Everything Old is New Again
Writing a blog is hard for me because, in order to be motivated or inspired to write, I need to envision my audience. Envisioning that the audience is all black people is too large. The audience has to be smaller, more personal, more focused. So I’ll narrow down the audience as if I’m writing a love letter to my sweetheart.
Black women love a good love story. Black men love a good adventure. Both are in The Exodus Love Letters.
My love letters are written to a black man. With a good job. Trying to juggle black consciousness while keeping his job. And I’m trying to convince him about reparations. And repatriation.
Stories must have a conflict that needs resolution. My love story is no different: He wants to stay in America. I want to go. Are some things bigger than the love between a man and a woman? Yes. And no.
Everything old is new again. God is telling Moses to tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go. Reparations was secondary. Most important was that the children of Israel had to leave Egypt. Moses didn’t ask for Pharaoh to simply free the slaves and allow them to stay in Egypt. God didn’t command simply their freedom. He commanded the children of Israel to go to the Promised Land.
The exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt into Canaan would seem like God ordained white supremacy if the children of Israel only looked like Ashkenazi Jews. After all, in Hebrew, Egypt is called Mizraim, one of the sons of Ham. Canaan is another son of Ham. Ham is Noah’s black son. (Or were all of Noah’s sons black?) Evidence that the Canaanites were black comes from a photo of a statue of El, the god of the Canaanites. The statue photographed dates back to 1300 B.C.E., and is currently on display at the Oriental Museum of the University of Chicago. People created in the image of God would reflect that image into a god that looks like them. But the god of the Canaanites is also the God of the Israelites. We know this by the name of our founding father, nation, and Promised Land, IsraEl. The people, the land, and their God are one.
If the children of Israel were all as white as the Ashkenazi Jews are today, then God ordained whites to invade and displace blacks out of their land. However, Moses passed as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. As I said before, the Egyptians were black. The Egyptians were an intelligent people who built sphinxes and pyramids. It would be hard for Moses to pass as a black man and fool an intelligent people if he was white.
Fast forward 3300+ years: I did my DNA. It confirmed what I already knew instinctively. My matrilineal line descended from the Ethiopian Jews. My father’s matrilineal line descends from West Africa to the Near East. My father’s patrilineal line descended from the Sephardic Jews. My family’s bloodline is evidence that at least some of the Jews during Moses’ time were black like me.
God told Abraham that Abraham’s children would be slaves in a land that is not theirs, and would be oppressed, for 400 years, but afterwards, God would judge the nation that oppressed them, and Abraham’s children would leave that land with great substance.
Everything old is new again. Like the profound Israelite author, Ella Hughley, wrote, “Prophecy, like history, repeats itself.” I am one of Abraham’s children. My people became enslaved in the U.S. in 1619. The 400th anniversary of the United States’ involvement in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade comes in 2019, a little more than 4 years away. If God cannot lie, then during the next 4 years, the world should see:
- America judged.
- African American Jews’ exodus to the Promised Land.
- All African Americans receive reparations.
So this blog will be the love story of a black man and a black woman. Prophecy is like a commandment. Not only does the Scripture say we will go, implicit is that we should go. Can the black woman convince the man she loves to come with her? Tune in next time for the continuing saga of The Exodus Love Letters.
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