Black and White and Brown and Mixed Like Me
Barack Obama
Amsterdam - say cheese
Three things have prompted me to write this quick essay.
Over the weekened Micah Sifry pinged with a link to CBSNews published decision to close all comments on articles pertaining to Barack Obama because, "stories about Obama have been attracting too many racist comments".
The week before I had read Spencer Overton's A Significant Development for the Blackroots with a bit of amusement. I know some of the people involved in the push to have have the Congressional Black Caucus Institute cancel their sponsorship of the presidential debates that FOXNews was going to telecast. Somehow, I never received an email or a memo from them --and that even includes my friend Chris Rabb.
Then I got an email from a BBC editor through my personal website. They wanted to know if I was an Israeli blogger writing from Jerusalem. That prompted me to write a post about the presumably Jewish origin of my last name.
Which takes me to heart of this post --how immigration an miscegenation are pushing a lot of blacks in the United States to narrow the definition of blackness to the confines of descendants of US African slaves.
This would be outrageous south of the border.
For one, not all Afrolatinos were slaves. Actually, quite a lot of Europeans ended up in indentured servitude situations that were worse than slavery, exactly because they were not from Africa (hence, under the law, they were not slaves).
Second, Spain and Portugal have their own histories of impureza de la sangre or mixed blood heritage. Sure, it is frowned upon (even to this day), but just because Spaniards don't want to acknowledge their Jewish or Moorish ancestors it doesn't mean they don't have them.
Third, the Civil Right Movement could have never happened not just without Mexicans in the West. It is unthinkable to have had a CRM without that most perfect of mixed-race people, Puerto Ricans. You had black ones like my dad on one side and my mom, all blue/green eyes and white skin, on the other. They had stories of how they'd deliberately infiltrate places were Blacks were not allowed (my dad) or Browns were not allowed (my mom) and thwak them with their puertorriqueñidad.
You see, the minute my dad would get to a place and they'd say "No Blacks Allowed", he'd say, "But I'm Puerto Rican". The minute my mom was invited to places were blacks and browns were not allowed she'd accept the invitation then drop the bomb, "But I'm Puerto Rican". And this was not just them. Many, many Puerto Rican civil rights workers from the 40s, 50s and 60s have similar stories.
Unfortunately, the contributions of Puerto Ricans are almost invisible when we talk about the Civil Rights Movement and the 1960s.
Whatever the case, it is time for "African Americans" to put an accent on the "E" because, when it comes down to it, US-born blacks have more things in common with us people south of the border than anybody from continental Africa. Yes, venerate the ancestry but don't forget that your next door Spanish-speaking vecino has more in common with you than the banker in Cote d'Ivoire.
I hope for the day I don't have to explain to people how it is possible to be a Puerto Rican BLACK woman. It's just too depressing to think the message our own kids (let alone adults) get about blackness --as if it only were the realm of people born of slaves in the US.
That's one of the reasons why I found blogging so liberating. Because discussing my blackness was not about limiting its definition but about opening it to many other people's interpretations. And because it gave me an opportunity to express that blackness without the "blessing" of people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who insist in excluding anybody not from the US from their parameters of blackness.
Some may think of it as defining a constituency. But I'd like to think of it as a regressive cultural imperialism in which the opressed becomes the opressor by resegregating their sphere of political influence and limiting it to a 'strict' definition of blackness.
In other words, I believe too many blacks in the United States have an imperialist notion of blackness based on a false dialectics of race. At one end the false assumption of a pure African race. At the other end, its opposite : the dream of an absolutely devoid of melanin Europe.
So race, even within African Americans, has become an absolute in which, even the 1/10 rule helps define "Black" as something separate and not equal to "Not-Black". Hence, the discussions around Barack's blackness.
Some like Debra Dickerson hold Obama's blackness as false because, not only is it mixed but it has not been certified by the slave-master's branding iron. Here refrain in that infamous Stephen Colbert moment could be summarized as : "You can't be Black unless it is our kind of 'black'".
Well ... tough Ms. Dickerson; 'cause you don't get to define negritude.
Barack Obama will not make it to the presidency in 2008. I am certain of that. What I am certain is how he has re-written history.
If there is something for which he will forever be remembered how he just messes up the United States' historical parameters of negritude ... and for that, he will always be a winner in my book.
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Bigotry Whiteness | Blackness | Empire | Language | Negritude | Prejudice | Race | Barack Obama
But you can also say that the ones left behind
Submitted by liza on 7 May 2007 - 3:36pm.
Were either the ones selling their cousins into slavery or far away from all the economic activity happening around the human trafficking --meaning, slaves waiting to happen.
The history of African slavery is shared by the whole world, really, but the experience of Africans on the continent as ennablers of the slave trade is very different --and still one that is hard to talk about over there.
Where's Leo when we need him 
Not even that
Submitted by mole333 on 7 May 2007 - 4:07pm.
I am not even talking about the slavers. Entire villages would be displaced, fleeing because slavers were in the area. As slaving expanded, a kind of no-man's-land developed as people tried to go into hiding.
And between slaving raids, those who were able to keep hidden could barely carry on economic activity due to the threat of raids.
There was also slavery within Africa and descendents of those slaves still live in Africa. First the ivory then the rubber industry were founded and sustained on slavery within Africa.
The fact that many Africans participated in slaving, though Arabs ususally ran it at the top tiers, does add a whole layer of complication to the issue. But there were many victims of slavery in Africa either because they lost a loved one or many loved ones, or because their village structure got destroyed because of slave raids, or because they were enslaved within Africa.
Brilliant
Submitted by JJ Ross on 7 May 2007 - 3:21pm.
"If there is something for which he will forever be remembered how he just messes up the United States' historical parameters of negritude ... and for that, he will always be a winner in my book."
Yep. Him and Tiger Woods, of course. Talk about winning.
Hey, how's that for a ticket??
Fantastic! Loved this.
Submitted by Nezua Limon Xol... on 7 May 2007 - 3:41pm.
Fantastic! Loved this.
Barack can't win?
Submitted by rwallnerny2007 on 8 May 2007 - 6:21pm.
Liza said:
[quote]Barack Obama will not make it to the presidency in 2008. I am certain of that. What I am certain is how he has re-written history.
[/quote]
Why are you so certain that Barack Obama can't win? Is it because you think there are too many racists in this country, hidden in their closets, who will vote against him in a primary or a general because of his color?
I think Barack CAN win. I think he can get elected President. There are enough people who will see that electing a black man president will send such a powerful message and empower so many people. There are enough people in this country who will see the enormous symbolic importance of his candidacy, and also just the plain fact that he's a damn good candidate (and would be if his grandparents were japanese, spanish or eskimos)
But it is true about closeted racists. Which is why I think the democratic party nominating Obama would be a really healthy thing for this country, because it would bring these people OUT of the closet and expose them for who they are. They will not be able to stay quiet and hide their racism if Obama might become President. That will become too much for them. It is dangerous for Obama though. As reported a few days ago, Obama has just become the first presidential candidate (besides Hillary who had it already as former first lady) to have secret service protection given to him and his family this early in a campaign. One story said Obama is getting the protection because Klan groups and others have been posting death threats in increasing numbers as he gets more media attention. The reality is that it is a LOT more dangerous to be a black man running for president than a white man. If he gets close to getting elected, these hatemongers will move heaven and earth to try and assasinate him.
Should I wear black&white, or rainbow?
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 13 May 2007 - 2:14pm.
As Chicagoland was beset with race riots in the 60's, I worked for a mail order house where 95% of the employees were black (word of choice then). In my department,there were jokes. Like "take a Honky to lunch." But when there were major problems (Dr. King's assassination, Bobbie Kennedy's assassination, and the near demise of the Democratic party at its presidential convention), we went symbolic. On the rough days, we wore clothes of black and white. Some enterprising florists learned to make carnation bouquets.
As time wore on and Jesse Jackson had major press for his Operation Push, rainbow colors seemed appropriate. If a person feels shunned, disadvantaged or threatened because of his/her outward appearance, and the reason is as much words--whether because of skin color, place of birth, linguistic accents, or unkind name calling--I'm inclined to look at it the way Dick Gregory advised his mother. "Mama, if they call you a nigger just remember they are talking about my book."
misnomers
Submitted by Francis L. Holland (not verified) on 16 May 2007 - 7:45pm.
miscegenation, miscarriage, miscue, misnomer.
Do names matter at all? Does language matter? If we agree to call parenting between people of different skin colors MIScegenation, don't we linguistically and semantically concede that there is something WRONG with it? If having children with someone of a different skin color was outlawed out of skin-color aroused animus and was named in a way that would purposely make it seem scary and dangerous, don't we need to stop using the linguistic framing of those who enslaved us in the first place?
Likewise, I think it would behoove us to stop using the word "racism" entirely, if only because the word presupposes the existence of "race," which is a delusional "scientific racism" concept. There's just as much evidence that the world is flat as there is that race exists. "Race" is based almost entirely on visual cues and similarly we can "see with our own eyes" that the earth is flat, not round.
Fortunately for science, we have integrated other information that tells us that the world is NOT flat, even if it seems to be. We have also integrated scientific information that contradicts the "different species" theory, like the fact that our blood and organs are interchangeable regardless of skin color and depending more on other factors that have nothing to do with skin color.
But obviously there are a lot of people who are very invested in pepetuating our believe in the fallacy of race. Even worse, every time we use the word "racism" we enable those liars by conceding that "race" exists and that we are from a different "race."
If I say, "You hate me because I am a vampire, then I am implicitly asserting and conceding both that vampires exist and that I am a vampire. Likewise, if I say, "You hate me because of my Black "race," then I am conceding both that Black "race" exists and that I am an example of that different "race." Once you concede that you are of a difference race/species from white people, you will find it impossible to convince them that our species is anything similar to or as good as theirs. And you also invite endless comparisons of one "race" to the other. And that is the merry-go-round on which we find ourselves, with even Black people insisting that the delusional concept of "race" is central to our reality.
Unfortunately, that means we're just as sick as are the "racist" because we, too, are "racists," by my definition. I believe that a "racist" is simply a person who believes, in the face of all scientific evidence to the contrary, that "race" exists in the first place.
My skin color, facial morphology and hair are different from that of many other people, just like I am taller and shorter than some, fatter and skinnier than some, more muscular and less muscular than some, regardless of skin color. But that's ALL color is biologically: one of many physical characteristics.
I will NEVER, EVER concede again that "race" exists, because to do so facilitates and enables that which we most hate - that which we incorrectly and misguidedly call "racism."
The English language is certainly variable enough that we can describe that phenomenon with a word or phrase - ANY OTHER WORD OR PHRASE - that does not concede a priori that we are from a different species than white people. As much as we might want to disown them, the similarity of our biologies and our common origins in the Fertile Crescent simply do not allow us to disown whites (or them us) any more than we can disown our own parents.
As a matter of biology, when we are born into the human species, we must accept our shared familyhood with all others who share our species, regardless of color, like it or not.
The shared slave experience
One irony in all this, if a white as white can be whitey can make an observation, is that slavery had a huge impact on Africa as well as on Africans taken away. One of the things that struck me the most about reading Kind Leopold's Ghost was the massive effect the slave trade had on African nations. Some had as much as 50% decreses in population due to the slave trade and its related violence. This was massively disruptive to those cultures and is one reason why social and political structures have been so fragile in Africa.
So slavery is a SHARED experience between African-Americans and African-Africans and modern society in both groups still feel the echoes of slavery.