“Skin Markings: Filtering COVID-19 Through Levitical and Black Lenses”

Abstract

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.