From the Suffering (Black) Jesus to the Sacrilegious Yeezus: Representations of Christ in African-American Art and Religious Thought

FROM THE SUFFERING (BLACK) JESUS TO THE SACRILEGIOUS YEEZUS: REPRESENTATIONS OF CHRIST IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN ART AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT A Thesis by KEVIN WOOD PYON Submitted to the Graduate School at Appalachian State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2015 Department of English FROM THE SUFFERING (BLACK) JESUS TO THE SACRILEGIOUS YEEZUS: REPRESENTATIONS OF CHRIST IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN ART AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT A Thesis by KEVIN WOOD PYON May 2015 APPROVED BY: Bruce Dick, Ph.D. Chairperson, Thesis Committee Mark Vogel, Ph.D. Member, Thesis Committee Leon Lewis, Ph.D. Member, Thesis Committee Carl Eby, Ph.D. Chairperson, Department of English Max C. Poole, Ph.D. Dean, Cratis D. Williams School of Graduate Studies Copyright by Kevin Wood Pyon 2015 All Rights Reserved Abstract FROM THE SUFFERING (BLACK) JESUS TO THE SACRILEGIOUS YEEZUS: REPRESENTATIONS OF CHRIST IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN ART AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Kevin Pyon B.S., Piedmont International University B.A., High Point University M.A., Appalachian State University Chairperson: Bruce Dick Broadly definable as an interdisciplinary study of religion, music, literature, and history, this thesis analyzes the music of Kanye West and its evolution from the tradition of African-American art and religious thought. Tracing the roots of West’s rap music lyrically and thematically to its foundations in the slave songs, the blues, the literature/art of the Harlem Renaissance era, and the gangsta rap of Tupac Shakur, I explore how the catalog of his albums show a (post)modern evolution of African-American religious thought that first began in the slaves’ paradoxical re-appropriation of the hegemonic religion of their masters. Furthermore, I illustrate how West’s music evinces an evolution of the slaves’ divided religious identity and contributes to the subversions against the hegemony and oppression of white (supremacist) Christianity by African Americans throughout history. Methodologically, I employ the Du Boisian tropes of the veil and double consciousness and Gates’s literary theory of Signifyin(g) as interpretive frameworks to show through close textual analysis how black artists’ historical revisions of the figure of Jesus iv undoubtedly mark a subversion against white Christianity through a challenging of its bifurcated realms of the sacred/profane. Therefore, I focus on the manifestations of the figure of Jesus Christ throughout the lineage of African-American and religious thought and how his traditional function within Christianity has been subversively re-appropriated and re- deployed through re-significations and re-contextualizations of his physical color and metaphysical/metaphorical offices and roles. In tracing the evolutions of Jesus throughout black history, I show how the body of Christ has served as the site of socio-cultural, political, racial, and theological conflicts. In demonstrating how the frameworks of both race and religion interact and collide in the historical battles over the metaphysical significations and physical color of Christ, I emphasize how each representation of Christ—whether the massa Jesus of the slave songs, the black lynched Jesus of the Harlem Renaissance era, the Black Jesuz of Tupac Shakur’s gangsta rap, or the sacrilegious Yeezus/Jesus of Kanye West— reflects the contextual realities of African Americans. I illustrate how these changing representations of Jesus from one era to the next reveals the ways in which African Americans have both resisted against the hegemonic deployments of Christ(ianity) by white society and consistently drawn upon and revised their religious and artistic heritage. v Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank Dr. Bruce Dick for his advice and guidance not only for this thesis project, but throughout my entire time at ASU as a graduate student. Our many discussions on academia, African-American literature and music, and just life in general were truly invaluable to me. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Dr. Mark Vogel and Dr. Leon Lewis, for their time in reading manuscripts (oftentimes at very short notice) and providing helpful feedback. I must also express my sincerest gratitude to my friends and family. I feel very fortunate for the friends I’ve been able to make at this program—they’ve been a real pleasure to get to know and a constant source of encouragement and solidarity. Also, I would certainly not be where I am today without the unconditional love and hard work of my parents who have always allowed me to choose my own path in life yet still supported me no matter the outcome. And of course, I am foremost thankful for my wife Meredith whose love and encouragement have more than sustained me in all of my endeavors thus far. Her support as the beautiful mother of our son and my best friend in life will always overshadow any degree or certificate I could ever receive. Finally, I give thanks in all things to my Lord and Savior, whose presence fills this project. vi Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. vi Introduction: Historical Contexts, Previous Scholarship, and Methodology ..................... 1 Chapter 1: The Du Boisian Veil, Double Consciousness, and Gates’s Theory of Signifyin(g) as Interpretive Frameworks for African-American Religion …...42 Chapter 2: The Birth of the Divided African-American Religious Identity………………66 Chapter 3: The Slave Songs and Massa Jesus………………………..…………..……….99 Chapter 4: The Blues and the Deconstruction of (Black) Christianity…………………..129 Chapter 5: W.E.B. Du Bois, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Lynched Black Christ…………………………………………………………………………161 Chapter 6: Tupac Shakur and Kanye West: From Black Jesuz to Yeezus…………...…..208 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….………….251 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………………254 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………….269 vii 1 Introduction: Historical Contexts, Previous Scholarship, and Methodology Overview of Study The realms of the sacred and profane demarcate within historical Christianity the vast distance between holy God and sinful, fallen humanity. At its most basic understanding, the sacred—from either the Latin sanctus, the Greek hagios, or the Hebrew kadosh—refers to something “separated or set apart from other things” (Cunningham and Kelsay 28). Thus, in Biblical Christianity, God is “preeminently sacred or holy, and everyone else and everything else is holy or sacred only in relation to God” (28). Because this binary delineates the relationship between sacred God and profane humanity, it is foundational to Christian doctrine, theology, and ecclesiastical practices. However, the impact of the bifurcated realms of the sacred/profane is not merely limited to the internal practices of a given church or group of religious people; even more so, this qualitatively opposite yet inseparable pairing plays a significant role in creating the very societies and cultures in which we live. As Russell McCutcheon and William Arnal state: “…the use of [this binary pair]…makes a historically specific social world possible to imagine and move within, a world in which we can judge some actions as safe or dangerous, some items as pure or polluted, some knowledge as private or public, and some people as friend or foe” (119). Consequently, this function of the sacred/profane to make “a historically specific social world possible to imagine and move within” can certainly be seen in the troubled history of the United States (119). Throughout the tumultuous forging of the nation, the ways in which 2 Christianity was enforced upon social, cultural, and political life ultimately entailed the establishment of what was considered sacred and what was considered profane. In relation to the institution of slavery, what resulted was the subjugation of African-Americans through, in part, the institution of Christianity. Indeed, it is common knowledge the complex relationship between the institutions of slavery and Western Christianity and the manner in which the latter both perpetuated systems of racism and led the charge for abolitionism. We understand, for example, that slaveowners eventually encouraged their slaves to practice Christianity in order to stymie any potential resistance within them. They sought to draw their slaves’ attention to Biblical mandates of obedience to masters and reorientate their focus away from the misery of slavery to the hopes of an afterlife. Nevertheless, despite the oppressive intents of the slaveowners, what is astonishing is the appropriation of Christianity by those slaves themselves to subvert their owners and their hegemonic employment of religion. Christianity did not become for the African-American slaves a Marxian opium taken to dull or ease the painful realities of slavery; rather, it became a critical tool in which they resisted against those terrible conditions of slavery. As the historical progression of black arts and religious thought has demonstrated since then—from postbellum America to the Civil Rights Movement—African Americans have continued to fight against the oppression brought on by white Western Christianity through a subversion of Christianity. Whether in the music of the slave songs or the literature and art of the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans have consistently and remarkably

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