Hey everyone, today I wanted to talk about how it’s kind of strange that there is this strange shorthand, a box really, where they pack all the “Black” people in it, so they’re treated like they’re a part of one fixed culture, one fixed identity, and one fixed narrative on how we got here. To me, African Americans are expected to see and carry ourselves the same as first generation Haitians, Jamaicans, and Nigerians (really any continental African lineage). Because we simply all get grouped together as one, almost as if the past four centuries in 100 or more years in America were nonexistent.
So what if we don’t fall from the same tree? What if, instead, we all just have weathered similar storms?
Well, Black Americans descend from a specific storm. That storm being the Atlantic Slave Trade, plantations, Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration, etc. We built our way out of no way, and we named ourselves after being stripped from any name. Then we built a culture; we made Hip-Hop, Rap, and even Soul; we started clothes trends; made inventions; we did this all while being set back. American Blackness was born out of improvisation from having nothing but the gift and talent to create.
Yet, worldwide, we see a tear down of Black American culture by Africans or African Americans (in the form of influencers, podcasters, normal people, etc.) I’ve seen it all. They all speak on our issues and come from a place of having lineage to one nation or having specific culture norms. Their lineage can be traced back, and Black Americans can’t say the same.
That difference matters.
And I don’t say that to cause division for division’s sake, but because we shouldn’t romanticize false unity, and in the same breath, disregard the work our ancestors put into this country.
So maybe the real task is to not blur the lines. We don’t say that Asian people are all derived from one culture. They have Cambodians, Thai, Chinese people, etc. And it’s not to mean; it’s to show that everyone’s history deserves reverence and accuracy.
Unity, in a diaspora, isn’t about pretending. It’s about understanding we’re different and then showing up regardless of that.
So if you’re a descendant of American slavery, make it be known you’re a Black American and that you are proud of the history breathing through you.
