Random Thoughts: My People

Instead of only posting stories about current events, I'd like to share some of my opinions on various issues as they occur to me. Today is the first installment of my Random Thoughts.

On My People: I have been struggling lately with the term “my people”. It feels illogical and like a tip of the hat to segregationists to reflexively call all black Americans my people. I mean, are they all really “my people”? Do we hang out?

Generally speaking, “my people”, the ones I hang with, are mostly well-educated, socially progressive and live in urban or suburban areas of major metropolitan cities. Most of them are not black. My boyfriend is black and he’s a tight-fisted conservative, but that is neither here nor there. My upbringing was incredibly integrated, so I think I tend toward integrated groups of people.

In the alternative, my people could be all people of Hispanic and/or African heritage. But that definition is too broad to have any meaning. Paring it down to the U.S. makes it more manageable. Though one of my parents is from Latin America (and looks nothing like Memin Penguin), I was raised in the broad cultural tradition of black America. Dark skin and decidedly nappy hair has always made it difficult for me to convince others that I am anything but black, so perception becomes reality. I look like a black girl; I live like a black girl.

Are my people then American blacks? Probably. It is with them that I most deeply identify. Culture is what connects us. Though we are all very different from each other in habits, religion and opinion, the culture built over a history of isolation and denial is one thing we share. This may explain why blacks, more than any other ethnic group I can identify, use language about ejecting people from the race based on actions that are alien to the culture. The reason some black conservatives are so vilified is not due to lack of color, but lack of care. We cannot connect them to our parents’, grandparents’ or pastors’ conservatism. Whereas traditional conservatives in the black community are plentiful, exhorting the young to get jobs, stop acting so fresh, pull their pants up, cut their hair, be ever prayerful, etc, the black conservatives who get book deals and television shows seem heartless and willfully blind to the real circumstances confronted by black people on a daily basis. They don’t seem “white” as they are often derisively called. White people, we know; these black neocons just seem foreign.

One prominent black conservative who holds a lot of respect in the black community is Colin Powell. He is conservative, but one can connect him to the black conservative tradition. Most of our famous pastors are all very conservative, yet they seem to understand what the common man suffers and they do not look down on him. Condoleeza Rice, Glenn Loury, Armstrong Williams, Larry Elders and Clarence Thomas, all give the impression of being foreigners with no grounding in the black cultural tradition and no feelings of empathy for everyday people. A black minister, for instance, may disapprove of a wide range of behavior, but he will likely have feelings of sympathy for the poor. A conservative black businessperson might be disdainful of the actions of poor people, but will still think that with proper training they are not beyond redemption. Neither of these people would cut themselves off from black people for personal gain.

I belong to at least two sets of people. One set are “my people” by conscious choice. We chose to become educated, become professionals, be politically aware and be travel junkies. The second set of “my people” were thrown together by accident of cultural similarity and a shared history. We may not always hang out, but we ought always try to hang together.

Shop At Niggers, Malawi

This is the text of a forwarded email I received from a friend. I looked at the author's website and his story is real (a link to his website is below). Check it out.

"My name is David Sylvester and I recently completed a charitable bicycle trip in Africa, riding over 7000 miles from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa. The trip made me the first and only African-American to cross two continents on a bicycle. I have plenty of great and fascinating stories. Many are funny, others bittersweet, some are poignant, but all are entertaining. Surprisingly one story has stood out and if it was not for the fact that I have a picture of it, many would never believe it. It is for that reason that I am sharing it with you.

While in Lilongwe, Malawi, I came across a store by the name of "Niggers" ---that's right "Niggers"! The other riders, who were all white, could not wait to inform me of this to see my reaction. Initially, I thought that it was a very bad joke but when the other riders were adamant about the existence of the store, I had to see it for myself.

What I found was a store selling what the owner called 'hip hop' style clothing. It was manned by two gentlemen --- one of them asleep! (Talk about living up to or in this case down to a stereotype) I asked the guys what was up with the store name. After hearing my obvious non-Malawian accent and figuring out that I was from America, the man thumped his chest proudly and said "P-Diddy New York City! We are the niggers!"

My first reaction was to laugh; because many things when isolated can be very funny, but it quickly dawned on me that this was so not funny at all. It was pathetic. I did these bicycle trips across the USA and through the ‘Mother –Land’ in honor of one of my good friends, mentors and fellow African American, Kevin Bowser, who died on 9/11. Here I am, a black man riding across the world on his bicycle in honor of another black man, riding ‘home’ and what do I see?? Some Africans calling themselves Niggers! They were even so proud of it they put it on their storefront to sell stuff. When I relay the story to folks back home in Philadelphia, most of them laugh too and rationalize it by saying ‘well, we can say it to each other’ or ‘there is a difference’ or even ‘they just spelled it wrong. It should have been ‘nigga's’ or ‘niggah's’ like that would make a difference.

The issue is not the spelling. I was wrong. We are wrong. There is no justification for an infraction of this magnitude. The word and the sentiment behind it is flat out wrong! We have denigrated and degraded ourselves to the point that our backwards mindset has spread like a cancer and infected our source, our brothers, our sisters, our Mother Land. I have traveled all over the world and have never seen a store by the name of "Jew Devils", ‘spic bastards’, ‘muff divin’ dykes’ or anything like that- Only the store niggers! I am to blame for this. Every time I said the word I condoned it, by not correcting others or rationalizing it gave it respectability, by looking the other way when others said ‘hey nigga what's up’ allowed others to see it and ultimately that when I purchase CDs, DVDs, T-shirts and other stuff, I enriched it. I now see the error in my ways and I am so so sorry black men and women. The flame that we called entertainment, that was only to warm and entertain us, now engulfs us and scorches our own self-esteem. If a child only knows to refer to men and women as niggers, bitches, pimps and hoes, then what is he/she to grow up thinking of themselves and others as he/she gets older?

This is no joke you can see my site and read some more stories. The bottom line is this I rode over 12000 miles on 2 continents through 15 states and 13 countries and broke 2 bikes in the process to get to a store in AFRICA called niggers. I am willing to step up and admit my part in the havoc that we have wrought on our mindset but I think that we all are to blame."

YG&B: Ah, the Klan must be proud. If you'd like to do something to make a change, consider visiting David's website and making a contribution to the scholarship fund that will benefit high school seniors in Philadelphia.

Vicente Fox's One-Two Punch

On May 13, 2005, Vicente Fox, President of Mexico, made a statement expressing his confusion over America’s negative backlash to large waves of Mexican immigration because as he said, Mexicans were willing to do jobs that “not even blacks” were willing to do. Huh? Was that really necessary? It would have been more rhetorically powerful to say “that no Americans” are willing to do. But no, he singled out blacks. I could not understand the motivation for his statement until I saw the new Mexican stamp being issued by the Mexican Postal Service.

The stamp, pictured below, features Memin Penguin, a popular comic book character in 1940s Mexico that is STILL BEING PUBLISHED TODAY. The hapless, but loveable Memin Is frequently the butt of jokes by the comic’s white characters. The Mexican Postal Service explains that the Memin stamps are one of a series of five stamps that will celebrate popular characters from Mexican comics.

Is that Aunt Jemima in the background wiping her hands and lamenting that she “don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies” (or, que “no sabia nada de dar luz”)? And is the greasy-faced Memin marching off to school dreaming about burritos and fried chicken? The stamp is breathtaking in its offensiveness, sweeping in its warm embrace of outdated stereotypes. Why Mexico even had a Sambo comic book character is beyond me. As far as I know, Mexico’s native black population are scattered among various communities around the southern Pacific coast and there was never American-style slavery there.

From my brief Internet research, I have learned that Mexico was home to tens of thousands of Africans, may of whom lived in communities of escaped slaves called “maroon” communities. Their descendants still live in towns such as Yanga (named after its black founder), El Ciruelo, Corralero and Cuajinicuilapa (try saying that three times fast) in the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero.

I also tried to hunt down pictures of these “Blexicans”, so-called by a Blexican rapper in Los Angeles, to counteract the ugly images put forth by the Mexican Postal Service. The real people look a lot less like Sambo and a lot more like blacks living in the Spanish-speaking islands of the Caribbean such as the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. A young Mexican male whose skin has been colored by his African ancestors is pictured below.

No Sambo there.

Vicente, I am not in your constituency. You do not have to apologize to or placate me. However, it doesn’t make any sense for Mexicans and black Americans to be enemies. It also doesn’t make sense for you, Vicente, to continue with your shell game of shifting attention from what should be your true focus, improving Mexico’s economy so that it can provide living wages for Mexican citizens, to crabbing about America’s immigration policy with a cheap shot at stereotypes about lazy black Americans.

Stop the madness, Vicente. Leave black Americans out of your political drama. While you’re at it, you might also show some respect to the Mexicans of African descent who have been faithful citizens at least since the early seventeenth century and stop issuing national stamps that caricature them and belittle their contribution to Mexican culture and society.

For more information:

You can read the CNN story on the stamps here.

Africa’s Legacy in Mexico from the Smithsonian

Black Mexico from MexConnect