Hold The Hyphen
Posted on February 10th, 2009 by Tariq Nelson
This is an interesting article. I am not even clear what exactly an “African-American” is supposed to be.
I am constantly searching for answers as to how my café-au-lait self fits into an overwhelmingly white world. But the use of the word African conjoined with American leaves me empty. There are 54 countries in Africa. Which one would be mine?
Africa is a continent with many language groups and cultures. “African” is not a race. It is a generic and overly broad term. Irish, Italians and Germans are referred to as such. “Africans” (sub-Saharan) are grouped together into one crude wad.
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This is a great article, thanks for sharing it. I like the quote below because it fits my existence so well:
“Most black Americans are of mixed-race heritage, which manifests itself in different ways in our external appearance. Some of us are light enough that we look white…”
Being a very fair skinned woman in America leaves me to the judgment of many who wish to stick me into their own category (including Arabs and other Semites). Having an Arabic-Indigenous-Swahili-West African name complicates it even further. Unlike some converts, I didn’t change my name.
I just had to explain to a room full of Indo-Pakistani colleagues that even Obama’s identity is his own to determine and shouldn’t be categorized by any of us.
Of course, his lineage is much more definite than my father’s. They kept insisting “he’s half white” and I replied that it still doesn’t make him a white male, in any way, shape or form.
I would be interested to follow this writer’s future work. Hopefully, she will delve even deeper into intra-race relations among African Diasporans throughout the world.
@ Yahsmin
I suppose nowadays it is all in who you identify with. The issue gets more and more complex as time passes.
For me, the thing that makes Obama’s experience different is not so much his bi-racial background, but the fact that he is not the descendant of slaves.
We Blacks or African-Americans are in a constant evolutionary flux. No wonder we are still trying to find an appropiate name for ourselves. I am proud of my family’s history, and my community’s contribution to America and the world. But, I am of the opinion that the term Black, fails as a descriptive. Black is a color, and we are more than that. Black and African-American will not take us into the future, just as Negroe and Colored failed to deliver. With all our creativity, we will need to find a name which truly represents us. Next time around, lets give it more thought.
@ Ra’oof
What’s wrong with being a Muslim?
Daud,
There is nothing wrong with being Muslim or called Muslim. It is a name given to us by our creator. It would be revolutionary in todays world for all Muslims to drop other descriptives, and say “I am Muslim, Just Muslim.”
We Blacks or African-Americans have an unique history within Islam and America, should we not have an appropiate name to represent our past, present and future? When the Qur’an and Sunnah were given to the Arabs, they were not told to stop calling themselves Arabs.
I have some problems with how the author characterizes Africa. She pathologizes the continent in a way that makes me shudder.
While I understand the limitations of the use of the term African American, I still find it useful. Black intellectuals were the first to develop the notion of Africa and panAfricanism. We don’t have the same history as Irish or German Americans, or even white Americans who may have an incredibly mixed background. Black Americans did not come from a single country, but many and in many ways we contributed the creation of an African identity. Like the esteemed Anthropologist James Ferguson writes, this notion of an African identity is now real in how Africans envision themselves. And there is a way that the world relates to Africa and Africans whether in the Diaspora or on the continent. The main determinant of my treatment wherever I go is the melanin in my skin and features which identify me as someone with roots in sub-Saharan Africa. This is why Nubians in Egypt danced around in the streets and Black Iraqis found hope in Obama. Whether or not Obama descended from slaves, is not the question. I do not see the slave experience as the only factor in my identity formation. I see the culture I grew up with, my family ties and history, the ways my peers, friends, teachers, bosses, neighbors, etc interact with me, and the consciousness of my people’s history shapes how I see myself.
I’m phenotypically African, but I have been categorized as Sudanese//Moroccan/Egyptian/Algerian, but never as non-Black in any of these categories. Since there are Afro-Arabs and Black ethnic groups in the Middle East and North Africa, they will often say “You are like one of us.” Sometimes they try to incorporate you because they don’t understand that Black comes in many shades and styles.
I also find it odd that white Americans want to emphasize Obama’s white lineage now. I wonder if they would go back and try to change history of say, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, etc. While so many famous figures in our history were clearly mixed raced, the main determinant of their treatment was African slave ancestry.
Of course not, but there are things that we have in common (culture, language, foods, etc) that we would not with a person in Senegal or Ethiopia, etc. Each of the other groups of blacks have their own unique histories and backgrounds as well. There is nothing wrong with any of it
My point is that I do not think that we should wash away our own experiences and background in favor of a generic one. In many cases, we are the only ones willing to throw away our family ties and history. The simple fact is that other than skin color, an American black has little in common with a person from Congo or Ghana. And many times, they have little in common with each other. I have a problem with people thinking that all blacks are the same. It is like when a person told me that I should go to Chad and marry someone of my own culture.
alhamdulillah, Tariq for using your “bully pulpit” to spark conversation about this issue.
Instead of looking at the world through rose colored glasses we have to look at reality that we are a distinct people. Shaykh Abdul-Hakim coined it best Blackamerican no hyphen.
In a world where citizenship and passports are must we must shed this just Muslim fantasy, try going to hajj without a passport.
The Blackamerican Muslims are droping the ball in terms cultivating a sharia compliant indentity to invite our non-Muslim kinsmen.
With the exception of the Sister Clara Muhammad school and WD Mohammed High School in Atlanta, Blackamerican Muslim children don’t really have institutions which support the forging a sustainable Blackamerican Muslim culture.
Who we are as a people, is in impart the chance of birth but also who we cultivate ourselves to be.
Tariq,
I’d agree that Black Americans are a distinct people, culturally and even ethnically from West Africans, East Africans, and even our Caribbean counterparts. Everyone else gets to acknowledge their cultural traditions, historical backgrounds, language, etc, but we are seen as a generic group that everyone gets dumped into if you feel like you don’t belong.
At the same time, Black identity seems to be shifting. We have lots of folks bouncing out of the category especially in places like California where the mixed race movement is strong. Then you have the growing influx of African and Caribbean immigrants redefining what does it mean to be Black in America. I’m not trying to be contentious or anything, but people are quick to cry foul when us plain ole black folk begin to talk about privileged Black identities while seeking to rectify the continual socio-economic disparities that effect the Black community. I don’t claim to have the answers, but I do think that we need to rethink what we call ourselves, and we need to give it some good thought before we slap on another label that doesn’t fit our historical and social reality.
It’s like I have said before…there is a “non-black” category forming. In fact, some contend that “non-black” is the new white.
At the same time, we are entering a time in which blacks have risen to the highest levels in all areas of our society. A mixed race or “post-racial” movement is probably inevitably going to get stronger.
I DO know that at this point in my life that I do not have to be anything other than what I am. And no matter how much the self righteous pricks may protest I am not going to pretend to be anything else
I remember visiting a site where the sister was against integration. Although I agreed with her critiques of gendered racism that was frequently perpetuated by Black men against Black women, her anti-integration message seemed like a throw back to some 60s Black separatism.
Some of my undergrad research was on racial passing and racial boundaries during the first half of the 20th century. In 1948, the president of the American Anthropologist said that in 100 years there would be no Negro problem because there would be no Blacks who looked different from whites. He got a firestorm of criticism by people who were against the “mongrelization of America,” but in an article he assured everyone that because of the laws prohibiting intermarriage that the mixing on goes into diluting Blackness. I love reading historical documents because it exposes the cloudiness of their vision of the future. The mixing is going both ways and they really didn’t see the opening of the borders.
While I am a bit nostalgic about the idea coherent Black community and get excited when I see that the institution of Black marriage still exists, I do think one day in America people will say, “Remember when there were Black people?” And most folks will be like, “My great great grandmother was Black!” kinda like how Black people also point to some Native American ancestor. Unlike Greek, Albanian, Armenian, Assyrian, or Kurdish nationalism, the reality is that the formation of Black identities is not really tied to a homeland, but rather a historical experience and a common cause. If you don’t relate to the common experience and don’t feel connected to the common cause, I guess you can opt out. I make no moral judgments against those who do, just as I don’t think that it is imperative for all people in the Diaspora to identify as Africans. The reality is, some Africans resent our use of the term and argue that we have no real ties to Africa.
@Tariq
I believe as you do that they is a “non-Black” group being created irony is that it the sacrafice of Blacks (and a handful of whites and Jews) which allowed for creation of the polictical and cultural environment for this to occur. 80 yrs ago all of these now self professed “exotic identities” or “just Muslim” or “plain American no hyphen” would have been just as likely to be lynched as Blackamericans. Though to be honest my research has indicated that some old time baseball players did pretended to be dominicans and old jaz musicians pretended to be Arabs escape racism. So maybe that’s where this notion to pretend to be something else started at least for those who not pass for white.
This whole issue of Obama not being a descendant of slaves. That is true, for sure, and I think it plays a role obviously in who he is- but that categorization is not neat either. He does not have slave ancestry, but he is not connected to his Kenyan roots culturally the way his father probably was, and since he didn’t grow up with his father how much of that actually matters? In other words, he grew up with black skin in America, not anchored by his actual lineage (and leaving aside for the moment his white heritage). He is, from what I can tell, more culturally like the descendants of slaves than he is like his actual family on the continent.
Identity is shaped by many different factors, lineage being only one.
I’m rambling here. I did have a point when I started…