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Anti-black Racism

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World Christianity and Covid-19
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Abstract

Recent data shows that in the United States predominately African-American communities were disproportionately affected by the spread of the novel coronavirus. The emotional distress, economic disaster, and expansive death tolls left in its wake have only further magnified and exacerbated the many disparities and inequalities that existed in African-American communities before COVID-19. What role has black faith historically played in the lives of black people in the face of suffering? What role does it play now? This chapter will take up these questions in light of the compounding and challenging realities faced by African-American Christians today and seek to deepen the collective understanding of human suffering in the context of COVID-19.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, “Johns Hopkins Report: COVID-19 By the Numbers”, https://soba.iamempowered.com/johns-hopkins-report, accessed on November 3, 2020.

  2. 2.

    Lisa Cooper, “The Silver Lining on COVID-19’s Dark Clouds”, https://soba.iamempowered.com/silver-lining-COVID-19%E2%80%99s-dark-clouds, accessed on November 3, 2020.

  3. 3.

    Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983), vii.

  4. 4.

    Masci, Pew, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/02/07/5-facts-about-the-religious-lives-of-african-americans/, accessed November 1, 2020.

  5. 5.

    David Emmanuel Goatley, Were You There? Godforsakenness in Slave Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 94.

  6. 6.

    Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism, 2.

  7. 7.

    Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism, 14.

  8. 8.

    Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976), 11.

  9. 9.

    Kelly Brown Douglas, What’s Faith Got to Do with It? Black Bodies/Christian Souls (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2005), 201.

  10. 10.

    Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2015), 170.

  11. 11.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 139.

  12. 12.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 138.

  13. 13.

    Douglas, What’s Faith Got to Do with It, 202.

  14. 14.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground. 138.

  15. 15.

    Hebrews 11:1, NRSV.

  16. 16.

    F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, rev. ed. (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1990), 276–277.

  17. 17.

    David L. Allen, The American Commentary: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture, Hebrews (B & H Publishing Group, 2010) 35, 542–543.

  18. 18.

    Bruce, “Epistle to the Hebrews,” 276.

  19. 19.

    Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967) Kindle.

  20. 20.

    Berger, The Sacred Canopy.

  21. 21.

    Berger, The Sacred Canopy.

  22. 22.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 170.

  23. 23.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 164.

  24. 24.

    Goatley, Were You There, 13.

  25. 25.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 164.

  26. 26.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 138.

  27. 27.

    Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism, 4.

  28. 28.

    Charles H. Long, Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 7.

  29. 29.

    Long, Significations, 6.

  30. 30.

    Goatley, Were You There, 35.

  31. 31.

    Goatley, Were You There, 12.

  32. 32.

    N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 34–35.

  33. 33.

    Goatley, Were You There, viii.

  34. 34.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 138.

  35. 35.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 170.

  36. 36.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 214.

  37. 37.

    Nikki A. Toyama and Tracey Gee, eds., More than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership, and Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 71–73.

  38. 38.

    Douglas, Stand Your Ground, 170.

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Johnson, X.L. (2023). Anti-black Racism. In: Kaunda, C.J. (eds) World Christianity and Covid-19. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12570-6_8

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