A Biblical/Theological Approach to Racism: The Puerto Rican/American Community in the U.S.A.

                                       A Biblical/Theological Approach to Racism:

                                       The Puerto Rican/Hispanic-American  Community in the U.S.A.


The previous essays on a biblical and theological approach to racism have focused primarily on the African-American community in the U. S. A. In the next several essays, I will focus on the impact of racism on the Puerto Rican/Hispanic-American community in the U.S.A.

Some may want to argue that the discrimination against Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics in the U. S.A. is not of a racial nature.  This writer begs to differ.  The mere fact that the basic racial/cultural foundations of the Puerto Rican and other Hispanic origins are indigenous and African point to outright racism.  I know that some will point to the European (especially Spanish) element in the Hispanic culture. They will also follow the party line of Spain being ¨the mother country.¨  But since Spain primarily played an oppressive role against the indigenous and African people, i.e. genocide and slavery, this writer adamantly refuses to think of Spain as the originator of who we are.  And since the U.S.A, through its neo-colonizing activities has also played an oppressive role in our history, it also will not receive the treatment of its culture being a ¨superior¨ one.

We begin with the colonization of the Caribbean (Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico) and with the rest of Latin America.  Putting things into historical perspective, we encounter the original colonizing activities by Span in 1492 beginning with Christopher Columbus, and then in 1898 the neo-colonizing activities by the U.SA.  I submit that in both cases, racism played a vital role.

In the public school system, children were taught to sing ¨Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492."  Then they were taught that Columbus ¨discovered¨ America.  This writer wants to demythologize that concept and lay it to rest for once and for all.  Columbus did not ¨discover¨ America.  The indigenous people of the Americas, and the slaves of Africa were not sitting around waiting to be ¨discovered¨ by Columbus or by anyone else.  It would be more appropiate to say that Columbus and company ¨invaded¨ the Americas. The indigenous people of the Americas were not lost.  Columbus was both lost and ignorant.  His ignorance was reflected by the fact that he referred to the indigenous people as ¨Indians,¨ thinking that he was in India, which was the original goal of his journey.

The America that Columbus came upon was not the landmass we know today as the United States, but rather the Caribbean islands and other regions of Latin America, parts of which constitute the ancestral lands of Hispanics in the U.S.A ( Himilce Novas, Everything You Need to Know about Latino History. New York: Penguin Group, 2008, p. 20).

Since a land already populated with advanced ancient civilizations cannot really be discovered. Columbus could more accurately be said to have discovered a water route from Europe and North Africa to the Americas.  It was all an accident, as we know, since the mariner believe his course would take him to the Indies, then taken to mean all of South and East Asia, and later called the East Indies, and even died thinking that he had found a water route there (Novas, p.20).

In 1898, the United States went to war against Spain.  Spanish troops in Cuba, at that time, a colony of Spain were defeated.  American troops began to occupy the Philippines, which were also under Spanish control. Then in July, American troops, occupied Puerto Rico.  In September of that same year, Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris, by virtue of which Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States.  An American general was named by Washington to govern the island.  In this sense, Puerto Rico became ¨war booty" for the United States (National Division Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church, Puerto Rico´s Search for Self-Determination. Philadelphia: 1979, p. 1).

In subsequent decades the U.S.A. would continue with colonizing activities, both economic and political, in the Caribbean, and in the rest of Latin America.  Whether Latin America was worse off under the Spaniards or under the U.S.A. is a matter of debate.

The main question for our consideration is how we evaluate colonization from a biblical/theological perspective.  This writer believes that land-theft goes against the theological grain of Scripture and the Christian tradition.  Latin American Liberation Theology deals more intensely with this issue.  I refer the writer to my doctoral dissertation ¨The Liberation of Puerto Rico: A Theological Perspective. 1982: Colgate Rochester Divinity School.

Please feel free to share your opinion and perspective on this subject. Your input is very valuable.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona



 

A Biblical/Theological Approach to Racism: Black Power

After using the approach of non-violent and passive resistance to racism and other types of social injustices, there developed within the African-American community a movement known as ¨Black Power.¨ There may be some who think of ¨Black Power¨ as a cliche or slogan which is merely rhetorical and devoid of concrete substance relative to necessary action.  The Black Power movement emerged in the middle to latter part of the decade of the 1960´s as a response to the continued abuse of African-American people by the major institutions of society, i.e. the public educational system, the legal system, law enforcement, the socio-economic political structures of American society, and even the Church.

As with every other human organization and movement, the Black Power movement was not monolithic by any stretch of the imagination. The major focus of the movement was to install personal and collective pride in being black, and also to combat institutional and systemic racism in the areas of employment, economic development, health, housing, and political power.  There were those who like their predecessors in the Civil Rights movement, believed in carrying out the struggle for equality and justice within the framework of the system.  There were others who fought for black nationalism and separatism, as well as for equality. Some within the movement believed in the dismantling of the capitalist economic system as a stepping stone to dismantle all racist structures.  And there were others, yet, who believed in focusing on African-Americans getting ¨their fair share of the pie.¨  All in all, the thrust of the Black Power movement was to say ¨hell no!¨ to racism and its devastating impact on the African-American community.

Lest any one believe that I believe that African-Americans have a monopoly on being the victims of racism, from this point on, I will also mention the impact of racism on the Hispanic-American community.  My next essay will focus on the ¨Young Lords,¨ and their role in combating discrimination and racism in the Puerto Rican-American community.

1965 marked in important turning point for the Black liberation movement.  The hegemony exercised by the ¨old guard¨ leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., was finally broken.  The movement had succeeded in defeating Jim Crow in the South, and the government passed civil rights and voting rights legislation.  The center of the movement would shift to the Northern cities------where the majority of Blacks lived in 1965. Northern Blacks were inspired by and supported the civil rights struggle in the South, but the end of Jim Crow legislation did not directly affect them.  Jobs, poor housing, discrimination, police violence, and substandard education remained fundamental problems (Ahmed Shawki,  Black Liberation and Socialism, p 187).

These conditions would lead to an explosion of anger just as Malcolm X had predicted in February 1965.
(Shawki, p. 187).  ¨Nineteen sixty-five will probably be the longest, hottest, bloodiest summer that has yet been seen in the United States since the beginning of the Black Revolution, primarily because the same causes that existed in the winter of 1964 still exist in January 1965.  Now, these are causes of inferior housing, inferior employment, inferior education.  All of the evils of a bankrupt system still exist where Black Americans are concerned (J. H. Clarke, Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. New York: Macmillan Co, 1969, p. 209).¨

Riots broke out in different cities in the U.S.A. protesting the injustices heaped on the African-American community.  Simply put, African-Americans were tired of being pushed around by the White power structure. The attitude that developed in the nation-wide African American community was ¨F¨ this (expletive)!  We are not taking any more of this.¨

As a result of this, organizations like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other Blacks decided to abandon the approach of passive resistance and resort to more aggressive and even militant approaches to combat racism.  Groups like the Black Panthers and MOVE emerged, denouncing racism in all its forms.

In subsequent years and decades, African-Americans, acting both individually and collectively, have sought to continue the struggle against inequality and unfairness.  Some have limited themselves to verbal denounciation, while others have advocated for armed struggle in the fight.

Faith groups such as the Nation of Islam, the Moorish Science Temple, and the Rastafarians (a Jamaica-based group) have addressed the issue of racism and injustice from the standpoint of their own theology.
African-American Christian and Jewish people and groups have addressed the issues and have engaged in different ways in the struggle.

What is a Christian response to racism?  There is no one Christian response.  The responses that Christians give will depend on a number of things.  Among them will be their hermeneutical presuppositions in regard to Scripture and the Christian tradition. Another factor will be the socio-economic standpoint from which the respondent speaks, i.e. from a position of either power or powerlessness.  The reader is advised to read the books by James Cone ¨Black Theology and Black Power,¨ as well as ¨God of the Oppressed.¨

Some may want to dilute the importance of this issue by posing the question ¨What would Jesus do?¨  James Cone reminds us that the question should not be ¨What did Jesus do back then, but rather what is Jesus doing today?¨

You the reader are encouraged to contribute your own thoughts to this issue.  Please feel free to share with us where you stand, and how you think we can as a Christian community move forward.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona