Faith in the mud

    Orishas, God, and Slums. Three words that have much more in common than we give credit for. What is incontestable is the link between old and new hip hoppers, be it from Brooklyn, Brooklin, New Orleans or Rio; Is the very strong faith in Christianity (albeit divorced from Old World Churches and heavily integrated into the marginal society), or religions of African Matrix such as Candomblé or Umbanda.

    For people who care to discuss about religion in the middle class dominated world that is the computer focused internet. There is very broadly two views of seeing this topic. Either unquestionable existence of God, and any person who portrays God in a different way of that from what the canon religious text says is a motif to be labeled as woke, infidel, heretics, etc etc you get the deal.

    And in counter-part you have people which is unquestionable the non-existence of God, and any way of seeing anything from a religion being done for good must surely have something bad in the background, so as for those people who do preach Religion are labeled as sheep being led by a shepherd subconsciously, and of course, i was one of those persons.

    I went all the way to mess with friends at school, to be talking about the Bible being a heavily modified book etc etc, , which yes, it is, but the point of religion is not logical thinking, and its fine. Its much easier for us to talk about kids being abused by priests in a church, or the eternal scandal that was the Vatican with Kings in Europe, all the corruption, ignorance and blood due to the defiance to Catholicism that is Protestantism and the equally vociferous reluctance of that defiance by the Vatican, but religion is not all that.

    The first churches built in the New World were built by religious missions, most notably the Jesuits; Which for a long time were the main administrators of the region that is today's Paraguay and undoubted influence in teaching and converting natives in Portuguese and Spanish America. Despite their willing ignorance of treating Africans with the same regards as the natives, they were by far the first to a penal colony called Brazil to try and put some ethical and moral teaching.

    The same religious order that preached for the bringing of millions of enslaved Africans to Brazil as to not hurt the natives (which were still hurt, but not by the Jesuits), is the same religious order that led to those descendants of enslaved Africans to put a cross and vesicles of the Bible in the front of a rap album by and for niggas of the slum:

"He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake" Psalm 23 Chapter 3.

    God is not a dogma to be followed, The belief in a God or gods is what guided humanity to become what it is today, and to give hope for those that society gives none, be it real or not it's effect are incontestable of being influential in our society, in what direction? Certainly a heavily discussed topic, but one thing that i can assure is that, as everything in life, it is not black or white.

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Part 2: Black and White doesn't exist

    This reflection that religion gave to me, not as something that I've converted to, but as as show of how i wasn't open minded. It is very easy to call itself open-minded, say that you accept each and every opinion, so why the fuck do you treat a topic that you don't care to know at all as something that you're benevolent to say that it is as bright as the sun or as dark as the void?

    The same age where the accessibility for each and every person to say what they want is somehow the same age where it gravitates to as few opinions as possibles in social media, a polarization that most people are to fault, but specially those who treat the people they disagree as dirty as Ad Hominem. The same age where we fight so much to protect democratic values but unquestionably try to subvert the opinion of others as somehow a defense of democracy?

    The same ignorance propagated by authoritarian regimes to people who they disagree with is the same ignorance propagated by posts in Instagram, X/Twitter by people both self-labeled as left or right wing. With every more ignorance on what people we disagree with might have ideas of.

     Capítulo 4 Versículo 3 is a very good example on what i don't mean. The literally in lyrics conflict of ideas between Mano Brown and Ice Blue is a really good example of opposite

 Ice Blue

Yesterday night I saw in the asphalt edge

Swallowing death, blowing life up high

Look at that worn out dudes... just skin and bones

Deep in the pit, grinding millstone in my pocket

 

Mano Brown

You see, nobody is more than anyone

You see, you see, and they are also our dawg

But of cocaine and crack, whisky and brandy

The dawg are killed very soon without a pride place

 

But who am I to talk about who sniff or who smokes?
I can't... I never gave to you any shit
You smoke what comes to you... clog your nose
Drinks all you see, Edi Rock: make the devil happy

    Nothing is Black and White, you can't talk about a kid who sniffes cocaine if thats the only way she can to distract herself, but you can talk how that kills the kid and how it fucks whatever little life she could have had, nothing is black and white.

    And as a disclosure, while i may not believe in god, i surely do believe in the teachings of a brown man that walked with the poor and humble, and that man was called Jesus.