Our Moral Imperative: Confronting A Decaying Human Contract
Jamar A. Boyd, II, M. Div.
The America of my experience has worshiped and nourished violence for as long as I have been on earth. The violence was being perpetrated mainly against black men, though — the strangers: and so it didn’t count. But, if a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe…In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is the death in the heart which leads not only to shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.
The poignant words of James Baldwin within the short essay, “Nothing Personal,” engages – with precision – social isolation, race, and police brutality giving us the theological equivalent of the danger, influence, and presence of forces, entities, and powers that seek to harm rather than heal. Furthermore, communicated is an interrogation of American imperialism centered upon notions of prohibitive existence and a visceral attachment to illusionary exceptionalism that leads to an inevitable decay of the innate human contract eroding our ability to engage sensible humanism. Requiring necessary truth telling to confront a [the] decaying human contract.
From carefully crafted police states, dictatorial legislatures, and oppressive federal regimes we witness the sustained proliferation of state sanctioned violence manifested through global genocide and the quarantined morality. Resulting in an embedded web of Afrophobia, generational desensitization to death and violence, and intercultural experiential trauma debilitating the spiritual, psychological, and emotional existence of elders and children alike. Consequently, the folk [disposable Black and brown folks of the African diaspora] are left susceptible to the constructed illusionary mechanisms of power and the bare, lifeless, annals of white supremacy. Such a reality relegates the flesh to a mere commodity unworthy of respect, honor, and dignity evidenced by America’s anarchy and death deals. Dealings producing no victors, but victims on all sides requiring an acknowledgment and confrontation of the lived realities by those impacted directly.
The undeniable angst of democratic uncertainty as observed by the prolonged allowance of white hegemonic fear and Christian nationalism remains a mechanism to dictate the existence of Black and brown folks, children, differently abled persons, and the disinherited. We need look no further than Haiti, Palestine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Chicago as the construction of a Presidential library ignites further fears of displacement and gentrification. Revealing, every aspect of the human contract is eroded as the evils of capitalism, racism, poverty, and militarism are sustained, financed, and revered in the names of democracy and freedom. Amplifying the secular, social, and theological connectivity of Baldwin’s words.
Jimmy, within his essay, shares as Paul did in Ephesians 6:12 the reality that, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Pressing upon us the need to confront death deals that directly engage a decaying human contract through unabashed truth telling amid an insatiable hunger and collective need for a refined moral consciousness. This is the righteous and honest interrogation of methods, modes, and systems of existence which predetermine our sensibilities and inability to see Imago Dei in all people. It’s to seemingly take a page out of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights as it states,
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
There is no substitute or alternative reality that can absolve a church, people or nation that ceases to reckon with the senseless murder and starvation of children. There is no rationale that can excuse an institution or a government’s racism and inequity that validates homophobia and gender-based violence. There is not enough charity or kindness that can affirm greed and communal deprivation. There is no level of patriotism, which performs debilitating militarism that fails to confront genocide and enables supremacy, worthy of celebration and honor. Instead, these are the realities of a decaying human contract requiring moral consciousness, presence, and truth.
Our moral imperative is plainly before us, but will we act or remain passive? The words of Harry Belafonte ring true as he declared, “Morally you cannot defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy.” Therefore, we have a choice to make. Will we sustain and strengthen the death deals of empire prolonging restrained existence and imminent destruction or dismantle imperialistic piety through unparalleled righteous indignation and prophetic resistance?
The moral imperative of this hour must possess honest interrogation of the methods, modes, and systems of engagement which predetermine our sensibilities and inability to see the full divine humanity of all people. Otherwise, we will be seen as non-human not only by the state but to ourselves.
