Black Morality

bell hooks, in her Rock My Soul:Black People and Self-Esteem reports on statements made by Black psychologists, William Greer and Price Cobbs in their book,The Jesus Bag. Taking the title of this post from bell's passage on this, I think that their assessment and pronouncement here is beautiful and should be noted. Grier and Cobbs state,

"Religion lost its hold on some of us and the rage binding conscience was no longer effective. In a fury, we burst into the streets. We had survived the oppression and we now have survived the riots. Where we were once ashamed of the scars we n ow see them as badges of honor. We looked into ourselves and, even more, looked deep into white America. Our flaws, which we were taught to hide in shame, were in the flaws of this nation. The hatred we had of ourselves was minor placed alongside white folks' hatred of us. Were once we saw ourselves as deformed and debased, we now see how much more deformed and debased is the white bigotry that has so hurt us. Black people who all that time had tried futilely to turn themselves inside out have now upened up the festering wound of America and see that it is America which has most need of healing."