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Creating A Spiritual Foundation
By Lasana Omar Hotep
I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven When I awoke, I spent that on a necklace
-- Kanye West
"Can't Tell Me Nothing" Among the running jokes in the Black communities: the amusement and amazement we share watching a recording artist who makes music about violence, sex, and drugs receiving an award on television and saying, "I want to thank God." The contradiction seems glaringly obvious. How could a person who glamorizes greed, misogyny, and violence be religious or spiritual? We are all sitting there at home wondering, "How can the same person whose lifestyle and artistic expression emphasizes hatred, materialism, and raw intimidation, be standing there onstage wearing a diamond-encrusted crucifix?"
Actually, this phenomenon provides an important insight into the complexity of Black male spirituality. The disconnection between what this individual practices and what he preaches (or believes) is not difficult to recognize. But recognizing a man who, regardless of his flaws, yearns to experience the unconditional love that only a higher power can supply may be more challenging. The source of this apparent contradiction can be traced to the way in which many of us are first introduced to religion and spirituality.
We are encouraged to worship from early in our development. But few of us are introduced to the concept of character development as an expression of spirituality. Some of us have become so focused on our particular religion that we lose sight of achieving spirituality. Religion is the set of rituals and practices used to recognize, worship, and seek communion with God. Spirituality is the manifestation of this divine connection in one's daily life. Think of religion as the vehicle and spirituality the destination. The destination is the ability to see aspects of God in our lives and to exhibit this awareness as we interact with our environment.
Although it may be easy for us to detect the contradiction in what a musician on an awards show does and says, it is often difficult to recognize it in our own lives. I first became aware of my personal contradictions at age fifteen. I was a fiery, up-and-coming Black Nationalist who thought he could change the conditions of Black life by overpowering people with Black facts. Iremember recounting a ciphering (informal discussion) session that I had in the school cafeteria to one of my mentors. I was excited to explain to him how I had "blasted" all the brothers and sisters with my knowledge, and how stupid I made them look. He simply asked me, "What do we call each other?" I replied, "Brother and Sister." My mentor then asked me whether my actions seemed truly "brotherly." Without further discussion, I got the point. Just intellectualizing or articulating a concept wasn't enough. I also had to demonstrate it in my behavior. There it was staring me in the face: I was talking about being a "brother" but living out the life of a sarcastic smart-ass. It's not enough to talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk. From that point on I've used the same test as a measure for self-criticism and for my evaluation of society -- especially religion.
I was not raised in a religious household. Growing up between Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, my family attended church primarily on two occasions: funerals and Easter. Unfortunately I attended my fair share of funerals. During the 1980s, Los Angeles was becoming the gangbanging and drug-slinging capital of the world. I had a father, uncle, aunt, and cousins involved in street life and they exposed me to some of the worst that the world has to offer.
Having these people in my life helped me to understand how young entertainers could embrace a lifestyle reflecting hatred while simultaneously professing a love for God. My family members were neither monsters nor soulless, uncaring people. They may have been into the streets neck deep, but they still wanted to be loved unconditionally. The love they received from family members was conditional and usually peppered with destructive criticism. But even in the midst of a destructive lifestyle, they turned to God for unconditional love.
But even as brothers seek this divine unconditional love, they who experience all the ugliness in the world still have issues with God. This is why so many Black males are absent from the church. Numerous articles, books, and community forums are held to address this matter. Truth is, some of these brothers are angry with God. Some are wondering where God was when they suffered abuse as little boys, or when they were mistreated as teenagers, or even now, when they are dismissed as shiftless adults -- regardless of their personal struggles and/or successes. Others wonder where God was when they were being racially profiled by police, discriminated against in the workplace, or even when they found out their lover was cheating on them.
We know this anger exists because of the way Black men murder one another without a second thought, the way Black males abuse girls and women, and the way we self-medicate with everything from alcohol to codeine-laced cough syrup, marijuana, and crack. The anger is manifest in our perpetual petty beefs, our judgmental attitudes toward other Black men, and our inability to constructively resolve conflicts among one another. The anger expresses itself in various other ways, too. Some Black men echo our oppressors and accuse fellow Black males of using racism as a crutch. Some may have enduring patience with other people who abuse and mistreat them, but have a short fuse when dealing with our Black brothers. These same attitudes can be found in men whether they were raised as Christian, Muslim, Hebrew, Buddhist, Humanist, African Spiritualist, or something in between. Indeed, this spiritual crisis is not merely a reflection of their character, but also of the religions and spiritual systems and institutions that claim to offer solutions to their problems.
In my own search for balance and centeredness I have rounded the bases of the world's most popular religions. At age fourteen, I left home plate and headed for Christianity as first base, joining a nondenominational storefront church congregation after attending services with an aunt. Like most young Black men, I wanted to have a strong relationship with God. During the devotional part of the service it was made clear that unless "you know, that you know, that you know" that if you died that instant you were saved and on the path to heaven, you risked burning in the fires of hell for eternity by not joining the church. I was not certain, so I joined. I went to new members classes and participated in youth activities. But, ultimately I found the experience to be unfulfilling.
I loved the fellowship and the message of hope the church preached and, yes, the music was incredible. I found an emotional release in the midst of community worship, but the generic sermonizing about God's power, grace, and vengeance missed me for the most part. As much as the pastor attempted to make biblical stories relevant to our daily lives, I still felt like he was talking about a time and place far removed from the reality I faced every day. Some brothers have issues with the church because of politics or other philosophical differences; I was too young to make those connections. I rather longed for something that spoke directly to my struggle as a young Black male trying to define my manhood, my Blackness, and my relationship with God in a constructive way.
At age fifteen, I left the Christian church for second base, the Nation of Islam (NOI). It was not an immediate transition. I spent several months in a kind of spiritual limbo. My experience as a Muslim awakened my spirit and my mind -- not necessarily the theology of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Minister Louis Farrakhan -- but with the social and political message of Black self-determination. By this time my mother had relocated us to San Antonio, Texas, in hopes of providing my younger brother and me with a safer environment. As already stated, inner-city Los Angeles in the late 1980s was a war zone and the casualties were predominantly young Black men.
I learned about the Nation via its weekly publication, The Final Call. Prior to reading excerpts of speeches by Minister Farrakhan, I had never heard a Black man mix politics, economics, sociology, and religion into such a digestible cocktail. I responded to the NOI because it was unapologetically Black. The Nation combats the identity issues that plague Black males by telling us that we are "the makers, the owners and cream of the planet earth," and moreover, that Allah (God) is Black and wants us to reclaim our legacy as rulers of the earth. The Fruit of Islam (FOI), the men of the NOI, are structured in a hierarchical quasi-military fashion that fulfills our yearning for belonging to a structured group. The selling of newspapers, bean pies, and other products places Black men in a constructive posture within the community. Not everyone likes bean pies, but whenever they see the young FOI approaching in a suit and bow tie, they nevertheless show respect.
Religiously, I practiced the prayers, attended the services and observed Ramadan (a Muslim time of fasting). The ministers who officiated the Sunday meetings used both the Bible and Qur'an. They made these texts speak to my circumstance by interweaving passages from scripture with Black history, interpretations of economic exploitation, and critiques of contemporary leadership for failing to empower the Black community. I remained an active, faithful Muslim into my freshman year of college.
A combination of forces moved me to the next base and separated me from the Nation of Islam. During the early 1990s, the NOI was going through some administrative and organizational restructuring. I was forced to choose sides: whether to stay with the...
