Manyonganise, MollyMollyManyonganise2024-08-192024-08-192024978-3-98989-012-1https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/96593Historically, Black Theology was touted as a quest for freedom from racial oppression by black people. A reading of James Cone’s conceptulisation of Black Theology reveals how colour becomes symbolic of either the oppressor or the oppressed. He depicts the colour black to represent the oppressed while whiteness takes the place of the oppressor. While James Cone’s theology was intended to speak to the existential situation of people of colour in North America, the existence of Apartheid in some African countries such as South Africa made this theology also relevant in such contexts. African scholarship on liberation theologies and focusing on Black theology highlighted the usefulness of Black theology on the African continent in light of the adverse effects of colonialism. However, the attainment of independence by African countries raised questions whether it was still appropriate to be talking about Black theology on the continent. It would appear that most students of theology appear to think that the presence of black-led governments automatically led to the eradication of socio-economic as well as political structures of domination. In this chapter, I seek to interrogate the concept of “black white” people (varungu vatema) within the Zimbabwe context. The intention is to argue that those that assumed leadership from white colonial rule have failed to dismantle the colonial systems of domination. Instead, they have become black elites who are white to the core, hence, the poor’s reference to them as varungu (white people). In such cases, the chapter focuses on how Black theology speaks to the existential struggles of poor black people who find themselves suffering at the hands of black rulers who claim to have freed them from the white oppressor. This is largely a desk research which utilizes secondary sources.engAfricaBlack TheologyColonialColourIndependenceOppressorvarungu vatemaZimbabwe230bookpart