An African perspective on race in America
Following up on Emily’s example of how race is thought of very differently in Africa than in the US – and our conversation about the tensions between understandings of race in Dominican Republic in the US, here’s an interesting interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie precisely on the topic. Read her novel, Americanah (for pleasure or extra credit!).
When I was listening to the interview, one thing that Chimamanda said that struck me was that in America, all people with dark skin are considered black (and are called African American, though she did not say that). When my mom, brothers, or I have to fill out something that asks for our race, there’s always confusion—and even some frustration—over the choices. It’s upsetting to see that the choice for black people is always listed as “African American/ Black,” as if all black people are African American. My mom is from Haiti, a country of the Caribbean, not Africa. Sometimes when I have to pick my race, I feel inclined to pick “Caucasian” and “other,” because I feel that picking “African American/ Black” misrepresents me. It’s as if I’m being forced to conform to that idea of all black people being African American. For some reason, the choice for “black” accompanies a specific ethnicity, “African,” while “white” doesn’t. I don’t know why this is, but it complicates things for black people of varying ethnicities, and it’s wrong. Whenever I tell someone I’m half black, I always get, “Wow! Really! You don’t look like it,” as a response, until I tell them that I’m not African, but Haitian. Then some say, “Oooh, okay,” as they had assumed black meant African and were surprised I’d be so light skinned. Some though, reply that “Oh, that’s not black.” One of my friends who said the latter statement told me that I should just say Caribbean so people don’t misunderstand. If I did that though, saying I’m white and Caribbean, I’d be stating a race and an ethnicity. I am part black, but because of the widespread assumption that black equals African American, I can’t even tell people what my other race is, without further explanation. Sadly, on surveys, I can’t make that extra distinction, and it always feels a little wrong.
My mom went to a meeting once where a man was discussing survey statistics, and he said that he wasn’t going to clump the black Americans with the Carribeans because they are different, and a lady actually stood up and clapped. Aside from the aforementioned ethnicity confusion that probably prompted the man to do this, not all Caribbean people are black; some of them are white. While I have experienced people tell me that Haitian is not black, I had a black skinned Trinidadian friend who everyone called black, sometimes even African American (probably until they figured out her actual ethnicity, but I don’t know for sure). I’m sure if she told people that “I’m black, but from Trinidad,” people wouldn’t tell her, oh that’s not black, as I am told, even though both Haiti and Trinidad are from the Caribbean. I think that people only say that to me because I don’t look black (as I am half white). In fact, people often just call me white, and aside from when I’m accurately telling someone what I am, I just say I’m white as well. If I went to Haiti, I’m sure that I would not be considered one of the black Caribbeans, even though my mom would be. Though, half the time, people in American think she is from the Dominican Republic, and therefore Hispanic, because she has the lighter brown skin tone of Dominicans as opposed to the usual black skin of Haitians, and people always call Dominicans Hispanic and Haitians black, even though both countries are from the Caribbean. On a survey though, I think there would be controversy over whether a Dominican person should pick “African American/ Black” or “Hispanic,” and I’m sure some justify picking Hispanic because Dominicans can trace there ancestry back to South America, yet, Haitians just as well can trace there ancestry back to France, but no Haitian could justify choosing Caucasian/ White on a survey. This shows just how widespread this issue of defining and labeling black race is in America.
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Odette, thank you for such a thoughtful response. This is a very interesting and important issue. I am actually reading a book right now about this, written by a colleague who happens to be half white and half Jamaican (Migrants and Race in the US by Philip Kretsedemas). In this book, the author argues that when it comes to immigrants in the US, race is more complicated than black/white or even black/non-black. This is not just because immigrants bring different ways of understanding race from the countries of their origin (e.g. Dominican Republic, Haiti, or Nigeria), but because they are treated in different ways in the US – different from being either white or black. Being seen as foreigners (even when they were born in the US – remember the what kind of Asian are you? video?) is layered on top our usual dichotomy of black vs white. In other words, what we think of ethnicity (e.g. Haitian) really becomes more like a racial category on top of black/white. In addition, because of the history of race in America, there is a lot of anxiety and attention around people who don’t fit into either black or white categories.
In a couple of weeks, we will have a guest speaker who studies Liberian immigrants in Staten Island, and we can ask her about race and identity for that group of immigrants.