When I was younger, I battled with low self-esteem. Society and the media often overlooked the beauty of dark-skinned girls, making it hard for me to see myself in the princess movies or cartoons I loved. I couldn’t find anyone who looked like me in my favorite TV shows either. Even my male friends and family would casually mention how they thought light-skinned women were more beautiful than dark-skinned women.
When my mom realized how deeply this was affecting me, she stepped in to teach me Psalms 139.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
I’ll never forget the day my mom taught me those life-changing words that healed my broken heart. I was probably in 7th or 8th grade, just starting to get into fashion and collecting fashion magazines. One day, my mom introduced me to Roshumba, one of the most famous supermodels of that time. She was dark-skinned with a short afro. My mom wanted me to see someone who looked like me, someone being celebrated for her natural beauty. Seeing Roshumba marked the beginning of my journey to love the way God had created me.
From there, my mom kept showing me images of Black and brown women in magazines, on TV, in art, and beyond. She even took me shopping at an African boutique called Gallery Africa. Whenever I had the chance, I’d go there to buy earrings, dresses, and anything that reflected my growing love for how I was made and my African roots.
I still carry that same deep love for my dark skin, my curly hair, and my Black and African roots. But I have no desire to force others to love it at the expense of their own heritage. I don’t want to silence anyone else’s experiences because I believe mine is the only one worth hearing. Nor do I want to isolate myself from other ethnicities just to focus solely on my own community. Instead, I want to share my truest self with others, and I want others to feel safe sharing their authentic selves with me.
The moment I start thinking my heritage holds more value than anyone else’s—so much so that I feel no need to humbly see others—that’s the moment I’ve stepped into nationalism.
Nationalism is more than just loving the skin you’re in or embracing the heritage you come from. It takes a love for how God has created us to be and becomes oppressive and divisive. Some people believe that in order to truly love your own people, you have to hate everyone else. We see the dangers of nationalism in the life of Marcus Garvey, who advocated for Black people to become more Afrocentric and for Blacks and Whites to stay apart. He felt so strongly about this separation that he met with the KKK to discuss ways to keep us apart. The moment I learned that, I began to distance myself from Black Nationalism. Any time anyone collaborates with the KKK, that should be a sign that something is very wrong. While I do believe it’s essential for us to fully embrace and value our own heritages, that love for self should never lead to prideful supremacy, division, rejection, or hate towards others. Malcolm X also taught Nationalism in the early days of his activism, as a new convert to the Nation of Islam, but when he went to Mecca, he also came to understand the universal nature of Allah (Arabic for God). In fact, his evolution is one of the reasons his OWN community participated (we cannot ignore the possibility of a collaboration with some “others” who will remain nameless for the sake of keeping this post as peaceful as possible) in his assassination. The great classicist Frank Snowden was literally run out of Howard University for choosing to embrace the universality of the classical world, rather than Black Nationalism. One sign that Nationalism is problematic is it causes people to respond in hateful and sometimes violent ways, to those who want to break from it. We see it in the history of how Viola Liuzzo was murdered by the KKK for helping drive Black protesters. There are many Whites who were also lynched or murdered for supporting Black people’s fight for equality, like Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman (along with the Black activist James Chaney).Nationalism rejects the unity of humanity in a deeply harmful way. It becomes oppressive because when someone attempts to cross cultural, ethnic, or racial boundaries, their own community may reject them, seeing it as a betrayal. None of us should fear upsetting our own community simply for building bridges to others or allowing them the opportunity to share their experiences with us. The moment we do, we’ve fallen into the trap of nationalism.
There was a dream that MLK had, that still remains unrealized and that is his dream for the Beloved Community. Grace Tatter of the Harvard’s Graduate School of Education defined it as this:
a community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger, and hate. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. popularized the term during his lifetime of activism and imbued it with new meaning, fueled by his faith that such a community was, in fact, possible. But he always acknowledged that realizing his vision would involve systems of law, education, infrastructure, health care, and municipal reform — no one sector, much less one person, could create it in isolation.
Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech wasn’t about simply coming together to sing “Kum Ba Ya” or pretending that colorblindness is the answer. It was a call to actively build the Beloved Community together. Sadly, even after his passing, his family continues to inspire us to pursue that dream, but nationalism—on all sides—remains a major obstacle. The growth of anti-racism movements has led to the misconception that opposing racism means being against other groups. I’ve noticed this in many K-12 anti-racist curricula I have reviewed, which often highlight the struggles of Black people while overlooking their agency, neglecting other marginalized groups, and erasing much of European/Western/White history. When that history isn’t erased, it’s typically framed only through the lens of the harm done to people of color (and that story is important, but it’s not the whole story), instead of acknowledging those who stood on the right side of the fight against racism (many fought alongside us). We need to ask ourselves: is the answer to racism lifting up our own story while silencing others? Can we truly fight racism by repeating the harm done to us and erasing the history of those who oppressed us? This flawed approach, fueled by nationalism on all sides, combined with the ongoing racial challenges in our country, places us at a critical juncture that threatens to undermine the very work Dr. King dedicated his life to.
Somehow, people fail to recognize that you can love your heritage while also loving others. You don’t have to choose one over the other—only nationalism demands that kind of sacrifice. It’s like being asked to choose between singing Lift Every Voice and Sing or the National Anthem, when you can embrace both. I know America has caused deep hurt, and it’s hard to trust that building bridges will lead to true acceptance. Often, Black people are the ones who build these bridges, but it requires sacrificing parts of themselves along the way. What if we could build bridges to each other while still honoring and celebrating how God has uniquely created each of us?
Nationalism in America often pressures individuals to abandon their heritage in order to fit in, or demands that they completely disengage from or reject other cultures. It fuels the absence of important cultural observances like MLK Day, Black History Month, and the exclusion of works such as Lift Every Voice and Sing, while limiting the recognition of Black artists like Beyoncé, especially when she ventures into country music. While I’m not personally a fan of her foray into that genre, the racism she’s faced over it is outrageous, particularly considering the roots of country music in Black culture—after all, the banjo itself is derived from African instruments. Nationalism also excludes gospel music from contemporary Christian stations, and vice versa, with the argument that the two don’t mix—despite the fact that all of it is just Christian music. It leads to prohibitions on friendships and marriages across ethnic boundaries, and the erasure of cultural history from educational curricula, where Black children are often not taught White history and vice versa. This division even extends to churches, which remain segregated by race—Black, White, Latino, or Korean congregations. These divisions have deep roots in the history of White churches excluding people of color from worshiping with them, but the question is: how do we heal this divide in today’s church and show that true reconciliation and repentance have taken place? America’s churches are still haunted by the legacy of Jim Crow. How can we break free from this history? Do we demonize how different cultures worship, as one woman, who was planning to open a school in an African country, told me when I suggested she include some Christian music from that region? She told me that African music was “demonic.” When I played her some worship music from that specific country, she dismissed it, claiming that a White theologian had condemned any music with rhythm as demonic, arguing that it incites people to dance and move in a “fleshy” way (I swear, you can’t make this stuff up). Even after I shared Psalm 150 with her, she had no response—except to dig in further on her refusal to use music tied to the culture she aimed to reach. This mindset, which echoes both Marcus Garvey’s and the KKK’s ideologies, seeks to keep people divided, preserve racial and cultural purity, and promote the false notion that one race is superior and doesn’t need the others.
Psalm 150
Praise the Lord.[a]
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
But what does God say? How can nationalism align with the gospel when For God so loved the world? If the early church is a model for how we should live today, how can we, as Christians, embrace nationalism when the Day of Pentecost brought together people from every ethnic group to form ONE church? Psalm 139 teaches us to love who God has created us to be, no matter our ethnicity or race, but it doesn’t call us to hate, reject, devalue, or separate ourselves from those who are different. In fact, God told Peter to go to the Gentiles, and in Acts 10:15, He said, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This was God’s direct challenge to nationalism. When the Spirit led Philip to meet the Ethiopian Eunuch, it was God’s way of showing that His love extends to all people, across all continents. God is not limited by ethnic, racial, or cultural boundaries, and since we are called to reflect Him to the world, neither should we be. We are ALL fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator. We are all Imago Dei—image-bearers of our Heavenly Father.
Loving how God has created me and the culture He has placed me in is not nationalism or pride; it’s simply being thankful for how God made me. But to place my heritage above all others, to center it or isolate it from others, goes against everything Jesus stood for. Before He left this world, He prayed this for those who followed Him,
Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. John 17:11
The division I see in the world today is truly heartbreaking. The rise of nationalism within different races is alarming, as each group fights not only for its right to exist but also for the power it can hold. When I turn my eyes to Christ, I see what He desires for His church. Just as Jesus celebrated every festival and took pride in His Jewish heritage, even spending most of his time in his own community, he did not idolize his heritage so that he rejected those outside of it. We too can do the same—honoring our own heritage while also valuing those who don’t share it. It’s much like how Jesus was always willing to cross over into Samaria, embracing and reaching out to those outside His own community.
In the end, embracing our heritage should never come at the cost of rejecting others or fostering division. As Christians, we are called to love and honor the way God created us, while also recognizing the beauty in every person’s story and background. Nationalism, with its insistence on separation and superiority, contradicts the very essence of the gospel, which calls us to unity and love. Like Jesus, we can celebrate who we are without excluding others, building bridges rather than walls. It’s through this spirit of inclusion, humility, and shared humanity that we can truly reflect God’s love for the world.
Dr. Anika T. Prather 