Trickle-down Holocaust

Why Black Lives Must Matter to People of Faith

Abstract

A trickle-down holocaust of Black lives and relative degrees of privilege have spawned competing claims about whose lives matter. Institutionalized anti-Blackness and the perquisites of whiteness have inured society to the reality and extent of Black suffering. This “demonarchy” (Williams) that Black people have to navigate is rooted in a lie concerning their relative worth, seen in the management of the ongoing pandemic, the crisis of mass incarceration, and inordinate resistance to the slogan, “Black Lives Matter” (the moniker for the contemporary movement for civil rights) based on pietistic religion and fear of the erasure of distinctive identities and experience.