my previous videos for other fascinating
topics. You can follow me on Twitter @_saintdrew. Thanks again, peace!.
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