In the moment | September 14, 2025 | Rev. Hassaun Ali Jones-Bey

Between 165 and 300 years ago, there was a Genesis. About 100 years ago, there was an Exodus. About 65 years ago there was a Gospel. Judgement started about 50 years ago and is still going on. I’m obviously not talking about the Bible, even though I’m using biblical terminology.

That’s because the Bible is not just a history of one people, of one culture. Even if it were, what I’m about to say will suggest that major categories of development, such as the biblical ones, are generalizable—that different groups of people tend to go through the same, or at least similar categories of development.

What I’m talking about is American history. Now some people would like to say, “it’s just Black American history,” and to the degree that they can show me a separate geography of an independent place called Black America, I might be inclined to agree. I used to think that way myself, until I started running into histories like this one that were obviously aiming at all of American history, not just a supposed white part or Black part.

For instance, from colonial times up through at least the Civil War, there was a Genesis period in which Africans of diverse ethnicities came together under the hardships of common enslavement to create the new ethnicity of Black or African Americans. During the same period, however, Europeans of various ethnicities, in order to escape and in many cases profit from the hardships of enslavement (and of Black codes, which followed enslavement), came together in the new ethnicity of white or Euro-American. So, the Genesis and the other categories as well are American history, but they belong to a total history that seldom if ever gets told.

One reason that certain histories have been kept and others have not, have to do with preferred record-keeping and publishing methods for a particular culture or empire. In other words the stories of victors get told because the victors’ ways of telling stories are continued and empowered while others are not. So, what this history does to approach a history of everyone is combine cycles and themes of Black music (particularly sacred music in which African roots are evident) with the written histories of white European culture in America.

In the Genesis cycle—that extends historically up through the Civil War—as mentioned previously, white and Black Americans were created. The African banjo found its way to the heart of what would later become known as American Roots Music, and “blackface minstrelsy” successfully commodified and sold the first music that was recognized internationally as American, which included Negro spirituals.

But the key fact is that this was an American genesis from many different ethnicities. The black vs. white vs. red and so on can actually be seen in retrospect as major flaws in the process of coming together. Unfortunately such flaws were continued and enhanced because they enriched a relative minority at the considerable and increasing expense of the majority. This is why we need a total history. So that we can see the flaws clearly and correct them, rather than repeating and enhancing them.

The end of slavery at the end of the Civil War was a corrective step taken while the flaws were still visible, but the failure of reconstruction and the enactment of black codes began the repetition of flaws once again—this time with sharecropping and a primitive convict system replacing slavery.

So the Genesis was followed by an Exodus of Black folks, a so-called Great Migration, from peasantry and persecution in fertile southern river valleys to hoped for jobs and freedom in port cities, often in the north. The music of this cycle was the blues, an African musical dialect translated into Western language and conventions.

The thing about the music of course was that it crossed artificial boundaries, such as race—just as it had created the beginnings of American Roots Music and the first music internationally recognized as American. Now that it was in port cities, it pretty much created a Gospel, bringing musics and people together around the world: rock and roll, rhythm and blues, jazz, and salsa to name just a few.

The Exodus, or Great Migration, as well as the Gospel, are still going on and are not—if they ever were—limited to Black people. Many of the colonists that came to the Americas in the first place were escaping persecution. Native Americans suffered a massive forced Exodus from native lands to reservations. Even today, farmers are being forced from their lands economically. Once again to profit a relative few, at a much larger cost to everyone else.

The Gospel spawned global movements for civil and human rights, for ecological stewardship, and for world peace. It is interesting that every one mentions the “British Invasion” of the American music scene in the 1960s. The fact that these youthful British musicians successfully invaded America, playing none other than the African American blues tends to get lost in the public discussion however.

Part of this is due to the fact that the music recording industry grew out of a “race records” industry, which separated the sale and even the production of music to fit the racial categories of the larger economy. In other words, the system continued and enhanced systemic flaws, to also continue handsomely profiting a relative few at the great cost of the clueless and thus helpless many.

Still the Exodus and Gospel cycle undid the Black codes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those who profited from the flaws replaced the black codes almost immediately with massive, for-profit incarceration, destruction of neighborhoods, and new, cheap drugs. Inner city youth responded with a hip-hop social movement to bring people together amicably, socially. It was literally like the “square dancing” that brought people together in rural environments.

Those who profited from the flaws, however, made it into a multi-billion dollar industry with a totally opposite focus. The focus was on destruction, and to make it large enough to be profitable, the almost totally Black performances were marketed to a predominantly white audience. “Gangsta rap” was born. Such is the current cycle of Judgement. Young people denied the opportunity to educate and train in Western musical and linguistic culture express—knowingly or not—what the culture has taught them.

This is not new. It happens in every generation, in every culture. Youth faithfully and proudly reproduce and display what they have been taught. Those who profit from the flaws would have us think that there is something wrong with the youth. Mature judgement, which belongs to everyone and is everyone’s responsibility indicates that the system is the problem. Even though hip-hop (and Gangsta rap as well) has strong African rhythmic roots, the problem it addresses is not an African problem. Blaming the Black messenger, will not solve the problem.

Today we are blaming the messenger instead of solving the problem, instead of correcting the obvious flaws that make a few people insanely rich at the even more insane expense of everyone else. The opposing paths are just as clear biblically as they are in the world of for-profit prisons, global warming, and international warfare, except for one thing. The biblical paths are a model. The world is real.

Models only approximate. They are like music. Exactitude, being exact with everything from the response to the timing, demands reality in the moment. And that’s what we are faced with. So, there’s not much point in waiting to see a pointed red tail and a pitch fork to distinguish the bad guys. They’ve read the same models. So they are likely to show up with a halo and wings, just to keep everyone guessing, while they continue to profit from the same old flaws.

Perhaps the thing to say about reality is that it’s in the moment, and in every moment a new generation is learning from an older generation. And that may be the most important thing. The people who profit from flaws seem to have that down to a science. Maybe that’s because it’s a lot easier to pretend that a model is reality than to work effectively and compassionately to wake oneself and others up in the real world.

I say compassionately because we all effectively breathe the same air and drink the same water. We are only tasked to ultimately be compassionate with our own selves and teach the same to the next generation. Teach them to avoid the trap of confusing freedom with independence. Interdependence is the life-saving truth that we must all learn, either the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is in life lessons passed down from the previous generation. The hard way is in life lessons that come from doing it wrong, especially if what was passed down from the previous generation was not quite true—more model than reality.