Hello melanin diaspora, lame American Negro here. We gotta have a talk about us as a whole. Being a Western raised kid I barely learned anything about Black in the world, but I assumed it was a lifestyle similar to being in the US: a grind to move up, parents that warned of the world, trying to be seen as you are not as the world wants you to be. I don’t think are stories are unfamiliar to us in that we struggle in our skin and when we aren’t thinking of it, we are reminded of it. Constantly.
From my standpoint, as a German born US citizen (Army brat, you can read up on it in past posts) I learned a lot about the space I was occupying. I say learned when I really mean “indoctrinated” and I say occupying the space because the history books told me I wasn’t supposed to be there. Along with the history books, the occasional racist/micro-aggression reminder that I didn’t belong. I know a little bit about my family history, but for me personally it was more about the relatives who were around at the time. I don’t really know great grandparent stories, great great…all that. I, as embarrassing as it is to admit, don’t know much about Africa. Though one of my favorite books as a child was “Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky”, I knew it was of Africa, but that’s about it. So where do I start? How do I make up for lost time? How can I reclaim myself? I don’t think I’m alone in these thoughts and I don’t think there’s enough time spent speaking with each other, the world over, in a way where we see our collective greatness. So we rep where we’re from, where we’re at, and we hold that as our representation of our Blackness. We hold that so close that any gleam of disrespect is met with defensiveness because what more can this world take from us. Even the rough spaces some people call home are used as a backdrop for fantasy play (the Miley’s) until shit gets too real. So what’s all the point of all this barely coherent writing?
We are, all Black people, fighting the same fight. “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” I know, but that has always been the case before I was even born and those people need to be called out. The ethics of our decisions need to be discussed without belittling the lived experience of others, and it needs to be done without the mentality of what is right and wrong in Western society, but what is right and wrong as people. At the same time of this Nigerian military massacre, I’ve seen some Black people direct their anger towards other Black people as if they haven’t or aren’t doing enough in the time frame they want them to. I can see the criticism for celebrities who use African culture for their image and are silent while the continent bleeds, but the implication that others don’t care enough because they aren’t using social media to scream into the void is wildly misinformed and counterproductive. I never had many chances after childhood to really be a part of Black spaces and I feel that now I’m doing my best to include myself into those spaces, albeit online but I have to start somewhere right? We have been fighting in this skin every day, constantly, picking up where our parents left off. It’s exhausting and I don’t want to have to spend that time not fighting for my people because I’m too busy fighting with them.
I guess this is a plea to see how easily we learned to be divisive instead of learn about a persons character and teach the knowledge we have gained. This is all so tiring and I don’t have the words to express how much we need us.
Something With Nothing 