"Christianity and Black Oppression," New York City, Feb. 8, 2013

Christianity and Black Oppression:
Duppy Know Who Fe Frighten
Zay D Green

February 8th, 2013 7:30 PM,
Brecht Forum, New York City

"Christianity and Black Oppression: Duppy Know Who Fe Frighten" presents the argument: How is it that Blacks have been Christianized for more than four hundred years and yet Blacks are stereotyped as morally and mentally inferior. At the very first encounter between Europeans and Africans, Africans were perceived as “pagan”, “heathen”, “devil worshippers”.

The tool that would transform Africans, it was postulated, would be the Christian religion. In spite of over four centuries of Christianity, the perception of Blacks as morally and mentally inferior has not changed. Blacks, it would appear, carry a stigma that is genetic and therefore can be transmitted.

"Christianity and Black Oppression: Duppy Know Who Fe Frighten" also addresses the issue as to why there has not been a radical change in the perception of Blacks in spite of centuries of Blacks’ investment of an inordinate amount of time, energy, and money in the Christian religion. Blacks were forced to surrender their African world view and adopt a Christian European dominated world view. Black history and culture are marginalized, and at times demonized, within Christianity and this is transmitted to other areas of the lives of Blacks. Indeed in this work, a comparison is made between the Dalits of India who are ostracized within the Hindu religion and Blacks who share the commonality of oppression that is based on a stigma that is supposedly genetic.

In the light of the fact that Christianity is considered to be an egalitarian religion, with a God who is benevolent and who intervenes in peoples’ lives and the reality of black oppression, the question then arises as to whether blacks are subjected to “divine racism.”

Zay D. Green is currently a High School Mathematics teacher. She was also a Librarian for many years. After attending Wolmer’s High School for Girls in Kingston, Jamaica where she grew up, Ms Green pursued a Bachelor’s Degree and a Diploma in Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Ms. Green also holds the M.A. in Psychology from Long Island University, New York and the M.L.S. degree from Rutgers University, New Jersey.