The Pew Research Center confirms a trend nearly every US survey conducted over the last twenty-five years has shown: the remarkable decline in religiosity and deference to religious institutions and dogma within American society. Black Americans (despite a much slower decline) are no different.
I am an artist first. A singer-songwriter, musician, arranger and producer. But I am also a humanist; a critical thinker, self-identified with the tradition of revolutionary Black Freethinkers and powerhouses before me from Makandal to Frederick Douglass, Hubert Harrison, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Sikivu Hutchinson and so many more.
I lend my voice to this cause blending artistry and activism. World history, US history and my personal history demands this. And while I have been called every name in the book by many of my fellow Black Americans, their misunderstandings, bigotry and ignorance cannot be my preoccupation. I speak with the same voice of resistance as the ancestors previously mentioned; the ancestors that helped bind the hands of the oppressor and gain liberation for ourselves and our families. I speak with a prophetic voice, not borne of superstition but of the realization of what current circumstances, trends and history predict vis-a-vis demonstrable facts and precedents. Black History is alive and well within me and I will always be proud of standing up for myself and the dignity of reason, autonomy and ethics. For these things, as well as my art, will be my legacy.
_____________________ -Rogiérs 🎵 www.FibbyMusic.net
Host, Where We’re Headed, Podcast wwh.podbean.com
Director, Black Secular Collective (DC)
