There’s a scene in "The Best Man Holiday" that captures something quietly powerful... something deeply intrinsic to Black identity in America. It’s not just about style or charisma; it’s about presence. About how, even under layers of grief, joy, struggle, and celebration, Black people embody a rhythm and resilience that moves the cultural needle of an entire nation. We are, undeniably, the soul of America. We are its music, its style, its edge, and often, its conscience. Our cool is not superficial... it is the expression of something ancient, spiritual, and enduring.
Yet amid all that we give to this country - our labor, creativity, genius, and culture - we remain fractured in some of the most essential ways. One of the most pressing, yet least addressed, is the financial hemorrhage that drains our collective power. Each month, Black Americans donate billions of dollars to Christian institutions, often with no tangible return on investment to our own communities. These offerings are not insignificant; they represent the wealth of working-class families, the earnings of single mothers, the hopes of grandparents tithing from their fixed incomes. But where does all that money go?
The hard truth is that much of it flows out of our communities and into institutions that do not uplift us... institutions that historically have stood complicit in colonization, slavery, and the continued marginalization of Black lives. A staggering portion of these funds are absorbed by larger denominational networks and global religious entities, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican... centers of power that have done little to address or atone for their role in centuries of oppression. This is not just a matter of poor accounting; it is a misalignment of our spiritual values and our economic priorities.
This isn’t an attack on faith. Faith is vital. It’s the bedrock of survival for many in the Black community. But we must ask harder questions about the systems through which that faith is practiced and funded. Are our tithes building schools in our neighborhoods? Are they feeding our hungry? Are they housing our homeless? Or are they underwriting empires built on colonial conquest and doctrinal domination? If our contributions are not nourishing our people, healing our wounds, or securing our future, then we are not honoring the divine... we are fueling a machine that once enslaved us and now exploits us in subtler ways.
We cannot continue to sow so much into institutions that give so little back. Our spirituality is sacred. Our money is powerful. When those two things are aligned with clear vision and purpose, we can build something unstoppable... schools, hospitals, mutual aid networks, mental health centers, political action funds. But as long as we confuse faith with blind loyalty, and confuse sacrifice with silence, we will remain spiritually inspired but structurally impoverished.
Now is the time to wake up... not just emotionally or intellectually, but economically. It is time to reclaim our resources and redirect our offerings toward institutions that reflect our struggle, our triumphs, our identity, and our future. The divine does not live in marble cathedrals built by slave labor. The divine lives in us. And it’s time we built temples worthy of our people.
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