Black Gold: the Road to Black Infinity

Chasity S. Jones M.Div.

Description

The project is a collection of poems during a period of liberation and the beginning of a process called decolonizing my mind (bell hooks, Sisters in the Yam). As a southern belle from Bible Belt Louisiana that moved to the the Pacific Northwest during the 2016 Presidential elections and consistent waves of unarmed Black folk being killed by the police, I found myself at a place of honest reflection. This collection of poems captures my crisis of faith that was impacted by discovering and embracing my identity as a Black woman, the role that religious institutions play in perpetuating racism and other forms of oppression, the church's collective responses to my community members being murdered by the police in broad day light, and my own disappointment, realizations, and attempts at reconciling my spirituality with my identity in a way that would produce life for me personally.
As a Black woman, the act of expression is both dangerous and sacred. I've rarely had the privacy and freedom that I had during this time and the transformation I experienced during this time has changed the trajectory of my life. Thus, this is a very meaningful project for me and I hope this contributes to the awareness of the diversity, beauty, art, pain, legacy, of Blackness in this country.

Sujets

• Mind
• Poetry
• Life

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669857907
• Langue: English

Extrait

Black Gold: The Road to Black Infinity
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Chasity S. Jones, M.Div.
 
 
Copyright © 2022 by Chasity S. Jones, M.Div.

Library of Congress Control Number:
2022922185
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-5792-1

Softcover
978-1-6698-5791-4

eBook
978-1-6698-5790-7
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 11/30/2022
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
835162
CONTENTS
Foreword
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
On Rage
Author’s Bio
Suffocated By a White Mask
Fighting with Demons
Resistance, My Old Friend
Insurmountable Suppression
Every Life Seen
Descriptive Statistics
God wrestling
Dear Little Black Girl
False Idols
Black Infinity
Emulating Divinity
What is Spirituality?
On The Apostle Paul
Self-Recovery
FOREWORD
“ Four years ago, I stepped into a church in Seattle. I hardly stepped into churches that year, but that morning I came to see Chasity deliver a sermon. Chasity spoke in front of a stain-glass window with Jesus depicted as a white man. Chasity resisted the harm and violence of this lie, the lie of whiteness, the lie that whiteness is divine. Chasity asked everyone gathered, “Is it possible that we have created God in our image, not the other way around?” While Chasity preached, Giavonna White conducted a liturgical dance. There was so much power and life shared from Chasity’s words and Giavonna’s movement. I saw the word made flesh.
In that moment, Chasity facilitated a space for truth, as she does in Black Gold. The words within these pages speak truth to the violence of white supremacy, misogyny, colonialism, and capitalism. These words transform harm and move towards life.
Chasity sees through eyes of love. Love for Black women, for Black liberation, for the Divine, for her ancestors, and love for her daughter. The love and power that Chasity holds moves me. May her love and power move you.”
-Chris Borth
DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to those who supported and held me during this process and accepted me afterward.
I pay homage to my ancestors, whose shoulders I stand upon and without whose determination and spirituality, I would not exist let alone be in a position to publish this book. (Specifically Juanita Baptist and Ab Johnson)
This book is dedicated to bell hooks for teaching Black women how to recover ourselves and reclaim the ancient power within us all. Rest in Power.
This book is dedicated to its inspiration, James H. Cone, Father of Black Liberation Theology. Rest in Power.
To Rev. Charlene Zuill and Dean and Dr. Cristian De La Rosa for being spiritual mothers to me during my theological education.
To Liberation Flow, and Zion
I also dedicate this project of healing as well as healing energy to the seven generations before me and seven generations to come.
FOREWORD
Sacred words, sacred power, sacred life, sacred Blackness. This, dear reader, you will encounter in these poems. Hear in these pages the beauty, the heart, the soul, the integrity, and the intellect of a Black woman daring to know her truth and to speak it. Witness her courage to move toward healing in the face of raw terror, the courage to question “the way things are” in a world of white supremacy, and the courage to claim liberation from its suffocating impact on body and soul. Hear a Black woman driven to “the edge of reality” by the colonizing force of white supremacy and its insidious pervasive infiltration into the self, but then forging her way toward freedom for herself and her community. Hear “the divine reverberating” into her heart and poured out in the tongue of a poet and as a freedom fighter.
First and foremost, this collection of poems is an outpouring of courage and an expression of the beauty, power, humanity, integrity, and courage of the one who authored them – Chasity Jones. She intends these poems and the narratives crafted between them also to convey the divinity of Blackness and the “diversity, beauty, art, pain, legacy, of Blackness in this country.” However, knowing Chasity and her fierce commitment to generate liberative pathways for other Black women, I recognize in these poems yet another purpose. It is to evoke courage, cultivate wisdom, and provide solidarity for others – Black women, the broader Black community, and others hungering for freedom from the colonizing impacts of white supremacy. May this poet’s courage – courage to know and speak her truth, to express her anger from a lifetime of racial trauma and suppressed anger, and to claim fullness of life – draw forth that courage in others who struggle to resist and overcome racism and colonialism at its core.
I met Chasity and came to sense her essence in the mountains of Western Washington. This person, I realized, was a woman of wisdom beyond her years, creativity, attunement to the Spirit, and a fierce commitment to maintain her integrity in the midst of an overwhelmingly white space. She did it. But as we shared meals, teaching strategies, evenings, and life stories, I realized more about Chasity. Her commitment to be true to herself as a Black woman, to fight for her freedom from the pervasive demand to make white people feel comfortable, and transforming suppressed anger into holy expressed anger is also a commitment to her community.
She holds a burning and joy-colored passion for enabling the liberation of others – especially other Black women. And she embodies that passion in creative undertakings that open doors for others. Chasity Jones’ ancestors must be so very proud, as will be her precious and beautiful daughter. Chasity is becoming a guiding ancestor upon whom those who come after her may call. Like her poems, she is Black Gold.
With respect,
Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Ph.D.
Professor of Theological and Social Ethics,
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Director, PLTS Center for Climate Justice and Faith
Core Doctoral Faculty, the Graduate Theological Union