One of the crazy things that I have witnessed in the past few months is the willingness of Black people to deny significant parts of their identity for the environment that we are currently traversing. It is challenging for me to watch people who share my heritage live in denial of a certain level of dignity and divinity—to buy into a supremacist ideology that will spit them out in five seconds or less.
Ever since the death of a podcaster sparked something within people, I have sat back wondering to myself—is this really it? Is this the environment that Jesus Christ died for? Is this the world that many individuals have decided to settle for in the name of a mascot Jesus that definitely ain’t my Jesus?
Maybe the statement must be an observation more than a command: stop sacrificing your Blackness for white approval.
Many white people would take this statement and suggest it is a racist statement. Listen close—whiteness is the condition that lifts flesh to an unrealistic place of dominance over someone or something. It’s not a color—it’s a culture. It’s a power structure that convinces people that they are superior simply because history told them so, and they never questioned the lie.
And what breaks my heart is how many of us have started believing the lie too. Somewhere along the line, we traded in the richness of our heritage for the comfort of assimilation. We began confusing acceptance with affirmation. But the truth is, you can be accepted into a system that never intends to affirm you. You can sit at the table and still be on the menu.
There is something spiritually violent about denying your own reflection just to be liked by those who benefit from your invisibility. It’s like trying to baptize yourself in someone else’s approval while drowning in your own denial.
We can’t keep selling our birthright for social media validation and proximity to whiteness. We can’t keep performing humility while our humanity gets trampled. We can’t keep calling it “unity” when what’s really happening is erasure.
When I look around, I see a generation trying to reconcile faith with a culture that has rewritten Jesus to fit its politics. The “mascot Jesus” being paraded in the public square is not the same Jesus who flipped tables, walked with the marginalized, and challenged empire. That Jesus—the one I know—never asked anyone to sacrifice their Blackness for belonging.
Many people have never looked at the nature of dominance as something that is not a part of the method or the ways of Christ. While some might agree with that sentiment, most people do not recognize how ingrained it is in their psyche, mentality, or theology.
Consider that people will continue to defend the lives of those who propagated hateful rhetoric 99% of the time but managed to craft the 1% for those who refuse to examine the totality of their existence. It makes me understand, in a greater sense, why people are so gung-ho about becoming apologists for this brand of Christianity.
The truth is that following and examining the life of Jesus closely will never require any human defense. This brand of religion has attempted to tell me that my importance will only be embraced when I deny myself. Yet the denial appears to be more about becoming a part of a monolith—which, by nature, is ungodly.
Why would I ever consent to denying the image and likeness that was given to me by God?
Why would I have to give away my uniqueness to make a community feel better about my existence in it?
You know, at this very moment, I finally realize why my anger and frustration with so-called followers has finally hit its fever pitch. I didn’t have to change. I didn’t have to give up my uniqueness. I finally see it.
This horrible virus that persists is the result of a source that knows it can’t thrive or survive in a world of color. In other words, lacking the true knowledge of self as God intends has created hatred for those who see themselves only through God’s eyes.
When you know yourself, no one can condition you.
When you are devoid of a sense of your unique self, you will attach to anything at the risk of forfeiting the God-given blessing of being you.
That price is way too high.
Give me the real Jesus and my identity that is found in Him.
Anything less is cheap, frail, and worthless.
What does it profit to gain the world and lose my soul?
Or what will I give in exchange for my soul?
Absolutely nothing.
Closing Reflection
So from this day forward, I choose freedom over fitting in. I choose truth over tolerance. I choose the Jesus who walks with the wounded and stands with the silenced. I choose to live as one made in the image and likeness of a God who never needed validation from empire.
If that choice costs me access, applause, or approval, so be it. My soul is not for sale, and my Blackness is not up for negotiation. I am who God created me to be—fully, fearfully, wonderfully. And that is more than enough.
Stop sacrificing your Blackness for white approval.
Walk boldly in the divine image that shaped you.
Because the world doesn’t need another imitation of power—
it needs a living reflection of truth.
Dr. Charles W. Ferguson 