I could feel her confusion jump from South Carolina all the way to California. “I think I want - … I think I’m going to get baptized again.” “Hey, ma,” I said, excitement rubbing the insides of my throat. Related Story ‘Logged In’: Lil Nas X shocks Twitter, Kanye West’s White Lives Matter T-shirt, and Uno shenanigans Read nowĪ few days before I’d decided to be born anew, I called my mama to tell her about my decision. When I came up “new,” I was not Black – I was Christian, they said. When I went down in that cold water, I never noticed a curious thing about that day: I was one of only two Black men in the congregation of at least 100. I’d given up the old things - the Holy Ghost-powered sweaty praise breaks the long, erotic sermons that blended liberative jeremiad and Jesus the mothers of the church passing a dollar here or there the stories grandaddy told of Black country people defying the worst of white country hatred. When I came up, stripped of the “blackness” of my own soul (or so they thought), the whole congregation clapped. They immersed my body in the baptismal pool. I raised my hand as the music played, a soft mellow bounce between bluegrass and cultlike chants.
The lights were dim as the pastor walked across the stage, asking the congregation who wanted to be baptized. The California sun brightened the insides of the church that sat on a hill in Monterey. I remember the first time I wanted to be white.
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