Kemp proposes a “3Ds of Blackness” theory, arguing that White supremacists have racialized the Genesis 4:15 “mark of Cain” to label Black bodies as dangerous, deviant, and depraved. This article offers Levitical and Black perspectives, extending Kemp’s scholarship and societal markings to include “diseased.” Exploring ancient biblical binaries of pollution/cleanness, profaneness/sanctity, defilement/purity, and comparing COVID-19 and its treatment mechanisms to skin diseases in Mosaic law, this article claims that structural racist modalities in the United States today treat Black skin as leprous and use justificatory devices to further this end through mass incarceration, poverty, healthcare, and education to keep Blacks “outside the camp.” Despite the quotidian of the relentless ferocity of these active forces, Blacks can historically and existentially claim the continuum of God’s “deliverance” as a “D” marked upon the diverse melanin-kissed shades of their skin.
Plain language summary
Skin is the human body’s largest organ. Humanity shares this fact in common, and the array of skin pigmentations is as diverse as the world’s population. However, as Europeans began colonizing the world, skin became a “marker” to dominate, exploit, and oppress groups of people. Deploying moral, legal, and theological grounds, White supremacists marked the skin of Blacks or African Americans in the United States as dangerous, deviant, and depraved. Joel B. Kemp, utilizing the theological framework of the “mark of Cain,” proposes a “3Ds of Blackness” theory. In this article, I explain why Kemp’s theory is valid in America and warrants a critical amendment. I argue Black skin is treated as “diseased.” I build this argument by comparing the responses to various biblical skin diseases, namely leprosy and COVID-19. I discovered the disproportionate percentages impacting Blacks in four areas: mass incarceration, poverty, healthcare, and poverty. I conclude that the United States, like the Mosaic laws, uses skin markers upon Blacks to justify structural racism and keeps them on society’s margins.
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