Black American Religion (Jackson)

Jackson’s explanation for his use of the term “Blackamerican” intrigued me as I’ve thought a lot about how we linguistically privilege one group over the “other”. It is always “white vs. non-white”, but non-white can be a million other things. In “Islam and Black Religion”, Jackson immediately begins to distinguish “Black Religion” from “African-American Religion”, with the latter being any religious African Americans. He describes Black Religion’s central goal as “the desire to annihilate or at least subvert white supremacy and anti-black racism” (Jackson 29). This dubbed title made me wonder if there is such a thing as “white religion”? Maybe the Evangelical Lutherans? I’m not sure what Jackson means when he describes the “deism” or “natural religion” of Blackamericans (31). On page 32, he describes that slaves entered a different sort of consciousness due to being in such a state that stripped them of their dignity, that required “a mode of being in the world that resists dread and despair”. Though this can be thought of as a trauma response, he describes it as resistance. I wonder about Jackson’s claim about “the general resistance to the urge to embrace reverse-domination or supremacy”. It is my understanding that this idea requires an inherent essence to certain groups of people, which is something I’m not sure of and could be problematic. On page 33, Jackson taps into something which he also touched upon in his quote on using “Blackamerican”. It’s this idea of viewing Africa as connected in some way to Black Americans, when in reality, those connections were forcibly cut off long ago, with remnants remaining, but for many confusing and unattainable. He talks about the “African Image” later in the chapter, and its importance to be connected in some form to Black Religion. The historical precedent for Black Americans being left out of European liberalism/enlightenment is fascinating, although I feel like there is a possibility that what Jackson describes as “unabashed patriarchal impulse, no-nonsense folk mentality, and stark gender differentiation” is actually something more closely rooted in white supremacy. For example, Black Americans in this country have routinely voted Blue, a party that, while immensely flawed, still opposes on face-value the more socially conservative values of the other option.