Guest Post by Ron Stimphil: Black or African-American? Does it really matter?
Two weeks ago, an article written by Associated Press writer Jessie Washington drew much attention on the web, generated many comments, and was even posted on several different news websites. The article was concerned with a preference in race designation “Black or African-American” and was entitled “Some Blacks Insist ‘I’m Not African-American.’”
This is something that I, a Haitian-American Christian minister, have given little thought to prior to engaging in the discussion after my publicist Stacy had arranged three radio interviews in which the theme was: “Which do you prefer: Black or African-American?”
At first, I thought of asking Stacy to attempt to find me a different issue to discuss if possible, for the simple reason that I felt unprepared and so poorly informed to engage in such a topic. However, when I learned that one of my interviewers was going to be Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a giant in the area of race relations – the very subject of interest to me and the object of my novel Martin’s Dream – Journey Onto the Promised Land, I reconsidered and did my best to prepare rather to decline. It proved to be a wiser choice as my knowledge and my understanding grew so much more through the experience of listening to other people’s sentiments about the matter.
For one part, I realized how little aware I was of the magnitude of an issue this was to so many Americans who share an African ancestry. As I was a guest on “The Daily Drum,” a radio show that was hosted by Molette G. sitting for Harold Fisher on that day, many listeners called and expressed their preference for one or the other in a way that conveyed to me their strong affirmation for either one they chose.
Some felt that being designated “African-American” was important to them because, historically, Americans of African descent were oppressed and disallowed a dignified identity. The appellation “Black” was abhorrent to many because of its evil undertones: black cat, black sheep, black flag, Black Death, etc. Others believed that “black” is merely a color, and, as such, it does not do justice to the variety of hues that are shared by Americans of African descent. Keisha, a young woman, felt that “black is beautiful,” as did Malone who had strong recollection of the civil rights movement days and took pride in “embracing who he is without being ashamed.”
I must admit in passing that I was guilty of emotional anachronism: I was feeling for the present what others were expressing about a past wrought with evil deeds of dehumanization, degradation and disdain, which I dubbed the 3-d of the reality of Americans of African descent. Although I was mentally and intellectually aware of the oppressive life Americans of African descent endured in the antebellum south and under Jim Crow laws, I was not making the emotional connection that would have helped me to empathize with the plight of my fellow countrymen who must have carried in their heart a trans-generational pain reinforced by contemporary occurrences of perceived or real racism. Perhaps these people have adopted either one of those two labels, compelled to by an amalgamated emotional driving force that anchors their identity ship in an attempt to stop themselves and others from constantly navigating the raging sea of self-individualization and self-worth.
After I heard the listeners expound passionately on the reasons for their choice of designation, whether “Black” or “African-American,” something strange began happening in me: I was having a heart connection with those who endorsed either label as I never had before. I did not know their faces; neither did I know much about them other than their words that reached me through the wonders of telephone technology as I sat at my desk. Nonetheless, it occurred to me at that very moment that I, like most others, had been profoundly unaware of and oblivious to, despite my pastoral counseling training, how the complexity of the human being and human relations was at play in the intense desire to be validated for one’s choice of racial designation.
I probably owe you, reader, an explanation of my 3-d theory before I delve further in my point. First, Americans of African descent were considered less than human in a process of dehumanization through slavery. Then evil downgraded as race relations “progressed,” and Americans of African descent became merely second-class citizens in a process of degradation emphasized by segregation. Years after the civil rights movement, evil has become less subtle as the disdain that lay dormant during the antebellum and the Jim Crow eras is reaching its fullness in our days: Blacks or Africans-Americans can be anything they want, as long as they leave the majority alone and they learn to pull themselves by their own bootstraps – an alarming tendency that could culminate in race warfare with a vengeance. The disdain is palpable in the majority not appearing to be concerned about what happens to Americans of African ancestry. Like their counterparts of former times, their dilemma on how to address the “black” problem lingers. Therefore, this debate on how best to designate that minority race is bound to elucidate the next course of action for improvement in the relationship of American citizens of both European and African descents.
Many people act as though time has indubitably acted as the great healer that should have vanquished the painful experiences, or at least their memories, from the psyche of the sufferers, but as Dr. King remarked in his Letter from Birmingham jail, “time is neutral.” It is not time itself that heals, but it is rather what you do in that time. If a wound is infected, and you leave it to time to heal it, the infection may worsen, and the wounded person is worse off after time has passed. However, if you clean the wound, excise the diseased part, dress the wounded area properly and take good care of it, then it will likely heal as time passes, and the wounded person’s lot will improve.
Some people do feel strongly about either term, “Black” or “African-American,” because they are still trying to work through painful issues of a dreadful past. The radio interchanges have brought closer to me evidence of the sad reality about race relations. They helped me realize that I was an involuntary victim of the third d – disdain – in the 3-d saga I alluded to earlier. Even in the desire I had to engage an alternate talking point, I was communicating disdain, unbeknownst. There is a certain disdain in the majority’s feelings of sensory overload when it comes to racial matters, as well as social or economic justice. There is disdain in the generations X and Y showing little interest in learning about and from the past. There is nationally a widespread disdain about morality, truth and God.
This is far from being the legacy that Reverend King left us. This is not at all the unfinished business President Lincoln was urging Americans of all backgrounds to be dedicated to. A resurgence of the debate on racial identity may indicate the need to revisit our history and the reasons for our divisiveness as well as the craving for meaningful individual identities. While the dominant culture is pushing for uniformity through conformity erecting itself as the epitome of American culture, minorities continue to seek meaningful identities, encouraged by a transformative freedom sipping out from the vaults of hearts stubbornly fused with the past.
The article by Jesse Washington cited a “series of Gallup polls from 1991 to 2007 [that] showed no strong consensus for either ‘black or African-American.’” The author paralleled it with “a January 2011 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll [in which] 42 percent of respondents said they preferred black, 35 percent said African-American, 13 percent said it doesn’t make any difference, and 7 percent chose ‘some other term.’” For fear of having to compare apples with oranges, I verified the author’s information, and, sure enough, both sets of surveys clearly delineated a discernible downward pattern in the number of people of African heritage to whom it did not make any difference or who had no opinion, from 1992 to the most recent survey to date. This underlines the fact that more Americans of African descent seem to want to adopt either designation of “Black” or “African-American” rather than none at all. In other words, more and more Americans of African lineage are tired of running around in the wilderness, and they want to come home. They want to enter the promised land. They want to be Americans in America.
The understanding of the problem may not necessarily solve the terminology issue, but it does get us closer to Dr. King’s promised land – a land in which blacks and whites can “sit together at the table of brotherhood” and where the prosperous do not have to despise the poor. The promised land is an outcome to be desired out of this conversation, for Dr. King’s speech on the eve of his assassination was more than a premonition of his death: it was a prophetic address. “I just want to do God’s will,” King said. “And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land.” Upon reaching that promised land, Americans of African descent may either still or no longer have to reevaluate anew their racial designation. However, their reasons for choosing either will surely be different than those they give now.
What keeps us from getting to the promised land is the fact that Dr. King’s legacy is not being properly identified. There is a confused sense of what that legacy is. In seeking the meaning of that legacy, many of us have resorted to making a dead man talk. The best way to know what a person wants is to let him or her express himself or herself uninhibitedly. A legacy, by definition, is what a person leaves behind after his death. In this view, Dr. King shared his legacy with us before he left this earth. Here is what he said in his last sermon that was replayed at his funeral at his wife’s request: “If any of you [is] around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral… And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell him… to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody… tried to give his life serving others… to be right on the war question… to feed the hungry… to clothe all the naked… to visit those who were in prison… I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side… But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.”
Dr. King’s legacy was one of walking alongside God to love and serve others. He was not just content to preach the word of God from the safety of a pulpit, but he walked the walk while talking the talk to the point of death. Dr. King overcame by the incomparable love he had in his heart for God and for humanity, and by “the word of the testimony of Jesus; and he did not love his own life unto the death.”
As I analyze the possible and plausible reasons for the desire to be labeled correctly as an American of African descent, I have a strange feeling of being a third party looking in. However, when I incorporate Dr. King’s dream into the mix, the schism seems to dissipate and the chasm filled. I can identify with where he stands because he stood and was grounded in love, and love is the universal language of man and God. I find myself paradoxically respecting how anyone wants to be designated and at the same time wondering if it really matters after all.
Eventually, Americans of all races and ethnicity will have to be cautious not to be distracted from the most important issues of our lives here on this earth, which is to love God and to love our fellow human beings, for ultimately it does not matter what I am called if the one calling me, calls me such in love.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Christianity and Race, God and Love, race relations; Black or African-American? Does it really matter?, Racial reconcilation, Ron Stimphil, The problem of Race | 7 Comments »
