Why is the Devil a Black Man, Always?
Dan Williams
August 29, 2021
Why is the devil a Black Man, always?
in thousands of references, in demonology
tracts scribbled by zealous monks, all white,
all attacking heresy, rebellion against God,
Christ the Prince of Light contending against
“the Power of Darkness,” in countless sad
stories accusing women of witchcraft,
the accused, time and again, tortured
to confess, in intense agony, confessing
to stop the torment, confessing they consorted
with a Black Man, signing his book, dancing
wildly—at what, of course—Black Sabbaths,
offering fealty to their dark lord, the anal kiss,
infernal, painful coupling, the devil’s two-
pronged phallus, the Salem narratives, sunless
texts, offer scores of examples, the devil
“appearing ordinarily as a small Black man,”
witchcraft the “Work of Darkness,” “a dark
subject,” “the devil improves the Darkness,”
“Dark things now in America,” “in the shape
of a Black Man,” “the Black Man whispered
to her,” “she did ride by the Meeting house,
behind the Black Man,” “by the assistance
of the Black Man,” “the giant Black Man came
to her,” “She looks upon a black man,” “the Black
Man (as the witches call the Devil),” “a black thing
with a blue Cap,” blackness ever iniquitous,
yes, of course, antithetical polarities, sightless
oppositions of light and dark, good and evil,
godly and pagan, celestial radiance preordained
to crush the black hand, wickedness void of
divine illumination, an omnipotent God allowing
the Prince of Darkness, humanity’s scourge, those
early Christians, fervent believers, comprehending
only dualisms, a simplistic schematic to explain
the inexplicable, to account for misery, the Great
Chain of Being, white on top, black the bottom,
God created differences, high and low, fortune
and misfortune, and humans needed distinctions,
the othering of the alien, us and them, yet a bigotry
virulent and venomous, misperceiving a world
split into black and white, without any gray.
Dan Williams is the Director of TCU Press and the TCU Honors Professor of Humanities. His second collection of poems, At the Gate, A Refuge of Sunflowers and Milkweed, is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press.
