Malcolm meets a half-sister who becomes a source of hope and inspiration.
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Tag: equality
Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 2, Pt 6
Everyone is proud when Malcolm is elected class president. But racial issues still pressed upon him.
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 1, Pt 7
Malcolm tells about how state welfare workers prepared to remove him from his family.
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Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Chpt 1, Pt 6
In this part of chapter 1, Malcolm talks about how state welfare workers strategized to destroy his family by turning the kids against his mother.
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 1, Pt 5
We continue the autobiography of Malcolm X. In this part of chapter 1, “Nightmare”, we hear about Halloween hijinks and gambling lessons.
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Is God A Hermaphrodite?
The gringa wonders, if there is a god, would such a being actually have a gender? I mean, if you are all powerful and omnipotent, you don’t need to pro-create, you just create. If your creation powers give you the ability to manifest every emotion and feeling, good or bad, then you wouldn’t need an intimate partner to experience feelings of ecstasy. You just make it happen. So why do the major monotheistic religions insist that god must be a guy?
The god of the Jews and the Christians is called by many names, like:
– Elohim (Hebrew for “Authority” singular & plural, considered a feminine synonym when used as a descriptor or genderless when used as a noun), El (Hebrew for Power & Sovereignty, masculine),
– El-Shaddai (Hebrew for God Almighty),
– Adonai (Hebrew for Lord),
– Christ (from the Greek Kyrios for Lord),
– God (from the Greek, Theos),
– Abba (Aramaic for Daddy).
Now, all of these names are man-made, hence the gringa’s sneaky suspicion that they have been masculinized for nefarious purposes.
The name god supposedly gave himself, referring to it in answer to Moses’ question of who the heck he was speaking to, Exodus 6:3, is best understood as YHWH (Yahweh is usually translated into the English version, Jehovah). The original spelling of the name god gave for himself has been purposely lost over time, considered by ancient Hebrews as being too powerful a name for mankind to actually know.
Often, after the first revealing of his name to Moses, the deity uses YHWH in conjuction with Elohim. When paired, YHWH is interpreted to signify the deity and Elohim as a descriptor of the deity, thus pairing masculine and feminine Hebrew words. This would indicate a self-given title representing a genderless god or, if you will, a being that is a blend of both gender characteristics, what many humans might call androgynous, or even a hermaphrodite. Truly, if there is a god, god would have no single gender. But the gringa thinks that god would also not be gender-LESS. Why create two genders to represent your “image” unless your image embodies both genders?
This type of gender balance was the norm for most ancient civilizations. It is only modern western civilizations that have masculinized god. Like the gringa said before, certainly for nefarious purposes. Once a culture can craft a justification to subjugate and oppress one class, women, it is closer to finding the means to subjugate and disempower all classes a society seeks to create. What does class division result in for society? Chaos as the oppressed forever seek to throw off the yoke of their oppressor.
Believers of any monotheistic religion are relying on a masculine god crafted by the pens of men who composed their holy texts. Such believers may want to question the nature of this theology. Just ask the right questions.
– Have such faiths contributed to a balanced, equitable and peaceful society or has such tenets resulted in the chaos of a rigid class-based society where those who are perceived as weaker are exploited and oppressed?
– What is it that their god actually wants adherents to achieve? Balance and equanimity or power struggles?
Some religious scholars who understand this hermaphrodite god principle find it difficult to think of god as embodying any form of sexuality. Instead of an androgynous hermaphrodite representing both sexes, they see god as without sex, gender-less.
A masculine god, a patriarchal deity is truly a god created in man’s image rather than a god who claimed that man and woman alike were created in the image of a god who cannot be defined by gender. The gringa knows where she stands on this issue. I will bow to no man, mortal or immortal.
Sources:
Image Credit: Exotic Indian Art
Video Credit: Balarama Lila Das
Malcolm X (Autobio.), Chpt 1, Pt 1
We begin the incredible life story of this powerful American, as told by Malcolm X to Alex Haley. In the first part of chapter 1, “Nightmare”, we learn that the terror of the KKK is one of Malcolm’s earliest memories.
Let’s read history together!
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