religion

Does “Black Philosophy” Actually Exist? On the Establishment of a Southern School of Philosophy by Quinton Mitchell

Being a Black American, I noticed that a lot of the more vocal, fiery, and/or analytical voices within Black Liberation politics often attempt to be at odds with “Western philosophy”, yet, they are indelibly… Western through and through.

Most Black Liberation Politics centers around Continental Leftist and or liberal (in the classical sense onwards) types of ideology centering around concepts such as deconstruction, post-structuralism, Critical Theory, existentialism to many extents, anti-colonialism, post-colonialism, and some degree postmodernism (e.g., hip hop as a late stage capitalist form of music that blurs high art with low art, pastiche, hyper capitalism, the subjectivity of morality, pop culture, etc.).

But, for those within Black Liberation politics, stretching from the Ivory Tower college seminars with the stereotypical dred-locked wise sage professor, to YouTube video essayists with their evermore ridiculous thumbnails to attract eyeballs (yes, I am talking about “Foreign Man in a Foreign Land”, etc.), and all the way to fringe cults pushing antediluvian Black Supremacist origin stories (even throw in a few UFOs or mad scientists, e.g., The Nation of Islam, Nuwabians, Hoteps, etc.), what I notice is…. there is no real black philosophy.

Rather, we what we have is blackness expressed through Western philosophy.

What I’m saying is….is that most of the Black Nationalist or liberation types who are quick to call another person’s “blackness” into question, even going so far as using white supremacist Antebellum slavery monikers towards each other, i.e., house slave, house negro, coon, Uncle Tom, the N-word, etc., but these Black Nationalist and liberation types are….living in the “House”, i.e., the house is the Western civilization including its philosophy.

So, to appear to be at odds with the West, when in essence we are products of the West, including using its language, didactic, etc., is ironic. In other words, don’t pretend that you’re higher or holier or more “organic” simply because you push pro-blackness when we are all living collectively under the roof of the house. The only way to truly alleviate this dilemma is to…leave the West.

Full unplug form the West or rather attempt at establishing a coherent “Black Philosophy” or “Southern Philosophy” that with academic rigor pools various indigenous African philosophies under one umbrella. No conspiracy theory, no anti-white girl paranoid black female nonsense, no toxic masculinity, but literal hitting the books and creating a framework that spans ethics, logic, etc.

I say Southern philosophy because we obviously know that Eastern typically represents Asian and/or Indian Subcontinent frameworks spanning Hinduism, Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc., whereas Western philosophy touches upon everything from the Sages, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Continentals vs Analytics, etc. In other words, we live under a global “Eurasianist” viewpoint, which isn’t bad necessarily, but the problem is that it excludes the philosophical frameworks of other parts of planet, so we can’t have a truly united human specifies until we include other frameworks or test them at least.

My call, yes, Quinton Mitchell is saying, that there should be a Southern Philosophy that emphasis the major categories of philosophy such as Ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, and Aesthetics. This could be done my using game theory, Artificial Intelligence, computer regressions, etc.

Why Separation of Church and State Matters and Why Republicans are Dead Wrong about wanting to end it by Quinton Mitchell

The First Amendment literally states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

There is this movement to separate church and state.

And, I must state that they are insane.

Most of this is coming from Evangelical Protestant (often modern as opposed to mainline church) based Dominion Ideology (often with Prosperity, i.e., money is good, Doctrine) which seeks to create a religious state. It may be hyperbole, but it sounds like the Handmaids Tale, considering the conservative majority Supreme Court has recently banned abortion at the federal level and has opened the window for “creative businesses” to discriminate against LGBTQ peoples. Certain things may not affect you, but it may be a matter of time before SCOTUS starts taking away other rights or legal protections.

People argue that the country was built upon Christianity, but I slightly disagree. The colonies were majority Christian (even though Rhode Island was explicitly founded with an emphasis on religious tolerance), but the constitution that united those colonies (and, following states that were entered into the union later) were built upon an ideal of religious pluralism, i.e., the ability to agree to disagree. There was also no linear way of practice since the colonies had different make-ups and sources of their specific types of Christianity. One colony may have had a different way of believing than another, or influenced by a different sort of doctrinal practice, i.e., even back then you still had Anglicans vs Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Quakers, etc. So how can the US even have a state church if there is no standard framework particularly amongst Protestant faiths. How will church leaders be elected? Apostolic succession or voting for elders in a congregational model? Can women be ordained or not? What language do we do service in? Does traditional matter or is it “faith alone?” Do we honor saints? Are non-Nicaean Trinitarians such as later Mormons or Jevoah’s Witnesses allowed?

There wasn’t even a coherent way of worshiping then, then why would there be now?

For example, there is no Plymouth Colony with Pilgrims anymore but rather the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is a US state, rather than a colony which was basically a chartered business operation and not a sovereign entity. So, even if that colony was built by religious settlers, it doesn’t mean that they triumph over the later US constitution that gives our country…life. Same can be said about Jamestown Colony in Virginia, or the Debtor Colonies of Oglethorpe in Georgia, or if it had survived the Roanoke Colony in North Carolina. In other words, even though Christianity inspired the creation of the United States, the freedom away from it also did, and the Constitution which came after the Articles of Confederation, is the de facto document of our government.

For example, many Protestants in the USA who often simply call themselves Christian, often have anti-Catholic sentiments, even though Catholics are literally one of the earliest Christian sects. Two Catholics signed the US Constitution which were Daniel Carroll and Thomas Fitzsimones. Also, in the early colonies you had small Jewish population in New York and Charleston such as Haym Salomon, who was vital in converting French loans into liquid cash for the Revolutionaries to use. You also had the indigenous Native Americans with their deities, but also the imported African enslaved peoples who had their own indigenous belief systems but also some had Islam (Islam had conquered various areas of Western Africa), even though most African slaves were assimilated into Christianity (which slaves seeing their blight akin to that of the Jews of the Old Testament). According to the Smithsonian, “African Muslims also fought alongside colonists during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Multiple men with Muslim names appear on the military muster rolls, including Bampett Muhamed, Yusuf ben Ali (also known as Joseph Benhaley), and Joseph Saba. Other men listed on muster rolls have names that are likely connected to Islamic practice, such as Salem Poor and Peter Salem, whose names may reflect a form of the Arabic salaam, meaning peace. These men often distinguished themselves on the battlefield.” (Source: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/african-muslims-early-america)

We have freedom of religion meaning freedom away from religion if we want. If you want to believe in God and Jesus then so be it, but if don’t then cool. If you believe liberty if from God, then so be it, but you believe liberty is form human reason alone, then so be it. Yet, since we have to live amongst each other, a person who doesn’t believe can’t be forced to believe or have is or her liberties hindered by those who believe, unless the courts go through their process and rule with the concept of separate of church and state as the underlying framework of their ruling, i.e., the courts can’t say you must follow law, but you may not be able to do something because of another reason based on previous rulings (i.e., precedent).

If a certain religion that Christians does not want takes over then how will they deal with it? Hence, erosion of the separation of church and state needs racism and xenophobia to maintain the pre-existing religious hierarchy, and by doing so you are denying certain understood principles such as the right to enter the US and gain citizenship.

How will US Protestants deal with the US becoming Catholic or Catholics if the US becomes explicitly Protestant, or how will both deal with it becomes Orthodox? Or, Muslim?

This is why separation matters.

As already stated, The First Amendment literally states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Put it this way, if God is angry at the USA, then so be it. God is God. It can make do. The US was built by those with faith and those who didn’t want faith. Since religion was basically forced through social compliance, how do we even know that the faith the Founders and settler had was genuine and not simply a way of living at the time as hand?

God is all powerful so why does it even need us, when it would make what it wants to happen, happen?

This is why I respect the Amish. They just mind their own business. I respect that. Let Jesus or God do their work but live the way you want but don’t go trying to regulate other people’s ability to be themselves.