Medium Post 11/10/20

Before reading this week’s, the only information I had on the apocalypse and Eschatology was from the ideas Christianity had on these two concepts. Additionally, I had never heard of these two concepts being used as a solution to racism. In terms of the apocalypse and Eschatology in relation to racism, it requires that all systems that promote white supremacy and racism must be destroyed and rebuilt in a new way that does not reflect the past systems. This is interesting because I hadn’t thought about destroying all systems because I always thought that with reform, things could change. But now, having read these pieces, I better understand the reasons why destruction could be so valuable.

In Lloyd’s article, he writes about black rage, which he believes is an essential catalyst for the apocalypse and eventually Eschatology to take place. Black rage is motivated by the systems of oppression and racism that exists today to continue to be angry and not let these systems get the last word. I think this is interesting because it the very different from the ideas put forth by Dr. King. King preached non-violence and used respectability to highlight the violence taken against black bodies, so I think Black rage is promoting the opposite of what King wanted. Black rage, I think, is immediate in the BLM movement today with the refusal to compromise on their demands and their use of burning and destruction. With this, I believe that the BLM movement uses Black rage as a catalyst for achieving their goals, which would bring about an eventual apocalypse. But with the recent election news, I am hesitant to say that this apocalypse will occur in the near future.

Another piece we read this week was Black Art Matters, which discusses Black Radical Imagination. Black Radical Imagination focuses on connecting both dead and alive blacks to come up with an idea of a better world and making sure that we evaluate the past systems as not to recreate them in the future. I think looking into the past is vital because people always say that we learn from looking at the past to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes. If this Eschatology is to take place in the future, we must understand how racism was embedded in American and how it transferred from people into systems that invisibly promote the same racist ideas.