ABSTRACT

In 1971, The Last Poets gave name to a psychosocial system of belief prevalent in the United States, in which race, gender, wealth, and other factors cause some people to act as if they are gods and others to become sacrificial offerings to these “gods.” They asked: Who’s gonna die next?, ‘cause the white man’s got a god complex.3 Their lyrics describe in ethnographic fashion the precarious living conditions faced by black folk across the United States. “Silent niggas scream for help” as social options run scarce and people turn to gambling, drug dealing, and other avenues of the underground economy to get by in impoverished conditions. Dying as consequence of direct alienation from the “white man’s” resources, or through the social maladies enacted as a need to make a little scratch, in every direction turned, black folk are getting killed by this god complex. The Last Poets saw death all around them, poverty and racism suffocating any possibility of flourishing, and all of it, they said, was “‘cause the white man’s got a god complex.” Fast forward over forty years, the complexities of this complex are still not

overcome, and black people continue to bear a disproportionate brunt of the

negative effects of things white Americans believe. This chapter takes up the task of outlining certain features of this complex, including that it is maintained by many if not most Americans; it has a longstanding historical precedent in the founding of American society and religion; it unifies socially by dividing; it cultivates social power or the sense of it; it reproduces itself automatically; it allows those who believe in god to try and act like god; violence and death are always necessitated by it; it operates and functions as a system – and perhaps, it also might not be working as effectively as it once did. But the violence it brings shows no signs of slowing. This chapter first empirically and demographically situates White Lies’ primary

data set as “white,” often “male,” and “theistic.” I then focus attention on defining theism as belief in the idea of “god,” where I underscore the contextual and shifting nature of theism in the United States. The fact that the meaning and usefulness of the idea of god shifts over time and space, from my vantage point, suggests that “god” for white theists is best understood as an ideological placeholder for society. This would also suggest that theism, then, is not belief in god, but is belief in the idea of god. That is, theism is belief in the functional utility of belief. I then apply the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann to unpack certain significant features of white theism operating within (and as) the white man’s god complex. These features include the effects of belief in belief, and the requirement of second order observations for understanding and protecting society as god. That is, believing in belief (instead of “god”) makes the idea of god appear to correspond to reality. Such functions, it becomes aware, require sacrifices, rooted in the ultimate sacrifice – physical life. Sighting these functions requires taking a “god’s eye view” of the system, of the white man’s god complex, which reinforces belief as able to impact the social world. In light of these findings, I conclude by arriving at yet another instance of twilight, this time the twilight of theism, where it grows apparent that sacrifice is inescapable – what will be sacrificed remains to be seen.