Why Do Bad Things Happen to Black People?

The dominant culture tends to dominate the conversation on perceptions and questions about evil and suffering. That is not to say we don’t have some legitimate perceptions and questions. It’s just that there are other perceptions and questions that minority communities ask that are also very important.

So, we need to ask ourselves and others: “What are we missing? What questions do we still need to ask? Who should we be asking?” In the context of addressing the problem of evil, we should not simply ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” We should also ask, “Why do bad things happen to black people?” One could and should also include consideration of indigenous people groups here and abroad. Even their views of God and the gospel may look somewhat different at points.

There is a tendency to approach the Christian faith in my context in a very rational manner, including questions regarding the relation of faith and history and faith and science. While these are important questions, they are not the only important questions. Depending on the angle, they can even overshadow, hide and hinder other important matters from consideration.

This issue comes into play with theology and how we contend with the problem of evil. To begin, let’s listen to how the father of Black Theology, James Cone, approaches the subject of faith against the backdrop of what dominates conversations in modern theology. Note how Cone moves from the discussion of reason to oppression:

Even a casual look at the contemporary discussion of the problem of faith in the context of the historical-critical method reveals that such problems are unique to oppressors as they seek to reconcile traditional theology with modern scientific thinking about history.

It is not that the problem of faith and history is unimportant. Rather, its importance, as defined by white theologians, is limited to their social interests. Although oppressed blacks are interested in faith as they struggle in history, the shape of the faith-history problem in contemporary U.S. theology did not arise from the social existence of black people. On the contrary, its character was shaped by those who, sharing the consciousness of the Enlightenment, failed to question the consequences of the so-called enlightened view as reflected in the colonization and slavery of that period.

Perhaps it is true to say, as does Van Harvey, that the Enlightenment created a ‘revolution in the consciousness of Western man’; but not all people are Western and not all people in the West experienced the Enlightenment in the same way. For blacks and red peoples in North America, the spirit of Enlightenment was socially and politically demonic, becoming a pseudo-intellectual basis for their enslavement and extermination.

Through an examination of the contemporary white theological scene, it is clear that the children of the Enlightenment have simply accepted the issues passed on by their grandparents. Although the historical events of the twentieth century have virtually destroyed the nineteenth-century confidence in the goodness of humanity and the inevitable progress of history, twentieth-century white theologians are still secure in their assumption that important theological issues emerge, primarily if not exclusively, out of the white experience.”[1]

Back in the day, when I was in seminary, I took three or four classes related to the Enlightenment. All of them were excellent. However, in my recollection, none of them accounted at great length for the problems that Cone addresses. The problem of evil (theodicy) did not even play a key role. Theories of knowledge (epistemology) did.

An alternative reading on the Enlightenment might have called into question the emphasis my instructors gave to the subject of reason. Susan Neiman argues that for many philosophers in the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment eras, evil threatens human reason. It does not make sense. While some Moderns claimed that we must make evil intelligible, others argued that we must not make it intelligible. Explanations only cheapen evil and the struggle to deal with it.[2] Neiman claims that theodicy, not epistemology, drives modern philosophy. To play a David Hume-like riff, if God is all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful, where does evil come from? Perhaps Cone might change the closing line to read, “where does white theology/philosophy come from?”

Lisbon’s apocalyptic earthquake impacted Voltaire and numerous other enlightened thinkers profoundly. Some sought to reconcile the horrific disaster with a benevolent God, while others like Voltaire, writing in a more pessimistic vein, vehemently rejected Lebniz’s optimistic theodicy. Even so, I wonder what many Africans would have thought of Voltaire’s grief over the evil of Lisbon, for while he rejected slavery on philosophical grounds, he often made allowances for it on racial grounds.[3]

Perhaps the earthquake at Lisbon affected Voltaire more significantly because it happened to a Western, ‘civilized’ people. How might a similar earthquake have affected him, if it had occurred in Africa, or the not yet fully ‘civilized’ Americas? For all the Catholic and Protestant explanations given for attempting to rationalize the earthquake, I wonder if the Portuguese nation’s role in enslaving Africans was one of them.

Even the Christian faith has been used to justify the oppression of other peoples. The mantra of Manifest Destiny was “Kill the Indian, and save the man.”[4] Christianizing attempts have led one Native theologian to write, “Where the cross goes, there is never life more abundantly—only death, destruction, and ultimately betrayal.”[5]

One of the places this global discussion can take us as Christians is to our church prayer meetings and prayer closets at home. As we take prayer requests and offer up prayers, and as we listen to people share their existential struggles concerning God in enduring pain, suffering and evil, let’s be open. Let’s certainly be open and desirous of praying for people whose loved ones are dying of cancer, for those who have endured natural disasters, financial hardships, and unjust treatment at the hands of other individuals, businesses, and government agencies. Let’s also listen and empathize and pray for those who have to endure dominant cultural patterns, ideologies, attitudes, histories and actions that weigh down on them (from outlawing, red-lining and ridiculing to ignoring and tolerating them). Let’s learn to ask not simply “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Let’s also ask “Why do bad things happen to black people?”

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[1]James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (New York: Orbis Books, 1997), pages 42-43. See also Manuela Boatcă, “Colonial Beginnings: The Christian Mission” and “Enlightenment: The Civilising Mission,” in Global Inequalities Beyond Occidentalism, Global Connections (London: Routledge, 2015).

[2]Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, with a new afterword (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).

[3]Refer again to Manuela Boatcă, Global Inequalities Beyond Occidentalism, page 94.

[4]Ward Churchill, Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2004).

[5]Vine Deloria Jr., God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 1994), page 261.