A Gift Grows in the Ghetto (Jay-Paul Hinds) - A Review
A GIFT FROWS IN THE GHETTO: Reimagining the Spiritual Lives of Black Men. By Jay-Paul Hinds. Foreword by Gregory C. Ellison II. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2022. Viii + 167 pages.
Living,
as we are, at a time when addressing the reality of systemic racism and
injustice—even as we continue to witness the deaths of young black men at the
hands of police officers—is considered by some as being "woke," we
face the question of how we might address the possibilities of “reimaging the
spiritual lives of Black men”? We are witnessing attempts by some to protect a
certain inherited vision of American life, by disregarding the realities of our
national history and its non-white population. The truth is, America's history
is complex, and systems have existed and continue to exist that have pushed
members of society to the margins. That is especially true of African American
men. The question for those Black men living in the ghetto is whether God is
involved or present. This is a question that as a white male who has lived in
small towns and suburbs cannot truly answer, for this is not my story. I can
listen and learn, but never completely understand. This is especially true in
the current context.
I read
Jay-Paul Hinds' book A Gift Grows in the Ghetto with an openness to
learn more about the realities of the spiritual lives of Black men. The author
of this book is an assistant professor of pastoral theology at Princeton
Seminary. In this book, Hinds brings his training in psychology to his exploration
of the spiritual lives of Black men, especially those who live in and
experience the ghetto. He begins the book, in his introduction, by sharing how
the judicial system in Los Angeles, back in the day of Rodney King (I was
living in Southern California at the time), approached Black men with the
acronym NHI (No Human Involved). That acronym enabled members of the police
force to beat Rodney King nearly to death, for in their eyes he was not a human
being. Unfortunately, it appears that this view of things is still present in
some police departments. While this acronym is the starting point, he turns it
on its head to explore the reality of living in a ghetto. In this context a different
acronym held court. That acronym is NGI or “No God Involved.” In other words,
for many Black men living in the ghetto, God is not present.
Hinds
writes this book as a way of discerning how God is present in the ghetto and
the lives of Black men. What NGI has done is give "Christian clergy and
laypersons the authority, so to speak, to enact spiritual violence against
those deemed godless." (p. 7). In response to the realities of the ghetto
experience, Hinds wishes to reimagine the lives of Black men as a gift. He does
so with the person of Ishmael in mind. He seeks to reimagine the ghetto, which
is a place of separation and abandonment, in terms of the wilderness that Ishmael
experienced after Abraham expelled him and his mother from their home. While
life in the ghetto can be experienced as a place of despair, Ishmael discovered
in the wilderness a place of growth. That is because Ishmael was nourished by
his relationship with God who met him in the wilderness. The question here is
how black men can be nourished through a relationship with God in the
wilderness that is the ghetto.
Hinds
brings a multi-disciplinary approach to this conversation about the spiritual
lives of Black men. He draws on his study of psychology, social sciences, and
biblical studies. With these disciplines in hand, Hinds starts this
conversation in chapter one, which he titles "I WAS A MAN NOW," by
exploring the dominant images of African American manhood. More specifically,
he takes note of images such as Sambo and Uncle Tom. I learned a lot about
these images, which overturned some of my own earlier presuppositions about
these images. The point here, from Hinds’ perspective, is that many have found
the need for new models of Black manhood. Thus, we move in chapter 2 to one of
those efforts to develop a new model, that is the image of the hero. Here Hinds
brings into the conversation a look at Freud’s vision of the hero, reflecting on
Freud's own realities of relationships with other males that underscore his
vision of the hero. In examining this image, Hinds invites us to consider the
question of incompleteness that many men feel. To do this, he uses the story of
Richard Wright's experience with his father as a way of entering into this
conversation. The problem for both Freud and Wright is that their fathers never
“provided them with the gift of heroic manhood.” What they failed to see is
that their reality as sons was a gift. He writes that “The ghetto has become
the place where gifts, both fathers and sons, are cast away to suffer the
sorrow of completeness left unwrapped, unloved, and unfulfilled” (p. 67).
Having
examined various models of manhood that have failed to undergird the spiritual
lives of Black men, Hinds moves in chapter three to examine the nature of the
ghetto itself. He makes note of the origins of the term in attempts to
segregate Jews in Europe, which becomes a reality in the United States after
the Great Migration led to the movement of Black folks from the South to
northern cities (such as Detroit). The image of the ghetto as laid about by many
experts is that the ghetto is marked by the presence of disorganized families
that are largely single-parent in nature. What this means is that for many the
ghetto reality is imaged in terms of broken families marked by absent fathers
and families headed by Black women. The
unfortunate result of this reality for many Black men is that they often end up
expressing their manhood in destructive ways. Hinds speaks of a "code of
the street" that has failed to help these men address the challenges of
ghetto life.
Having
laid out these images and realities, we turn in chapter 4 to an attempt on
Hinds’ part to bring the images of the wilderness and gifts together in
conversation. This is the point where Hinds specifically attempts to reimagine
the spiritual lives of young Black men. This is where Hinds turns from social
analysis to theology. To do this, Hinds takes note of the diverse ways in which
the wilderness is understood by biblical scholars. He notes that the wilderness
is often portrayed as a place of desolation where nothing can grow,
Nevertheless, the wilderness is also understood to be a place of spiritual
transformation. This is seen in the story of Hagar and Ishmael, which Hinds
believes is undervalued. I found this chapter especially helpful, in part
because he brings to the fore the image and reality of Ishmael in ways that I
had not previously noticed. He points out that even in Black theology, Hagar
and Ishmael's experience of the wilderness is undervalued because the emphasis
has been placed on the Exodus event. But the experience of Hagar and Ishmael
opens up a very intriguing conversation about divine encounters and giftedness.
As we
move into chapter 5, Hinds expands this conversation about gifts. While the
primary diagnosis of the challenges of Black men in the ghetto is attributed to
poor mental health, something Hinds acknowledges, he wants to add back into the
conversation the spiritual dynamic. In doing this, he asks whether, in the
context of the ghetto, young Black men can know God's presence in their lives
and their surroundings. In answering this question, he again draws on the
giftedness experienced by Ishmael in the wilderness. He points out that, unlike
Isaac, Ishmael never went through the weaning ceremony that ushered him into
manhood. However, in his divine encounters in the wilderness, God ushered him
into manhood. The question here is whether and how Black men can discover their
identity through their encounter with God so that they might find life and not
just experience despair in the ghetto.
Finally,
when we come to chapter 6, which Hinds titles "Warning: God Don't Like
Ugly," he brings to a conclusion the connection of the ghetto to the
wilderness, and in doing so connects the lives lived by Ishmael and Black men.
Here Hinds addresses how the wilderness image has been rejected in the past but
could be an important space for divine encounters. In this case, Ishmael can be
a model for reimagining the spiritual lives of Black men. In the end, Hinds
seeks to address the presupposition of NGI (No God Involved) in the reality of
the Ghetto. For Hinds, hope can be experienced in the ghetto by experiencing
the gift that is the divine encounter. He wants Black men to understand that
the gift lies within them. That gift is experienced in the recognition that
"God takes an active role in developing [that gift] so that we can find a
sense of home even in a desolate place" (p. 134).
I read A Gift Grows in the Ghetto from the social location of being a white man who
has never experienced the ghetto or the reality of what it means to be a Black
man, especially a Black man living in the ghetto. While this is my personal
experience, it’s possible to listen and learn even if I cannot fully
understand. In some ways, because this book doesn’t describe anything close to
my experience, it’s difficult to review this book. While this is true, I did
find it to be enlightening. Hopefully, it can prove helpful to the larger
church so that the churches can discover the resources to help Black men
encounter God even in the ghetto, a place understood to be marginalized where
despair is the order of the day. Even there, if understood in terms of
wilderness and Ishmael's encounters with God, we can believe that God can be
encountered in the ghetto. Therefore, the gift of personhood can be reclaimed
and reimagined as a result. While it may seem that for some of us, A Gift Grows in the Ghetto is written for someone else, there is much here that
can speak to all of us, whatever our social location. For that reason, I highly
recommend it.
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