“Conjecture on the Stained-Glass Image of White Christ at Ebenezer Baptist Church''
For this poem I chose “Conjecture on the Stained-Glass Image of White Christ at Ebenezer Baptist Church''. This poem starts off with a verse from 1 Corinthians 12:23 white states that we are “all baptized into one body”. I believe he Wicker chose to start with this because if we really are all baptized into one body then why does racism still exist, why is our mainstream image of Jesus - a Jewish man from the middle east - white with blond hair and blue eyes.
Going deeper into the poem Wicker constantly pulls specific words and phrases from the bible. An example of this is “If in his image made am I,” he talks about how we are made in God's image and he constantly repeats this theory and the word “make”. He depicts that what he wants is to be seen, in the example he gives they are things that people would notice - a miracle, the body of a 28 - year old black woman.
Further on he also notes our 'sins’, “blood on leaves, insides diamond mines, in under-developed mineral rich countries” I believe this is to further evaluate that we are not made in God's image if we are still sinners. We as people are not made of his image for we do not hold the same morals, we are still mortal and creating blasphemes which Wicker points out.
Towards the end he begins to talk about death and how widely it is seen. The line “Why crucify me in HD '' points out how as a society we have become numb to trauma, we know longer need to hide death away instead have it play on the 6 o'clock news. This perfectly ties into the last line, “a bucket shot full of holes, I’ve been made to believe?”, which I believe is Wicker tieing in school shootings and how the media and people in power only send ‘hope and prayers’ instead of actual aid.