Thursday, March 27, 2008
On the ambivalence of African-American national identity
Contrary to the expectations of those among my readers who consider me a right-wing goon, I read as much as I can bear outside my political and cultural comfort zone. So it is with Lena Williams' It's the Little Things: Everyday Interactions That Anger, Annoy, and Divide the Races
I've always been ambivalent about my nationality. When I was young I loved being an American. I was as American as Mom, apple pie, and Chevrolet. In school we pledged allegiance to the flag, staged plays on the American Revolution, with black girls playing the role of Betsy Ross and little black boys reciting the ride of Paul Revere. I believed in democracy, saw communism as a threat to the world, and thought Africa was synonymous with the jungle.
Then black power got hold of me. I danced on the flag and grew to despise the hypocrisy of a nation that preached freedom and justice for all while oppressing a segment of its population. A nation that wanted to dictate policy to communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Cuba but refused to right its own wrongs. Black soldiers fought and died in wars in Germany, Japan, and Vietnam, only to return home to be called niggers. Forget integration; I believed in a separate black state.
When did I change back? When did I begin to hear myself say how disappointed I was that children today do not know the pledge of allegiance? When did I begin to routinely refer to myself as a black American?
Was it 1978, when I and two friends went to Paris and heard Parisians instinctively refer to us as Americans. Not black. Not Negroes. Americans. Or was it in 1983 while visiting London, where British citizens remarked on my American accent.
"Are you from the States?" a London cabbie asked me upon my arrival at Heathrow. "You speak English with an American accent."
But it wasn't in Europe that I found my Americanness. I found it in Africa, of all places.
I went to Nairobi, Kenya, in 1987, to visit a friend, Sheila Rule, who was working there as bureau chief for the New York Times. In the two weeks traveling throughout Kenya and Harare, Zimbabwe, with Sheila, who is black, I was constantly reminded of my nationality.
Two African men who spotted Sheila and me at an airport in Kisumu, Kenya, said that beyond our speaking English with an American accent, they could tell we weren't African because of the way we carried ourselves.
"You're very demonstrative," one of the men said. "You tend to gesture with your hands, you walk with your heads held high. Most African women don't act that way. Even the way you dress. It's very Western. And we can tell that your American accent isn't fake."
An African man in Harare noticed that when Sheila and I walked into a restaurant with a white male friend, we immediately asked to be seated at a table near the window. "Americans have this sense of entitlement," he explained to us. "That's how I knew you were American."
Africa may be the motherland, but America is my homeland. I realized it then. And I embraced it. I embraced its uniqueness and its freedom. In spite of its faults, it is my home and my native land.
I suspect that Williams' journey -- from childhood patriot to rejectionist anti-American to a more mature and settled love of country -- is traveled in whole or in part by many African-Americans. Perhaps it explains one version of a story that is being told in different ways in this campaign -- that many of our African-American leaders, be they religious or political, have wrestled their entire lives with an ambivalence about America that leaks out (see, e.g., Michelle Obama) or detonates (see, e.g., Jeremiah Wright), depending on the personality and position of the speaker and the distance of his or her journey.
The question, then, is what impact this learning, if that is what it is, ought to have on the presidential campaign? Unfortunately, my answer leads me to something of a double standard: While we can abide nothing less than absolute love of country from our president, if we elect a president with African-American friends and family it is very likely that they will harbor some significant qualifications to their love of country. If that is true, then anti-Americanism among the friends or family of an African-American candidate might actually tell us less about the opinions of the candidate himself than would similar attitudes among the friends or family of a white candidate.
19 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Mar 27, 10:53:00 PM:
600 thousand Americans died fighting for, and against, slavery. No other country can say that.
I think Michelle, and Obama, and Jeremiah, and Al and Jesse and just about every other angry "African American" would be shocked to hear the stories of Chinese, Irish, (fill in the blank) Americans who suffered prejudice and second citizenry during the development of this great nation. But that doesn't fit into the 'identity' they want to talk about.
Most Americans only see the color when we see the Wrights of the world bitching about being screwed by Caucasian Americans. It's too bad more people don't take the journey to realize what a gift this great country is, and put a tight grab the brass ring.
By , at
Thu Mar 27, 11:49:00 PM:
When Obama matures enough to share Williams' view of this country -- and proves it by renouncing the spiritual mentorship of anyone who prays for America's damnation -- I will consider voting for the guy.
By , at
Fri Mar 28, 12:05:00 AM:
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and make a statement that I think applies not only to Obama, but 99% of all politicians:
I'm not really bothered by Wright's statements, because I doubt Obama really takes anything the guy says seriously. Frankly, I doubt Obama is even particularly religious; I'd wager he occupies an area somewhere between agnostic and atheist. I'd say the same about pretty much all politician-types, that going to the church, synagogue, mosque or whatever is just a photo-op, another box to be checked. It's tough to reconcile their private behavior (what we know of it) with this alleged spirituality.
The same thing can be said of patriotism, to some degree. I don't know if Obama (and other politicians) love this country so much as they love the idea of themselves leading this country. It's just a component of that personality type imo.
By , at
Fri Mar 28, 12:12:00 AM:
You can easily tell if a pol loves his country. It's not hard. [Different from wisdom, but a pol who doesn't love America won't fight for it. Ever.]
If a pol will SACRIFICE a gain, often a personal, for the good of his or her country, then the pol loves his country. John McCain (a man who's judgment I seriously question) sacrificed a lot, including torture and forgoing said torture for an early release from Hanoi, just because he loved his country.
Obama could not even walk out of his church. He still can't.
Case closed: Obama does not love America, McCain does.
By , at
Fri Mar 28, 12:35:00 AM:
I highly recommend Eddy L. Harris’s books. I believe he now teaches at Washington University.
Native Stranger: A Black American's Journey into the Heart of Africa concluded what I and many Americans concluded upon exposure to the Third World: that the US isn’t such a bad place after all.
Mississippi Solo: A River Quest He canoed down the Missisippi. From what I remember, he concluded the same I did from my hitchhiking across the US: Americans are pretty hospitable to strangers.
South of Haunted Dreams: A trip to the South.
By 
Eric, at
Fri Mar 28, 08:39:00 AM:
I can respect that. There are similar elements to my adult formative experiences with my identity as an Asian American, which has its own distinct challenges from other American minority groups. I guess my analogous period to Williams' Africa experience was my years as an active-duty soldier.
There is, indeed, an American identity that is based primarily upon white American history, culture, etc, and many non-white Americans do feel the inner conflict as our adult sense of self-awareness forms in young adulthood. Dealing with a sense of otherness and being an outsider is part of the peril of growing up American. For some American groups, such as black Americans, there is a more-mature non-white American culture to connect to. For some groups, like mine, less so. Identity is a winding journey.
For me, becoming comfortable in my identity as an American soldier, that most profoundly American of all identities, allowed me in turn to become comfortable - an owner - with my identity as an American.
Building upon what Williams said about her upbringing, I believe that it is very important for all young American children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and learn a common grounding in American civic values and history. As part of growing up, it's normal for minority Americans to struggle with their identity in teenage and young adult years, but it's important that as they become mature Americans, they have the basis already in place to return to the common American ground they learned in childhood.
As far as Obama, I have less issue with what's in his background than how he's dealt and reacted to controversy challenges as a prospective US President.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Mar 28, 08:42:00 AM:
Eric, that's a great contribution. Thank you.
By Andrewdb, at
Fri Mar 28, 12:26:00 PM:
I did Easter dinner with the family. My sister is a high school (math) teacher here in So. Cal.
A couple of here comments:
1. There is an incredibly large number of "mixed race" kids out there now.
2. She doesn't like Barak's policies, but her students tell her his comments about feeling torn between two worlds is what the mixed race kids live. His recent speech really spoke to them.
3. There is a stream of "bitter black" culture in the US among the African-American's whose families lived through slavery. This does not seem to apply to the Commonwealth blacks who come here from Jamacia, Nigeria, etc.
4. Her high minority-race (to the extent we still have that in California - we are a minority-majority state now) achieving kids are overwhelmingly Commonwealth originating.
5. Barack's father is from the Commonwealth (Kenya) and his mother is white from Kansas. He doesn't seem to have (nor speak of) the same "bitter-black" stream mentioned above.
6. Michelle Obama is from a family who has been here a long time, she does speak of that, and she probably chooses the church in her family, as do most wives.
7. Yes, I know that the plural of anecdote is not data.
By , at
Fri Mar 28, 05:22:00 PM:
"There is a stream of "bitter black" culture in the US among the African-American's whose families lived through slavery."
More than six generations ago. (1865-2008=143 yrs/6 = 23.8)
I just feel like I have to bring that up every so often, because it's like no one realizes it. Living people whose families were slaughtered by Germans (like mine, on my mother's side) have since forgiven Germany.
But I believe that there will still be American blacks claiming to be victims well into my children's adulthood.
*cue quasi-coherent rant by Chambers*
By Andrewdb, at
Fri Mar 28, 07:18:00 PM:
Dawnfire82 -
Don't shoot the messanger - I agree with you.
Although I would point out that my great-grandfather, who died when I was about 6 (I come from a family that needs to be beat to death with a 2x4 - my 401k will never be enough) had stories about his father's Civil War wounds. As a card carrying member of the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War, if I am remembering that heritage it shouldn't surprise us that others do as well.
That said, there does come a time when one needs to take responsiblity for doing something about ones own circumstances.
By , at
Fri Mar 28, 11:21:00 PM:
I also learned a lot about America from living abroad and made the conscious decision to move my family back so they would learn certain key values - reason, kindness, independence - they might not have acquired otherwise. However, I also realized America is a culture which practices oppression, and that it derives from our great geographic and social mobility. If you think the age of oppression is over, take a long hard look at the situation of illegal immigrants. They are the new underclass, working as little better than indentured servants. Yes, they broke the law in coming here, but the government has encouraged hypocritical policies toward them in order to keep wage prices down for agricultural and service businesses (and by extension, the American consumer). Here in Princeton, in the middle of the night, ICE agents without a warrant have gone into houses and arrested people at random. That sounds a lot like oppression to me.
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Mar 29, 07:28:00 AM:
Well, Squealer, that is a great comment that arrives at a conclusion that I think is unnecessary. Even if "oppressed" economically according to a particular view of capitalism, illegal immigrants are not oppressed involuntarily, in the sense that they are always free to return to their homeland and choose not to. Blacks and Native Americans do not really have that choice, and that makes their case profoundly different. And on the legal point, the police do not need a warrant to enter a home to make an arrest -- no-knock raids are a common feature of law enforcement everywhere; they need a warrant to conduct a search for evidence. When the presence of the person himself is the offense (as it is with illegals), where's the oppression?
I say this, by the way, as a notorious dove on the illegal immigration question, about which I think many conservatives have gone literally insane.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 09:16:00 AM:
Here in Princeton, in the middle of the night, ICE agents without a warrant have gone into houses and arrested people at random. That sounds a lot like oppression to me.
Equally so on the left TH, when you see ICE raids in Princeton described with such hyperbole, like Squealer uses. Enforcing immigration laws is hardly oppressive, it's the passage of such laws that are oppressive. Elect a different rocket scientist, why don't you. And, by the way, exactly how many "middle of the night" oppressions have occurred in PRinceton? Any, really? Please.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 12:39:00 PM:
My description of the arrests is hardly hyperbole. Judge for yourself:
Dec. 7, 2007 (and 2004), also a couple weeks ago.
I wouldn't obect quite as much if they properly arrested the persons outside their residence, or inside their residence with a warrant, or if the arrested person was actually the person ICE agents were looking for. In many cases, these are unconstitutional "fishing trips". Here's a formal legal complaint that outlines the issues. I don't see that we should allow unlawful search-and-seizures just because the persons in the house might be illegals.
You're absolutely right the African-American situation is different. I'm just saying American culture often finds a way to justify oppression of one sort or another and that is not an aspect of this country that I love. It's easy to say an illegal immigrant can always return home, but sometimes there are children involved (often American citizens) who will get hurt by the dislocation (as in the second case above, where the daughter has cerebral palsy).
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 05:35:00 PM:
Well, neither instance you cited appears all that oppressive to me, and "hyperbole" looks like an accurate description of your words. In the one example, ICE sought to arrest two men who had exhausted legal attempts to stay in the country and had been ordered deported. In the other instance, which I recall vaguely, ICE was apparantly seeking to arrest people in similar circumstances and stumbled upon an illegal dormitory arrangment. In Princeton, these sorts of sleeping arrangements aren't legal, for safety reasons, so the confusion of the residents must have been matched only by the confusion of the law enforcement people, wondering what they had stumbled upon. None of the instances seem to have occurred in the middle of the night.
Under most every notion of a social compact the idea that law should be enforced is pretty fundamental. These enforcement actions appear pretty benign, if law enforcement can ever be so described, and only in a wealthy, insular town like our own would these be described as "harrowing", and only in a town like Princeton would the town newspaper write a report mixing editorial opinion with the straightforward reporting they should have done. The Packet may have struggled to put the worst face on the facts, but that doesn't impress.
I'm in favor, by the way, of allowing immigration from latin America. In my own view, anyone who can get here with the intention of becoming a law-abiding and productive citizen probably deserves to be here. How you keep nutty Jihadists from taking advantage of our open door policy is the problem, and attempting to prevent law enforcement actions isn't a good way to solve the problem. Obviously.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 10:23:00 PM:
If it's dark out, and I'm sleeping, that counts as the middle of the night to me! In fact, the one in December was at 5am, and the other at 6am. I still think they should have had a warrant. Here is the reason why they didn't, according to a letter to the editor by Robert Ashbaugh:
What ICE had was a Supreme Court decision stating that it would not apply the constitution’s Fourth Amendment protection to a civil immigration proceeding if no criminal charges are filed. Thus, ICE can avoid constitutional sanctions by only filing administrative charges, which still are enough to sustain incarceration and removal from the United States. The Supreme Court decision (INS v. Lopez-Mendoza) stated it might revisit its decision if such violations were widespread.
When this country gives up on its basic constitutional freedoms, it is most definitely not a country worth loving. I have no doubt, though, that the current legal protections for ICE will be removed if Obama becomes President. I also expect the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allows habeus corpus to be revoked (foreigns and citizens alike) for those who have "engaged in, or supported hostilities against, the United States" will also be modified into a more acceptable form. In terms of its governmental hypocrisy, I hate the United States. I wonder if that would count as a hostility.
By , at
Sun Mar 30, 04:54:00 PM:
Okay, I rarely delurk to comment, but can I just say I love the cross talk on this post?
I'm an immigrant who grew up in Iowa (one of the reasons I like Tigerhawk, except, er, I'm a Cyclone first) and I can only second some of the above comments.
As a child, I loved, loved, loved reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and reading 'pioneer' stories like Little House on the Prairie, and any immigrant story about becoming an American. I suppose that was the way I made sense of my life. I was part of the same stream of American history where people get on boats (or planes) and came to the US and made a home.
In college, I became more aware of the US as a less than perfect place (well, of course, nothing is perfect), but the things I was taught never sat comfortably with me. Oh, I was glad to learn everything and to correct some of my deficiencies (the truth is better than fairy stories), but not so glad with the attitude that accompanied it. Also, the US really is a sort of fairy story that in parts is true! I missed my childhood connection to the land that I grew up in, even if I was born somewhere else. I loved the warmth and richness of the culture of my parents (South Asian), but I loved my home (America) too! Interesting that the initial childhood impressions were the ones that stuck and felt more natural. Well, I guess that makes sense.
Honestly, all that consciousness raising in college seemed odd. I wanted to think beautiful things and learn beautiful things, and instead, I was supposed to be angry all the time. Urgh.
By , at
Sun Mar 30, 05:26:00 PM:
again, and this time hyperbole aside, how do you solve the essential problem of allowing those immigrants who deserve to be here while turning aside those you would rather not have, without some enforcement mechanism like the ICE actions you find so unpleasant. Instead of parroting silly talking points, 'd love to hear a proposed solution to the problem. Because immigration is the lifeblood of the country and we have to find a way to allow it while still preserving our country's essential security.
By Noumenon, at
Sun Mar 30, 06:03:00 PM:
This is a good post, andrewdb's post is the cherry on top.
