America is in a transition period. That is not debatable, but whether we’re experiencing the death throes of a worn out, depleted white hegemony masquerading as a faux democracy or the birth pangs of an emerging multicultural, multiethnic, pluralistic society struggling to be born is unclear. In fact, both things could be true at the same time; after all, the emergence of the butterfly requires the extinction of the caterpillar.
In the chaos of this moment, white Americans are quite naturally obsessing about what it all means to them; and we, Black people in America, are doing what we have been conditioned to do, we’re also obsessing about what it all means to white people.
Rather than aspiring to being American, we should claim our organic membership in a larger global community, the African Diaspora.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, when I was a young political Padawan, political Jedi Masters would tell stories about another time, in order to teach important principles required for the road we were about to travel.
There was one question about an iconic St. Louis mayor, who was also an apex level politician (a requirement in those times), who would pose the question whenever he was asked to consider supporting a proposition or proposal. “Where am I in all of this?” This thought occurred to me when a young brother raised the question, “What does this current social and political chaos mean to us?”
What Black Americans share with white Americans is the awareness that we’ve never lived in a multi-ethnic America where white Americans were not the overwhelming majority. Our social identities and political strategies have been historically based upon being a 10-12% minority in a society with an 85% plus white majority. We, Black Americans in the United States, are having our social identity and the cultural context of what it means to be Black in America redefined because of these seismic demographic, cultural, political, and global economic changes of the last 50 years.
There are those among us who are always distressed about not being considered an American. We conflate being an American with citizenship, because in common parlance they’re used interchangeably. Malcolm X had some real insight for us on this issue. “Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless you eat some of what’s on that plate. Being here in America doesn’t make you an American. Being born here in America doesn’t make you an American.”
Malcolm’s observation, while true, is no cause for alarm because it’s your citizenship that has the value. If you are Black (or anybody for that matter), born in the United States or to parents who are citizens of the United States, you are a United States citizen and areentitled to all the rights and privileges thereof.
The 14th Amendment says it like this; “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States….”
Your citizenship is not subject to debate, period full stop. Citizenship is a formal legal status, which has real value to you and cannot be disputed. And who white MAGA America thinks is an American has nothing to do with your citizenship. But it does raise a question, if we’re not included in the definition of Americans, who then are we?
The 100 years’ war we fought against Jim Crow had nothing to do with becoming an American. It was the assertion of our rights as citizens per the Constitution. We have spent two centuries trying to persuade America to recognize Black people as authentically American. Like many abuse victims, we have contorted ourselves into unrecognizable shapes hoping to win the approval of an abuser. As long as we feel the need to be American, our humanity will always be captive to the most malevolent forces in American society.
When I look at who’s included in the definition of American, I’ll admit to serious political reservations, not to mention a lot of moral trepidation about having to claim any kinship. There is however an identity that we have a claim to that does not require us to explain what MAGA America is, and what it is to us.
Rather than aspiring to being American, we should claim our organic membership in a larger global community, the African Diaspora.
It’s estimated that 12 million people were forcibly taken from the African continent, 10 million survived the Middle Passage and made it to the Americas, 400,000 to what would become the United States.
The 32 million people in America who identify as Black Americans, like most of the 450 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean, are all descendants of those 10 million that survived the Middle Passage. I would suggest that if we are to struggle with being fully integrated into a community, it should be with the descendants of the people our ancestors came over here with.
How you behave in the world is a function of who you understand yourself to be in the world. I believe this to be true for individuals and for a people. If we embrace the idea that we are the progeny of the African Diaspora then everything changes. We’d no longer be fixated on the acceptance of white America for validation.
America no longer being a white majority country creates no existential angst for us. Our looking for love in all the wrong places has robbed us of an understanding and appreciation for who we are and what we represent in the world that has nothing to do with white America. America may always be where we live, I don’t believe America will ever be our home.
There’s nothing you should ever need or want from MAGA America. Before we discuss our place in this radically different emerging America, I suggest we seriously consider discussing who we are and who we choose to be first.
