“I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar like the curtains of Solomon” (Songs of Solomon 1:5).
Those words are in your Bible. I didn’t make them up.
When was the last time you heard a sermon on this verse from Song of Solomon? (Or any verse from Song of Solomon, for that matter?) I must admit that in all my years in church, I had never heard a sermon from this book of the Bible.
Since that was the case, my consciousness was pricked by my ancestor, Toni Morrison, who said, “If there is a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”
I was still an undergrad at a small liberal arts institution in rural Indiana when I was asked to give the annual Black History Month Chapel sermon. Of course, I accepted, but what on earth was I going to preach?
One day, I was listening to a wonderful hymn of the church (at least, in my estimation) titled “Good Morning, Gorgeous” by Sister Mary J. Blige. This song talks about having the audacity to say, “Good Morning Gorgeous,” despite the raging storms of life. I’d argue this hymn is for those of us who are racialized as persons of color.
Persons of color have endured and continue to endure so much in this country and abroad in Palestine, Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Sudan and elsewhere. For far too long, we have been in fight or flight mode and haven’t taken the time to say, like the woman in Song of Solomon, “I am black and beautiful!”
As I prepared to give this sermon, I worked tirelessly to ensure that this text fit the premise for the sermonic moment. However, I quickly encountered translation issues. In my translation of choice, NRSVUE, the text read, “I am black and beautiful,” but in other modest translations, the text read, “I am black but beautiful.”
I needed to reconcile this because a conjunction can alter the meaning of a sentence or verse. I thought of going back and reading the Church Fathers (Origen particularly) for further assistance, but they made the same mistake. It was as if these commentators were attempting to humble this beautiful black woman, but I wasn’t having it.
For far too long, the world has tried to humble black people, especially black women. No matter the award or occasion, whenever black people indulge in telling their truth to the world that had no choice but to listen, somebody was always near to humble us. Can we ever have our moment to take pride in who we are and how far we’ve come without this occurring?
At times, we, as BIPOC persons, have bought into the empire and insisted on humbling ourselves— especially in our black churches. We’ve employed theologies that call us depraved and filthy rags.
We’ve been hoodwinked into believing that blackness is synonymous with darkness, that our bodies aren’t fit to be loved. We’ve been taught that our bodies need to be placed under subjection and that our lived experiences aren’t important or necessary.
We’ve been told we are totally depraved and no longer bear the image of God. We’ve been told our skin is an indication of sin, and we need to call upon our God, who will “wash us white as snow.”
We’ve bought into what Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas calls “spiritualistic dualism,” where the faith becomes entangled in Greek thought, where the body and mind are demonized and the soul is divinized.
This has produced shame. According to bell hooks, “Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma, and trauma often produces paralysis.” In an attempt to bypass shame, we have misappropriated texts like Psalm 51:7 and Romans 8:7-8, embracing a theology that says, “We must abandon our blackness and our body in order to get closer to God.”
Where do we go from here? Clearly, denying our black and brown flesh hasn’t softened our lives.
Clearly, the denial of our flesh hasn’t stopped police brutality, food insecurity, racism, sexism, classism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, genocide and many other ills. What must be done?
We must be willing to walk away from doctrines, theologies, dogmas and ideologies that tell us that our blackness is worthless. We must detach from anyone or anything that treats our bodies like objects and not as a testament to divine creativity. We must arise daily and declare, “I am black and beautiful.”
Beloved, you are gorgeous! You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are created in God’s image and likeness.
You’re not a product of “total depravity” (despite John Calvin’s convictions). Instead, God took God’s time working on you. Every morning, the least you could say to yourself is, “Good morning, gorgeous!”
