I recently highlighted a June 5 Tweet from @GodlessGuyX, a black man,who said:

God is an idea that has failed to liberate anyone. I only wish more people of African descent would admit as much. #blackatheist#atheism

I was moved by this statement because as a student of the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Black Codes, the Jim Crow laws and the struggle for civil rights in the 20th century, one might think that black folks would warm to the precepts of progressivism, and yes, nonbelief, because it is clear as day that it was those ideals, not conservative policies, that ultimately helped lead African Americans out of bondage, both literally, socially and politically.

And further, I find it striking that black people, by and large, continue the onward Christian soldier march when it was Christians who historically initiated and supported the continuation of the slave trade and the plantation economy that supported the South in the 17th and 18th centuries. Further still, believers have been on the front lines arguing against the rights of black people (in modern times, Hispanics and now, gays) through the generations. And all the while, surprisingly, folks of African descent have largely embraced Christianity and the god that has failed to liberate anyone, and actually according to the Bible, indentured servitude is A-OK.

I have yet to touch on spiritual freedom, but as I have said before, from the Christian perspective, humans have no freedom. One either accepts the story of Christ and lives forever or he burns. From this perspective, there is no free will, just extortion. So that even more compounds the problem of why more African Americans don’t realize that they are supporting their own worst enemy, which has historically been not just the state, but as ever, religion.