“Break My Soul”: Precarity and Resurrection in Evangelical Heteropatriarchal Antiblack America

This chapter imagines Beyoncé’s song “Break My Soul” as a sermonic anthem and theology for the author’s coming of age, desperate for hope and rebirth, amid a range of sociopolitical fires—namely, what the chapter refers to as three defining features of white supremacist capitalist empire: antiblackness, heteropatriarchy, and misogynoir. The chapter takes the reader on a journey through the author’s teen years where she navigates the combustion of toxic white Christian supremacy, nice white liberalism, patriarchal seductions, and black sexism as a Black girl. It describes her finding a new salvation in black feminism, which provides critical language and analyses for making sense of not only these experiences but also the contemporary right-wing religio-political economy. This descriptive formation ultimately contends that while Black girls are powerful, sacred, and vital, they also deserve sanctuary.