As a child I cam to know Yah through reading His Word, because I had the question who was the first man and woman on the earth, and I read Genesis and subsequently most of the “Old Testament”. My father was baptised but not church going, he was a humble man who left school at the age of 11 in Jamaica to work in the cane fields. My mother also left school at an early age (13) to become a seamstress, and she wasn’t baptised or a believer. Also living with us was my uncle, he was an elder in a church, a gifted singer and accordion player.
In our house, there was a picture on the wall outside the living room of a white man on a cloud wearing a white robe with a purple sash, and I always wondered who it was? I think it was my father who told me that is “Jesus” and Jesus is God. I think it is called cognitive dissonance, because when I read the scriptures in Exodus about Israel being released from captivity by God, I always assumed the Israelites were black.
Much has happened to challenge my faith over the years, some of which I know others will identify with, such as being brought up in a religious system that incorporates paganism (Sunday Sabbath, Christmas, Easter etc), being systematically taught through religion, language, law, financial distribution and social institutions that I am second place in a society that values whiteness, and how Eurocentric whiteness frames what justice is as the norm for the world (if you consider that America is essentially an offshoot of Europe which has surpassed Europe in power, and that the Chinese are still-up-and -coming in terms of world control).
What strikes me at this time is that The Hebrew Israelite movement focuses a lot on America, yet there are populations of black people in The Caribbean, South America, and Europe also. In fact I have heard that most slaves taken from Africa were sent to South America. Anyway my first question is, do Hebrew Israelites consider only American black people to be true Hebrews?
My second question is one that relates more to the title of the thread. Given that black people have undeniably built the foundations of these white societies and have caused them to have wealth, which they extracted from us more times than not by force or trickery, and seeing that we have been denied an equal footing in society, and it appears that instead of justice getting closer, it ebbs ever further away as white supremacy rises, my question is, why aren’t the thoughts of a black leader like Marcus Garvey taken up and by our race. I mean what are we in a position to do, plead, ask, demand or take justice from this white supremacist regime that not only exploits black people in America, but in Europe, South America and in Africa too, through the continual looting of illegally gained resources, raping the land and leaving behind toxic scars that kill the inhabitants. Why is it that we are waiting for God to come back and put an end to all this, and why isn’t it that black people aren’t taking up the challenge to divert the force of our own intellect, labour and capital to build up Africa – a land which offers true opportunity for us, rather than us continue to contribute through blood, sweat and tears into to a system that drives us to our graves and offers us knees on the neck, flavoured with slaps in the face and hypocrisy on the way?
What wealth do the nations that we currently live in truly poses? An old Aswad (UK Reggae band) record from way back has the line “Son’s of criminals found wanting”, steal the land, steal the resources, marginalise the oppressed, demonise the anyone who shows they are awake (woke), turn justice into bitterness (Amos 5:7) and repeat… When a nation gains wealth by those means, truly, of what value would that wealth be to someone else? Tainted riches are always tainted aren’t they? Isn’t true wealth to have pleasure in the fruit of your labour knowing that you have gained your wealth by fair means? Isn’t it being able to raise your children in a system that doesn’t systematically exploit them in every which way it can in order for its demonically influenced hegemonic superiority to be maintained?