What Would Evidence A Black American Ethnic Identity?

Every night, I wish upon a star that we can finally be done with identity. That we stop defining ourselves and each other by gender conformity or sex or who we like having sex with. By religious belief or political allegiance or favourite sports team. And of course, close to my heart, by skin colour.

So far, the stars have been uncooperative.

In my article, Blackness Is A Cage, I pointed out that “blackness” is a collection of stereotypes that are almost exclusively self-sabotaging. And worse, that if a black person defies these stereotypes by studying too hard or being too professional or speaking too well, they’re often accused, almost exclusively by black people, of “acting white.”

I asked whether we’d be better off rejecting the idea that being black comes with membership requirements.

Greg wanted to make sure I wasn’t throwing out the good with the bad.

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Greg:

Thanks, Steve, for this thoughtful and passionately reasoned piece. My only word of caution is that there are writers and artists who frame the "black American" or "American Negro" idiomatic cultural dimension of American life and history in more positive, generative terms that embraces mastery and excellence. Examples? Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, Stanley Crouch, and Wynton Marsalis, to name a few.

Further, it's more than possible to be rooted in a particular ethnic identity while being open to the influence of other ethnic and cultural groups. That's actually the way culture works, via interwoven cross-influences. Philosophers Anthony Appiah and Danielle Allen call this dynamic "rooted cosmopolitanism."

So it's not necessarily the case that "black" is an unqualified negative or lesser quality. Last, I've tried to be careful by including American as a qualifier of nationality with the ethnic and cultural signifier of black, though I realize that many if not most will conflate black as a racial term with black American as an ethnic term. As Stuart Hall one said, the "trace" of race will perhaps always be present considering our history since the advent of modernity, but my intent is to emphasize culture and ethnic identity over a racial one.

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Steve QJ:

“Further, it's more than possible to be rooted in a particular ethnic identity while being open to the influence of other ethnic and cultural groups.”

Oh yes, completely agreed. But I don't see much evidence of that in black ethnic identity. Especially in America.

Blackness is all too often defined in opposition to "whiteness," another made up concept, which in turn, especially lately, has been taken to be everything black people need in order to thrive. Studying hard? Speaking properly? Rational thinking and delayed gratification? Nope, sorry black folks, that's all "acting white."

I certainly don't see "black" as a negative quality. But it's too often associated with negative things. Or is allowed to be associated in ways that "whiteness" isn't. I linked Michael Smith's excellent "Black Murder Is Normal" in the article. It sums up beautifully the way we tacitly endorse black negativity in ways we don't for other ethnicities.

Thanks for the list of names. I haven't heard of a couple of them. I'll definitely be checking them out. More positive portrayals of black indentity are definitely needed.

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Greg:

For you, Steve, what would evidence a black American ethnic identity? I didn't say "black" exclusively. The "American" is essential.

If we think in racial terms, yes, "Blackness is all too often defined in opposition to 'whiteness.'"

That's how such absurdities as defining "whiteness" in terms of rationality and delayed gratification come into being, as well as the negative qualities on the other end of the racial scale.

This nonsense has been going on for quite some time. In the early '60s, literary critic Irving Howe, had the audacity to take Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin to task for not being as "angry" and as "militant" as he perceived Richard Wright, author of Black Boy and Native Son, to be. To Howe in the early 60s, Baldwin and Ellison were too "literary" and "modulated" in their approach.

In terms of the old Southern vernacular, Baldwin and Ellison, in essence, were being too "uppity."

Ellison's response, in an essay titled "The World and the Jug," was one of the fierciest intellectual beat-downs of the 20th century. Consider checking it out. In my next post (in reply to your reply), I'll give you a little taste of Ellison's response, which evidences not only what he called a Negro American ethnic identity, but the complexity and depth of it.

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Steve QJ:

“For you, Steve, what would evidence a black American ethnic identity? I didn't say "black" exclusively. The "American" is essential.”

For me, I don't think there is such thing as a black American ethnic identity. Certainly not anymore.

Even if by black American, you're excluding black immigrants who have become citizens in the past generation or two, say, the ADOS community is a culturally and intellectually diverse community with different opinions on everything from American society to reparations to white people.

In my mind, one of the key markers of equality will be when nobody thinks of black people, American or otherwise, as a homogenous group or as an "identity". Just as nobody thinks of white people in this way.

But if you're asking what I think the broader perception of a black American ethnic identity is, I think if it's anything, it's closest to the definition of "blackness" I pointed to in the article. Eternally marginalised, oppressed victims of circumstance. A people who are so downtrodden by the weight of their spiritual connection to slavery, that special dispensation needs to be made for their fragile emotions and the immutable power that white Americans wield over them. The underdogs. The hustlers. People who have a chip on their shoulder that, however far forward we move in to the future or however privileged their personal circumstances are, inherit the genuine victimhood of their ancestors.

Needless to say, I reject this definition. Not because I think racism is done with or that there aren't black people who are genuinely downtrodden and marginalised by the system and American society. But because in 2022, this is no longer a "black" problem. It's a problem for those black people. And the clearer everybody is about that, the easier I believe it will be to help them.

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Greg:

Sadly, you may be correct about the current status of a black American ethnic identity. Ellison was devoted to capturing in literature what he called a "vanishing Negro American tribe."

However, there are still traditions, art forms, styles, culinary, and linguistic practices that still can be attributed to a Black American cultural complex. But it is crucial to first separate race from culture.

So in the same way, as you say, no one thinks of white people as a homogenous group, I don't think of people racialized as "black" that way. So yes, there are multi-generational Black Americans who developed an American idiomatic subculture with specific elements, of course with regional variations. And there are folks who are immigrants who are racialized as black from Africa, the Caribbean, etc. Those are different cultural complexes, even though they are racialized as "black." See?

One aspect of American pluralism is the way different groups of people vye for resources, recognition, and respect. This is the "many" in the nation's motto, E pluribus unum--Out of many, one. The "one" is the shared ideals deriving from the social contract in the nation's founding documents. The oneness is indeed the basis of equality that you refer to. Yet idiomatic and cultural distinction does not have to be sacrificed for the sake of the "one." At least in my opinion.

I strongly counter-state the notion that I, as a multi-generational inheritor of a rich Black American cultural tradition, evidenced by the blues and jazz heritage, for instance, are defined primarily in negative relation to "white people."

"Eternally marginalised, oppressed victims of circumstance. A people who are so downtrodden by the weight of racism that special dispensations need to be made for their fragile emotions and the power that white Americans wield over them."

I do not accept this definition, though some if not many do today. I know too much, I've studied too much history and culture to accept such a reductionistic definition. And there are far too many examples of folks who are racialized as black who are successful--by any measure--in American society to agree to such a definition.

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Steve QJ:

“I do not accept this definition, though some if not many do today.”

Yeah, to be very clear, I don't accept it either. In fact, as you say, it's demonstrably wrong. But I very often see it held up both by black people and white people in the way they talk about "blackness".

And while I agree that jazz, blues, hip hop, on and on, are part of something you could reasonably describe as a black cultural tradition or perhaps history, I think of them more as contributions to American (and world) culture made by black people. As are many other forms of art, food, linguistics etc.

They're beautiful and important, but I don't feel that I own them because I'm black. Just as I don't feel distanced from contributions made by white or Asian people because I'm black. And if a black person doesn't like Motown or blaxploitation movies or curried goat, I don't think they're any less "authentic."

This is really what I'm trying to say in the article. The notion of "blackness" shouldn't push black people towards a particular thing or away from a different thing. A black person who listens to nothing but Vivaldi is exactly as black as a black person who listens to nothing but KRS-One. There is "many" within that collective known as black people too.

It's a bit of an aside, but this is my problem with the idea of cultural appropriation. The idea that we own something or are forever tied to it because somebody of the same skin colour, tens or hundreds of years ago, was the first to do it is so reductive.

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In my article I wrote that blackness is a cage. But really, all identity is a cage. Knowing the colour of a person’s skin or the actions of their ancestors or what they get up to in bed, doesn’t give us enough information to understand them. It doesn’t tell us what they think. And it certainly doesn't mean we have anything in common with them.

The belief that it does keeps us fighting instead of talking.

Because as comforting as it might be to pretend otherwise, whatever “identity” traits we choose to divide ourselves, there are good and bad people on both sides. There are stupid and smart people on both sides. There are people who we agree and disagree with on both sides.

Identity trades independent thought for the false simplicity of groupthink. It trades our uniqueness for the false comfort of conformity. It trades individuality for the false kinship of tribalism.

Hmm, maybe I should start wishing on two stars…