Cultural Singularity and the Black American Community

This seems like it belongs in the world building section, but this is really a contemporary real-world issue, so bear with me here.

I've been working on my sci-fi story for several years now, and one of the theoretical issues I've been incorporating into it is the idea that a racial consciousness is eventually absorbed into a collective cultural consciousness either willfully or by force. I've always been suspicious of the In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race trope for the kind of Hand Wave laziness it tends to breed in the author. Few writers seem to reflect upon actual trends in history that evidence this notion of ethnic integration. In other words, some of them don't adequately explain how everyone ended up being generically brown and speaking the same language. I have every intention of deconstructing this literary convention, however pretentious that may be. And I know I'm not the first to make the attempt.

We have plenty of real-world examples of this phenomenom such as that seen among the American white community in which many people either only passively acknowledge their European heritage or outright ignore it. Getting away from my story and into the real world, something similar seems to be happening in the black American community.

One of the stereotypes that get tossed my way is that black Americans are prone to excessively identifying as a group, and I'll admit that I even do this myself. But I often wonder how much of this is culturally justified and how much of it is a matter of left-over paranoia from segregation/slave era politics.

We're already starting to see a shift in African American values and habits such as the steady rise of a black conservative movement and our emergence as affluent middle-class professionals. Some people take this as a cue for us to "stop whining and get with the program", but how much, if any, of this is necessary at this point in time? What does the term "African American community" or "black community" mean with regard to cultural awareness?

I'm not sure where I stand on this topic, and I think that's one of the key problems all on its own. Even my frequent use of first-person plural pronouns has implications of a cultural singularity that can come off as ill-placed at times, but this brand of identity politics has itself been ingrained into me and other people as a defense mechanism against racism and, perhaps more importantly, disenfranchisement. Other ethnic groups have done this, as well. The pattern we're seeing is that the more you subjugate a group, the more it reinforces its identity.

Even the terms "African American" and "black" have Unfortunate Implications that we have yet to overcome, and there is still some debate among etymologists, linguists, historians, and other intellectuals in the black community and abroad who are still trying to sort this out. There's that idea, and then there's the idea that using "we", "the black community" and so on can make me sound like I'm part of a Hive Mind of some sort, which obviously isn't the case.

To summarize, what are your thoughts on how collectivism and identity politics play into a spirit of community among black people? Even if you don't like the current trend, can you think of possible explanations for how this has come to be? Also take into account what impact this cultural/ethnic consciousness is going to have on the future.

By the way, I understand that some people REALLY don't like discussions about identity politics and black pride, so here's a tip if you have such an aversion: ignore this thread and move onto something you like instead of taking it as an opportunity to throw a fit.

Edit: cleaned up grammar

edited 31st Mar '11 1:11:13 PM by Aprilla

I think this is arsing from an actual "Melting pot". Throughout most of American history, the nation was more of a Salad bowl of sorts where most people just stuck with people like them. That has kind of degraded as people have become (mildly) less stupid and ignorant.

As to what this means for the black community as well as other minority groups for now and in the future, I have no fucking clue. Most guesses at what will happen in the future tend to be wrong anyway.

edited 31st Mar '11 2:28:00 PM by Ekuran

Well, we can also think of the ramifications this supposed singularity will have on ethnicity-based institutions like historically black colleges, minority scholarships and clubs that emphasize issues of only one particular minority. Our campus has its own student NAACP, and several of its members have discussed this issue at length. One student very soundly suggested that the NAACP has taken on a vestigial presence in the civil rights movement (a movement which I argue is still very much unresolved even today). The acronym should not be taken to imply that people of "non-color" - however loosely we define that - are excluded from meetings and affairs. However, you'll still find elements of student minority organizations who insist that it be "for X and by X only", which defeats the purpose of anti-discrimination.

Issues regarding African Americans and blacks in general are still significant, but there is a certain threshold we're starting to reach in terms of safeguarding our individuality apart from our racial identity. One assertion I find paradoxically beneficial is this: one of the best ways we can defeat racism is by being ourselves. I'm a writer, a gamer, a student, a martial artist and a man, and being black, while important, is not the totality of my existence. This sounds good and all at first, but you also have to consider the fact that while I've experienced racism first-hand, I'm not a slave and I can walk into an ice cream parlor or a bathroom without having to worry about getting arrested for being in the "whites only" section.

In other words, I have the luxury of calling myself an individual because I have an easier time defending myself. Rewind a couple hundred years, and I would undoubtedly be stripped of my language, my religion and my values in favor of those of my master. That subjugation has clearly led to an atmosphere of hostility that has permeated some of the deepest facets of the African American experience, and some of it is admittedly unjustified. Even the phrase "African American experience" has something negative about it in terms of collective identity because it detracts from the American ideal of individual liberty. This is pretty perplexing, and if you don't follow what I'm getting at here, that's actually kind of my point.

Some people argue that heritage doesn't matter all that much, but when you can't trace your ancestry, you get tempted to reinvent your culture through artificial means. This is different from having your culture naturally evolve. It's like sub-Saharan Africans who were kidnapped had their culture come to a screeching halt, and that abruptness is a large part of the problem with assimilation, whether that assimilation comes from Western European values or from newly fabricated values from black communities.

edited 31st Mar '11 3:13:36 PM by Aprilla

I think you hit the nail on the head right there, in the past there was a need for some sort of identity or unity; having your language, culture, heritage stripped would provided much needed incentive. Fast forward to the modern day and it's not so much of an issue. We have black people who are lawyers, doctors, officers in the military; hell, we've got a black president.

There's proof that we're moving beyond the roles that we were relegated to. I'm a huge nerd, a martial artist, I love literature, my gf is Irish; you really can't peg someone as a typical black person.

The way I see it, people will continue to progress and find more outlets to distinguish themselves, eventually black will be one of the last things you use to describe yourself.

edited 31st Mar '11 3:51:40 PM by Kino

I wonder how much of that identity and recognition we still need. I like identifying and studying my heritage, but I try not to go overboard with it. One part from the movie CB 4 comes to mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFY2kJ96jNY

Kino, I remember a while back when you were making fun of your classmates for getting onto you about not feeling the need for Black History Month. I'll admit that I raised my eyebrows, thinking to myself "Well, that was harsh, but that's Kino being Kino." If the video above (which is an obvious parody of black pride) is any indication, there is a grain of truth to the notion that we sometimes exaggerate the importance of a collective identity. That's not just a black problem - that's a fundamental problem in the human condition.

Establishing common ground based on ethnicity is okay with me, but I think the culture that comes with a particular ethnic group is more important. "African" doesn't mean much of anything until you discuss and study the history behind the people who occupy that space. Keeping in tune with the topic, I actually prefer Black History Month, but I think many people have come to treat it as a perfunctory "going through the motions" sort of reverence. People aren't fully digesting the history and as a result, we get half-hearted attempts as assembling common ground with fancy rhetoric like "fight the power" and "we shall overcome". Young people especially, black or otherwise, don't grasp the gravity of what these phrases mean.

I've had other black people call me a sell-out, white-washed, or uppity because I don't really use Ebonics very much (African American Vernacular for those of you fellow linguistics students out there), I have a white girlfriend (Irish American to be precise), and I'm generally not involved in the more commercialized aspects of black culture. That commercialization is what hits my Berserk Button with people who make the "white-washed" accusation toward me. I've studied more African and African American history than many other people my age, and I've demonstrated a command of that knowledge both personally and academically. I also have dreadlocks, one of the oldest hairstyles known to our species, and I refuse to wear extensions, weaves and straightening products (I'll keep my "nappy" hair, thank you). Yet, I'm the sell-out because I wear a belt with my pants and most of my friends aren't black.

Without getting too personal about it, the problem above is that the black community, especially the youth, is unifying in all the wrong ways. We feed into commercialization and commoditization to the point where it takes hold of other aspects of our identity. The sneakers, the rap, the giant rims - it takes over the more important aspects of black history and black culture.

Tell me about it. It's like we've exchanged one pair of chains for another.

Very hard to follow up to you Aprilla. Well written. Would you say the current manufactured culture is also obscuring the historical culture? Sounds like the culture as it exists now is becoming insular to the point where they alienate those who have since assimilated. What about in places like the U.K. or other foreign western European nations?

How unique to the U.S. is this current culture? If it is mostly U.S. there are probably a few more additional factors feeding the issue.

@Tuefel:

"Would you say the current manufactured culture is also obscuring the historical culture?"

This could be the case. Most animals have a basic standard of organization that they need to survive. In humans' case, it is culture. When you disrupt the natural flow of cultural transmission, you often end up with groups of people who have misplaced values such as excessive commercialization, drug abuse and a propensity towards crime. This was one of the early criticisms of rap music in that it both glamorizes and indoctrinates the idea that a black man must stray from the law in order to be successful.

Not all rap music is like this, but as a cultural vehicle, it more subtly reinstates the idea that people are going to come up with their own set of rules as to what constitutes "their" culture, especially if you cut them off from any information that would beneficially supplement their heritage. For instance, rap music tells me to get a gun, treat women like property and violate rules set up by the descendants of the people who used my ancestors as cattle. Why? Because the music more subtly insists that this is the ONLY choice I have if I want to be successful. Either that, or I can become a basketball player or an R&B singer. Regardless of the choice, society tells everyone of every race that pickins' is slim, which goes against the early concept of the American Dream in which everyone can have their chance at individual success.

I'm getting away from your question, but my guess is that the manufactured culture wins against the historical culture because, as far as we know, the historical narrative never existed. It's one thing to change your last name to make it sound more Christian or English, something that Irish and Jewish immigrants did upon arriving in the states. But it's another thing to either have your cultural heritage erased or rewritten. We've seen this with tribal groups such as the Navajo, the Sioux, Maoris, the Ainu, and several others. I mean, how much does the average black American really know about Africa? Not much, really. Some say that shouldn't matter, but I find it at least moderately troubling.

One thing I notice among my non-US black friends is that they seem to have a more deeply-entrenched understanding of core African cultural values that ironically make them seem more individualistic than us, their American counterparts. I have a few theories for this. First, countries like England and France ended slavery earlier than the US, and France especially encouraged the cultural growth of its Afro-Caribbean community more fluently. I've never been to France, but the word on the street is that their blacks seem to be more historically informed than us. I don't know if this is true, but it seems likely.

My second theory is that European nations with emancipated Africans integrated somewhat (I use that term cautiously) better because those countries did not have such a vast capitalistic influence that the US had after the Civil War and during the infantile stages of the Industrial Revolution. Capitalism is stronger here than across the pond, so you have to barter your cultural heritage in order to stay afloat. Fast-forward to the present and you have African Americans heavily occupying the sports and entertainment industry without actually being authorities in said industries. It's Marxism 101, I know, but roll with it.

edited 31st Mar '11 7:01:45 PM by Aprilla

Actually all of that made sense. I was betting the earlier emancipation and general attitude of Europe would have possibly created a bit of a different cultural picture there.

Regardless of immigration laws, immigrants tend to be either those well-off enough to easily afford the expenses of immigration (which are significant regardless of country if your country is not on the border with your new country), or desperate enough to endure great hardship to be in the destination country.

As for separatism, how many black people would actually want it? There is institutionalized racism and discrimination in the United States, but it also has the world's most powerful economy, a robust national infrastructure, a stable, reasonably democratic government, and the underlying grievance you have (institutionalized racism against black people) is slowly but surely being whittled away. Trying to apply some of my experiences with institutionalized discrimination as part of a minority (homosexuals) to look through the eyes of a black person, the cost/benefit analysis doesn't work out—you end up with a smaller, poorer, weaker nation and locked out of the nation you left, and a lot of people who weren't on board with your separatism project and had their nationality forcibly changed will be pissed. Pissed enough to kill you to reintegrate back into their original country. The lack of significant political will for black separation despite continuous political activity by black separatists in the United States since the 1950s supports my position.

And what about the other people living in the Southeast? Even discounting whites entirely, do the Latinos get a say (there are a lot of them, even in the South, and they will probably be the majority in most of the United States within a few decades)? The Asians? Middle-Easterners? Jews? Native Americans? What if the non-black groups use violence to resist (and they will, because they will have nothing to gain and everything to lose)? How can you really separate anyway when "black America" is a cultural group dispersed over the entire country rather than a discrete enclave? There is no "black nation", there is a subculture that exists as a disadvantaged component of a larger nation, one of many interdependent pieces of the American people.

You're presenting an option that is (a) not at all guaranteed to even work at all, (b) likely to leave black Americans in a worse cultural and economic position than they started, (c) unfair to the non-black people of the South, and (d) forced to compete against another option (agitation for social justice and equal opportunity within mainstream society) that has a track record of definite, if hard-won, success (far from total success, but more success than black separatism has had, which is zero). Some of the overarching principles sound nice but from a pragmatic viewpoint it doesn't stack up and from a human-nature viewpoint is lacks the "what's in it for me?" factor to be successful.

Unrelated but still me: Why the hell did you pick a username like that?

EDIT: Here are some of the things any US separatist state would lose:

• Much of its infrastructure. Much of the United States' infrastructure, especially economic infrastructure, exists on a national level and is fully integrated.
• Diplomatic and trade relations. You have to start off from square one at best, and if you're unlucky many of the US' allies and trading partners (basically the whole Western world) will be hostile to you, if they even recognize you.
• National defense. It is not 1861. The military is not loyal to anyone but the federal government and the paychecks delivered to it by the federal government. You might get National Guard units but these will be worth shit without the US military/industrial complex backing them up.
• Everyday security for the people. Separatist movements create chaos, upheaval, and resistance. Humans typically avoid situations that cause these things, because they suck, even if there's some reward at the end.
• Energy. See infrastructure above.
• Standard of living/economy. Great, you have your own state now! Woo-hoo! But wait, due to the above problems, your country essentially has no economy and conditions are rapidly approaching Third World standards. If you think this won't make people reconsider any separatist sentiment, think again. Pretty much nothing pisses people off like a serious reduction in their standard of living.

And this is if you succeed. The odds are against you, because you have several ethnic groups who have a vested interest in making sure you fail, a "nation" of people who really don't have much to gain from what you are promising, the most powerful military apparatus in the world, and the dependence on each part of the US on the other parts all working to foil your project. It's folly on every level.

edited 5th Apr '11 10:11:16 PM by WoolieWool

@Woolie Wool Why are you only mentioning the South here?

Because his separatism plan specifically mentions the South as the new "black America".