Ancestors & Algorithms: Where Spirit Codes the System

Blog Image generated by Gemini AI Prompts.

As I sat on the front porch yesterday, I watched the wind wrestling with the trees. The limbs bending and bouncing. The roots were unfazed. Nature keeps teaching me that strength isn’t necessarily loud; it’s grounded. We need that kind of strength right now because our public life runs on outrage. The sentiment is, “If you don’t echo my opinion, you must be an enemy.” But the Gospels hand us another blueprint: The Jesus of the Text disagreed. Sometimes it was sharply. But it was without stripping people of their God given dignity. He spoke truth and kept a door open. 

The past few weeks have been full of fury, hate, disgust, disappointment, disapproval, disrespect, disregard, and disagreement. I must say that I have found solace from life and the algorithms by turning to the Text and the Ancestors. While I know that imperial spirits control the masses through propaganda, I also understand that these spirits are now in negotiations to control the algorithms of our lives. I never would have thought that Dr. Facemire’s “Theory of Algorithms” class at Alabama A&M University in the early 2000’s would now be playing out right before our faces 24/7/365. 

These algorithms have some taking part in the gaslighting of Black Women and trying to portray them in a negative light. According to Pew Research’s data in 2024, the percentage of Black Women ages 25-34 years old with a bachelor’s degree is 38% vs. 42% of White Men. According to BlackDemographics.com, Black People only make up a little over 15% of the population in the USA. Those numbers are impressive despite being physically outnumbered.

So, when rhetoric looks to diminish the accomplishments of Black Women who have achieved accomplishments like becoming lawyers and judges and who have the numbers stacked against them, how is that speech seasoned with an encouraging word from a follower of the Way? I read something somewhere in the Text that talks about the followers of the Way are to encourage each other and to stir one another to do good works.

Also, rhetoric that suggests that there is a problem with a law that outlawed the common practice of the larger society’s discriminatory practices that gave them full access to everything in society and segregated and subjugated humans who did not look like them is NOT the same message that Luke wrote about the Jesus of the Gospels. When a popular political policy is polarized and put over the personhood of a population of people, a new god is created, and it is not THE God the Jesus of the Text taught. Remember, I am talking about spirits.

The Samaritans of the Text were not looked upon favorably. Remember the man who showed the compassion of Jesus after encountering the man who had been robbed, stripped, beaten, and left for dead? Remember that he showed more than sympathy? He did more than acknowledged the man’s pain. He gave the man medical attention. He gave the man transportation. He financed the man’s food and lodging. He ensured the man’s safety while he healed. Jesus told the expert of the Law to do this, and you will have life because this is how you love your neighbor.

Jesus wanted this man (who was trying to trap him) to understand that it takes more than sympathy to love your neighbor. It takes action. It means that our decisions should be to take care of those who cannot help themselves. This means helping to make sure they have medical attention, making sure they get safety, making sure they have food and a place to stay, and financing it until they can get back on their feet. No wonder some do not want to show empathy or as I have heard for years, “Put yourself in someone else’s shoes.” It is going to cost us something. Selfishness and apathy do not understand compassion and mercy.

Now, let us deal with the idea that there are not biases in this society from the workplace to the algorithms. When an atmosphere is controlled by one mindset for an extended period and never challenged to include different ideas, we will only get the types of results we have seen in this society and in our algorithms. When people have put in the work and the time to meet the established requirements just to be overlooked and then subjected to become the ace for a under qualified leader with no agency, those “spots” were not stolen by the educated qualified person. They were stolen from the qualified person by the system that has the idea that only certain types of people can be in certain positions.

I am currently in AI Consulting Training and have been taught about how the algorithms have the spirits of those who have built them. So, you must train the algorithms to get past the biases that are built-in by default. Just to get the Gemini generated image for the blog post, I had to prompt it a few times to get the exact image that I wanted. 

Overall, there must be work put in to get past our biases and to be inclusive of a diverse way of thinking and interacting with our neighbors. When some refuse to go along with and show respect and support for ideologies and philosophies that do not theologically align with the teachings of the Text about the ministry of the Messiah, they are not callous, they are simply attempting to honor the Gospel teachings that have liberated people for centuries.

This is where the Ancestors come into the picture. The way people throughout the centuries have been able to overcome the rhetoric, ideologies, and policies of oppressive systems has been to remember their ancestors and the God that delivered them from oppression. Don’t believe me? The Hebrew people of the Old Testament were supposed to remember the God of their ancestors or for the church folks reading this, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The ancestors overcame because they remembered El-Roi, the God who sees. 

Rhetoric that is purposefully void of the nuances of reality just to justify and support a polarizing narrative will be remembered as such. It will be remembered for the poisonous seasoning that it sprinkled. It will not magically become salt to the earth. Why? Because words live. From time to time, I am reminded of the unsavory things I have said years ago. However, those words are not the dominant narrative of my being. So, one should not be upset when others get used to hearing unsavory rhetoric and remind you of what comes from the mouth of your icons.

Despite the overwhelming push to force compliance and reverence on this day, Sunday September 21st, 2025 and beyond, the Edupreneurial Theologian chooses to be like the (3) Hebrew young men named Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Why? Because YHWH has been gracious. Who is like God? YHWH has helped. So, I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors before me and refuse to honor the spirit of the Babylonian pagans and the mandates of their king. The pagan spirit behind the algorithms perpetuate fear and want total control and compliance over the masses by using the Text as a weapon against the followers of the Way.

But I encourage you not to bow down like those that Paul wrote about in Romans 1. He said, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.”

Romans 1:28-32 NRSV

I do not want my spirit to be numbered among or connected to the spirits of people who consciously practice, approve, encourage, and endorse the aforementioned list. I do not want my inner me to be unconscious towards the humanity and spiritual wellbeing of “the least of these.” So, I choose the spirit of my Ancestors over the spirit of the algorithms. Also, there is no way that I will allow my intellect to believe an algorithm that gaslights me to believe a fictitious account of the reality of what someone says and does right before my face. As Anthony Powell of the ANTFarm Podcast says, “I keep receipts.”

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That’s why it’s important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are.”

Dr. Maya Angelou

Resources:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/18/us-women-are-outpacing-men-in-college-completion-including-in-every-major-racial-and-ethnic-group/

https://blackdemographics.com/black-population-in-the-u-s-reaches-51-6-million/

https://bible.com/bible/2016/rom.1.28-31.NRSV