The papers collected here were first presented at a symposium on anti-blackness and Christian ethics held at Boston College from September 14 through 16, 2016. This event and the resulting volume were made possible by a major grant from Boston College's Institute for the Liberal Arts, as well as generous support from the Dean's Office of the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, the Theology Department, and the Program of African and African Diaspora Studies. Villanova University's Department of Theology and Religious Studies also contributed funding for which we are very grateful. Special thanks to Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., Robert Ellsberg, Catherine Cornille, Richard Gaillardetz, Nancy Pineda-Madrid, Andre Willis, Martin Summers, Maria Clara Bingemer, Pamela Lightsey, James Keenan, S.J., Lisa Cahill, Kim Humphrey, Craig Ford, Eduardo Gonzalez, Jaisy Joseph, Amaryah Armstrong, Elizabeth Antus, and Steven Battin.
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CHAPTER 1
More Than Skin Deep
The Violence of Anti-Blackness
KELLY BROWN DOUGLAS
Some 170 years ago Frederick Douglass wrote, Killing a slave, or any colored person,is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community. From the age of slavery through the era of a black president, deadly violence continues to be visited upon black bodies, with relative impunity. What is it about America that has made the black body a prime target for unrelenting violence? In a 1967 speech defending black protestors rights to use violence to rid ourselves of oppression, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, then known as H. Rap Brown, said, Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie. While Al-Amin's words received much criticism at the time, he actually spoke a truth about Americaespecially when it came to the black bodythat perhaps even he did not fully grasp. For the violence to which black bodies fall prey in America reflects an often-ignored narrative that is integral to America's very violent identityan identity that indeed fosters the violent culture that Al-Amin named. It is the narrative of anti-blackness.