What Does Loving Our Blackness Really Mean?

God handcrafted us. Because we are divinely made, our Blackness is too. Theologian James Cone teaches, "In a world that has taught blacks to hate themselves, the new black man does not transcend blackness, but accepts it, loves it as a gift of the Creator."

Have you accepted your Blackness as a gift? 

Committing to loving our own and each other's Blackness is a gift that propels us toward liberation. 1 John 4:11-12 reminds us that: “...since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us.” 

Because He is a God of majesty and might, we can't help but tap into divine powers when we see the God in us. We must harness the power of our love and use it to answer this critical call. 

According to James Cone, the call we must answer asks us to love ourselves and Blackness so much that we question anyone outside the community who says they love us but doesn’t see us as whole beings worthy of political, social, and economic justice. 

Our love doesn’t have to be given willingly to the systems that oppress us. We can reserve it for ourselves and our community. 

We move differently when we live like God lives in us. Let’s wrap each other in true love by accepting Blackness as a gift and using it to build a loving, liberated world hand-in-hand.