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Christopher Fici
ST 252-Black Theology
Dr. James H. Cone
May 8, 2015
Conversion to the Rhythm of Blackness:
Final Reflection Paper for Black Theology
One of the blessings of being a student at Union Theological Seminary, and also of the
blessings of being able to continue on here as a doctoral student, is the living encounter with
Black liberation theology. This is a hard blessing, and a challenging blessing, especially for
someone like myself who is wrapped up in numerous layers of hypocrisy and privilege. My
encounter with Black theology forces me to wrestle not just with my integrity as a theologian
in the 21st century academic world, but more so as a human being on this Earth at a time in
which our civilization is faced with an unprecedented moment of crossroads. It is not just that
the murder of the body of the Earth herself makes the status-quo untenable. It is the murder
of the black body and the murder of the Dalit body, and the murder of anybody who is
oppressed under the heels of a global hegemony controlled by white supremacy and the
rampant, immoral, unfeeling mechanisms of capitalism which makes our current situation one
that cannot last. The warning of James Baldwin of a “fire next time” in the 1960's, if the boot
heels of the oppressor are not lifted, are even more urgent today. Those of us who claim to
speak from faith and for faith have no choice but to respond to this urgency, and in this sense
the contexts of Black theology, both broad and particular, speak to us with an ever-new
urgency today as well.
My encounter with Black theology has led me to a three-fold revelation for my own
theological and human development. First, it has further exposed to me own position and my
own complicity with white supremacy and with the ontological category of whiteness. This
whiteness is the genocidal impulse which the Native Americans first encountered with the
coming of the conquistador to the New World. This whiteness is the justification, both religious
and socio-economic, for creating a system of slavery which tore millions of Africans from their
homeland into bondage. This whiteness is the continued impulse of those who benefit from its
hierarchy and hegemony to colonize and control all those who are not white. Theology based
in whiteness “becomes a servant of the state, and that can only mean death to black people.” 1
Secondly, my encounter with Black theology has further opened my body, mind, heart,
and spirit to the historical experience and contemporary reality of my Black brothers and
sisters in America. I have also come to understand more surely and clearly the ontological
space of blackness, a space of great and sacred life-giving resistance and celebration against
the death-dealing hegemony of whiteness. Blackness “is an ontological symbol and a visible
reality which best describes what oppression means in America.”2 Blackness “stands for all
victims of oppression who realize that their humanity is inseparable from man's liberation from
whiteness.”3 Blackness is the upwelling of the sacred presence of life against those forces
literally invested in the destruction of life. Blackness is the rhythm of resistance tempered by
tragedy and fueled by a hope and faith in the redemption this resistance unearths.
Thirdly, my encounter with Black theology hits me in the gut with the imperative need
for my own conversion. Of course, the concept of conversion has numerous complex
discomfiting connotations, and I am often loathe to describe my own journey from Christianity
to Hinduism as a process of conversion. I did not convert to Hinduism if that means I have
completely uprooted myself from my Christian identity. The fact is that there are numerous
1 James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Philadelphia: J.B Lippincott, 1970), 22
2 Ibid., 27
3 Ibid., 28
Christian roots in my own spirituality which I feel no need to uproot, and my encounter with
Black theology has helped me to understand more clearly what it means to follow in the path
of discipleship with Jesus. This discipleship is the creative discipleship which is part of the
redemptive rhythm of blackness. Creative discipleship, according to Jurgen Moltmann,
“cannot consist in adaptation to, or preservation of, the existing social and judicial orders, still
less can it supply religious backgrounds for a given or manufactured situation.” 4 This creative
discipleship is an appropriate method of participating in the process of conversion.
Conversion is such a strong term because it implies the uprooting of one's previous context to
lay down old and new roots into an soil which is very much, if not entirely, other to one's
previous context. If we see conversion in this way, it is not always appropriate to the
movement one experiences traversing different religious grounds. Yet in the case of moving
from whiteness to blackness, the absolute stakes of conversion are entirely appropriate.
The fundamental lesson that Black theology has taught me is that, to be a human
being in any context, is to make the honest, courageous, and painful attempt to renounce my
white privilege. Black theology “advocates a religious system of values based on the
experiences of the oppressed because it believes white values must either be revolutionized
or eliminated.”5 The revolution of white values is the transvaluation of its values into the
spaces of blackness, the spaces where the black body, mind, heart, and spirit are considered
as worthy of life, love, and meaning as the white body. Cone makes this extraordinarily clear
when he writes that “if white people expect to be able to say anything relevant to the selfdetermination of the black community, it will be necessary for them to destroy their whiteness
by becoming members of an oppressed community. Whites will be free only when they
become new persons-when their white being has passed away and they are created anew in
4 Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 334-335
5 James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1969), 131
black being. When this happens, they are no longer white but free and thus capable of
making decisions about the destiny of the black community.”6 Of course, the decisions about
the destiny of the black community are to be made by the black community themselves.
Whites become capable of participating in this decision making when they understand this
contextual necessity, when they show up yet step to the background, and act as allies rather
than as conquistadors coming with some deep condescending “truth” which they insist that
the black community is incapable of realizing without their so-called magnanimous assistance.
What does this mean for a white person to become “members of an oppressed
community?” The foundation of such a physical, psychological, and spiritual conversion to the
communities of the oppressed is the foundation of the rhythm of blackness. The rhythm of
blackness is the beat of the drum (as the Dalits also vibrantly represent), the lament of the
blues, the sound of the horn, the stomp of the foot, and the life of the heart. To transcend
whiteness means to learn, with very halting steps, and with a very humble and vulnerable
willingness to be corrected, critiqued, and called out, how to move to the rhythm of blackness.
This rhythm is the spirituals and the blues which originated in the aesthetic resistance of
those enslaved in the American South. Cone writes that “it was as if black slaves were
affirming their freedom through the rhythm, the passion, and the motion of their
language...Freedom was the mind and body in motion, emotionally and rhythmically asserting
the right to be. Language could not describe that reality unless it too was liberated to become
what the people felt was consistent with the soul's yearning for being...Jesus was an
experience, a historical presence in motion, liberating and moving the people in freedom.
When black slaves encountered his presence, they also met the Father who sent the son to
give his people liberty.”7
6 Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 176
7 James Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1972), 44
Perhaps my own receptivity and hospitality to Black theology and to the presence of
blackness to correct and transcend my whiteness is coming from my previous and ongoing
devotion to the music of Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, and John Lee Hooker. The music of
Miles Davis in Bitches Brew and Kind of Blue revealed new worlds of color, sound, and
rhythm which took me well beyond the comfortable American middle-class aesthetic that I had
been raised in. My time a radio show producer and host on WCBN at the University of
Michigan, where I had the blessing to host the morning jazz show on numerous occasions,
further broadened my horizons as I encountered the worlds of Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy,
Albert Ayler, and Duke Ellington. Most of all John Coltrane taught me about the yearning of
my own soul and how to hear and encounter the yearning of the souls of my sisters and
brothers. Coltrane, in his own words, taught me “that truth is indestructible...we also see that
these innovators always seek to revitalize, extend, and reconstruct the status-quo...Quite
often they are rejects, outcasts, sub-citizens, etc. of the very societies which they bring so
much sustenance...whether accepted or rejected, rich or poor, they are forever guided by that
great and eternal constant-the creative urge. Let us cherish it and give all praise to God.”8
The rhythm of conversion to blackness deepens in the relationship between Black
theology and Womanist theology. Black theology and Womanist theology must always expand
and progress in the unique ground of their own distinct contexts, but paradoxically neither
form of theology can truly expand and progress without the living and active support of each
other. Womanist theology foregrounds the insistence that the vision and praxis of liberation
must also be understood in the lives and experience of women, who despite their powerful
roots connection to the very giving of life itself, are all-too-often left on the margins of any
resistance movement. But it is these women, as caretakers, mother, sisters, prophets of their
8 Jamie Howison, God's Mind in That Music: Theological Explorations through the Music of John Coltrane (Eugene, Or:
Cascade Books, 2012), 223
own path, and leaders in their own way, whose presence can only increase the potential for
liberation from hegemonic impression. Women carry in their bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits
the embedded wisdom passed down through ancestors and generations which is essential for
us to rediscover in this time of incredible existential civilizational crisis.
Delores Williams writes that “Womanist analysis in the preceding chapters suggests
another kind of history to which black theology must give attention if it intends to be inclusive
of black women's experience. This is 'women's re/production history.' It involves more than
women birthing children, nurturing and attending to family affairs. Though the events and
ideas associated with these realities do relate, "women's re/production history" has to do with
whatever women think, create, use and pass on through their labor for the sake of women's
and the family's well-being. Thus black women's resistance strategies belong to black
women's re/production history.”9 The resistance of reproducing essential wisdom for survival
and for the thriving of life is often found for women in the wilderness experience. The
wilderness experience “is suggestive of the essential role of human initiative (along with
divine intervention) in the activity of survival, of community building, of structuring a positive
quality of life for family and community; it is also suggestive of human initiative in the work of
liberation; black experience says very little about black initiative and responsibility in the
community's struggle for liberation, and nothing about internal tensions and intentions in
community building and survival struggle.”10
We see now that the shape of grassroots resistance in the streets today and to come is
being formed by powerful, courageous women who understand the rhythm of resistance and
the empowerment of the insistence upon the reclamation of the life-giving against the death-
9 Delores Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013),
158
10 Ibid., 160
dealing. These women include Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi11, the originators of
the Black Lives Matter movement, and also Thenmozhi Soundararajan,12 one of the leading
voices of Dalit resistance. These women are providing powerful examples of reclaimed
wisdom from the wilderness spaces in between the powerful and the powerless. Women and
womanist thinkers also play a vital role in connecting Black theology to the urgency of our
existential ecological crisis. Engaging with the work and thought of Womanist pioneer Alice
Walker, Melanie Harris writes that Walker “uncovers a principle of caring for the Earth
embedded within the heritage of African peoples and written about by black Southern writers.
Walker's inclusion of the Earth in her ethical system shows that the value of good community
is not limited to human beings' interaction to each other...she describes an ethical assertion
that all of Creation should be treated as fully human and so honored so that the Earth may be
saved from greed...Walker claims that despite the multiple oppressions she faces as a black
woman, even her status does not measure to the debased status that the Earth endures.”13
As the roots of Womanist theology erupt from the radical assertion of blackness in Black
theology, and as Womanist theologians must always deepen their connection to these roots, it
is a fundamental for any one who identifies as a Black theologian to always deepen their
engagement with the powerful wisdom held by women and Womanists in the wilderness. The
potential of liberation, and the potential for conversion to the praxis of liberation, is not fully
possible without humble and vulnerable steps into the wilderness space under the guidance
of the mothers, sisters, daughters, and widows who hold the wisdom there.
The rhythm of conversion of blackness is also found actively in the streets with the
people resisting state violence against the Black body, the Dalit body, and body of the Earth.
11 Alicia Garza, “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement”, The Feminist Wire, published October 7, 2014,
http://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/
12 “About”, Dalit Nation!, http://dalitnation.com/about-3/
13 Melanie L. Harris, Gifts of Virtue, Alice Walker, and Womanist Ethics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 94
One of the fundamental lessons that Black theology has taught me, and continues to teach
me, is that the theologian must not be abstracted from the resistance of the people on the
ground. A theologian must get their hands dirty, and must not take cold comfort of the ivory
tower. This is the constant risk of the academic life in which one can all too easily submit to
the temptation of the abstractions which keep one from actual and fruitful engagement with
the people who deserve the benefit of our theology, and who actually, more often than not, are
the ones who end up defining our theology. Black theologians must be, in Gramscian
terminology, organic intellectuals, whom “combine theory and action, and relate popular
culture and religion to structure social change.”14
The grassroots resistance in the streets of Ferguson, Baltimore, and in so many other
locales has revealed that the debate between Martin and Malcolm, especially in the debate
between the utility of nonviolence against the alternative of violence, is more heated than
ever. Debates over the presence of violence in protests against police brutality and statesanctioned murder, modern-day lynching, at the hands of the police, obscures the larger
questions of systematic violence imposed by the neo-liberal white supremacist hegemonic
order upon communities of color. There is a distinct hesitation for those stuck in the American
ghetto to turn the other cheek. This is the same hesitation which existed in the American
ghetto in the 1960's, which inspired the Black Panthers in their radical vision of black selfdefense and self-empowerment. After all, what sense does it make to turn the other cheek
when it just means you're going to be shot to death in that cheek.
Black theology has traditionally not taken any distinct position in relation to the debate
between nonviolence and violence. Instead there is the realistic understanding that how a
community resists must be defined by the context which frames their agency, their dignity, and
14 Cornel West, Prophesy Deliverance: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2002), 121
their survival. It is not even enough to simply claim that Jesus himself taught nonviolence. As
Cone writes “we cannot solve ethical questions of the twentieth century by looking at what
Jesus did in the first. Our choices are not the same as his...His steps are not ours; and thus
we are placed in an existential situation in which we are forced to decide without knowing
what Jesus would do...simply to say that Jesus did not use violence is no evidence relevant to
the conditions of black people as they decide on what to do about white oppression.” 15
Conversion to blackness does not mean that the one being converted is in any kind of certain
position to define existential questions of agency, even in relation to violence, for the black
community. We pray and hope for nonviolence, but we understand that history is a narrative
of resistance in which the oppressed indeed uses any means necessary to overcome the
daily death-dealing presence of the oppressor. Perhaps the result of this use of violence is
something only God can judge, and if theology teaches us anything, is that we are too finite to
ever truly know the motive and judgment of God.
Black theology has also helped me understand, as a Hindu, how receptive I must be to
the rhythm of the Dalit drum which is the very rhythm of Dalit resistance. As a white American,
I must convert to the rhythm of blackness. As a white American Hindu, I must convert to the
rhythm of Dalit resistance. I can not honestly claim any claim to conscience as a human being
if I am not making any attempt to cleanse my consciousness of white supremacy and of
Brahmin supremacy. The white American experience that I am rooted in is deeply stained by
racism, by the lynching tree, and it is my primary responsibility as a theologian to remove this
stain from my own consciousness. At the same time, my identity as a Hindu is deeply rooted
by the stain of caste oppression, and the lynching tree which still exists with horrific
consistency for too many Dalits and other so-called “untouchable” peoples in India. It is also
my primary responsibility to remove the stain of caste oppression from my consciousness and
15 Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 139-140
being. There is no avoiding this painful yet ultimately deeply redemptive task of conversion to
the rhythm of blackness. Thomas Merton states it plain when he writes that “these are frank
and brutal facts...But they are the facts on which you must base your future decisions. You
must face it...your liberalism is likely to go out the window along with a number of other
entities that have their existence chiefly on paper and in the head.”16 I welcome this exodus of
whiteness from my being and consciousness, and I plant roots in the soil of blackness and
Black theology to keep me steady in the turmoil ahead.
Bibliography
-Cone, James H. Black Theology and Black Power. New York: Seabury Press, 1969.
-A Black Theology of Liberation. Philadelphia: J.B Lippincott, 1970.
-The Spirituals and the Blues - An Interpretation. New-York: Seabury Press, 1972.
-Harris, Melanie L. Gifts of Virtue, Alice Walker, and Womanist Ethics. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010.
-Howison, Jamie. God's Mind in That Music: Theological Explorations through the Music of
John Coltrane. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013.
-Merton, Thomas. Seeds of Destruction. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
-Moltmann, Jurgen. Theology of Hope; On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian
Eschatology. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
-West, Cornel. Prophesy Deliverance!: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity.
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982.
-Williams, Delores S. Sisters in The Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-talk.
Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2013.
16 Thomas Merton, “Letters to a White Liberal”, Seeds of Destruction (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 35