We use words to communicate. In the English language, we use the same word to mean different things…all depends on context. Take the word “blue”. Are we talking about a color or a feeling? Take the word “stroke”. Are you referring to a medical condition? A hand movement sensuous or otherwise? A line on a piece of paper? An exact time? What about “train”? A method of transportation? Teaching a person or animal? Having a flow of thoughts?
Take a look at the above picture. I have always called these weeds “wild strawberry” because of their fruit. Turns out there is such a plant, but not the pictured weed that grows in my yard. Its name is snakeberry or baneberry. To the uneducated eye, the fruit looks like a miniature strawberry, the leaves look and vine like a strawberry plant, but the baneberry (more allerative than snakeberry, don’t you think?) has yellow flowers and there are differences in the outward appearance of the fruit. There is also the taste difference. I actually tasted a couple some years ago. There was no strawberry flavor at all. I understand the berries are not poisonous…just nothing one would want to try more than once. (Not like my memory of wild apricots which I haven’t seen since I was a child and they weren’t apricots…don’t know what they were…the green pulpy fruit grew on a vine. They were tasty and didn’t kill us.) Remember the old saying…can’t judge a book by its cover?
I say this to underscore that sometimes we need more than context to define a word. Sometimes we need to use different words so there is an explicit understanding to what we are referring. For example… the word “Black”. My computer is black…a color…the absence or the complete absorption of light. Symbolically and metaphorically “black” is usually associated with bad/evil. But it can be symbolically and metaphorically associated with an excess of money, sexiness, strength which are considered good.
Black is also used to denote a people of African origin who live in the United States. Because the United States has spread its way of thinking across the world…many people refer to anyone who looks like they may have the African phenotype as “Black”. I did, too. So, I was very confused when persons from the continent of Africa would vehemently deny being Black. Took me a while to understand. If you’re in an African Country, one’s skin color is not a determining factor. The determining factor for an African is one’s tribe. All about context.
Now, we have some misguided persons of questionable motivation shouting that Blacks are indigenous to the Americas. I agree that a people who had the Black phenotype has been in the Americas for thousands of years. Black peoples with our phenotype settled this Earth. Time and environment have changed our features. I also would agree that the whites have lumped them in with the group we now know as Blacks, i.e., the descendants of Slaves. The Natives, with a Black phenotype, are not us. Yes, they originated in Africa as we did, but they arrived under totally different circumstances. Some, I believe were traders. From what I understand, at certain times of the year, the sea journey from Africa to the Americas was doable and the seafarers from the African continent made the journey to the Americas and back to Africa. As with any trading situation, outposts were built and populated. We will never know why…tsunamis, politics…we just don’t know, but contact between the outposts and their homes on the Continent was lost and eventually the outposts were forgotten.
An aside…the story of Califia, the Black Queen after whom California was named, was probably based on a real tribe, maybe even a real queen. Authors mine their personal experiences and twice-told tales for material when imagining a story. On the Continent, many tribes were matrilineal. Women held immense power. That would have been true of any settlement in the Americas.
We have so much to be proud of as the descendants of Slaves. We don’t have to claim the Native American heritage, unless of course,one has evidence that your Ancestors and the Natives are genetically connected. In my family, there was the story of Native American ancestry, but the DNA results did not bear that out. (Note: if my Ancestors mated with a group of Natives whose ancestry was African, it wouldn’t be distinguishable. That is possible, but I understand that would probably be some Asian DNA, but…there is always a but. The Native American DNA simply did not show up in the test. I won’t get into the heritability of DNA, but it is possible that one has Native American ancestry and that DNA was not a part of one’s particular genetic makeup.) Anyway, we have the DNA results for the maternal and paternal lines. No Native American ancestry was detected.
All I’m saying is that in order to get views and make money, the headlines are misleading. If the video explains what is actually the facts of the African phenotype in the Americas, then I applaud the Creator, but the Creators should understand that many viewers don’t bother to actually listen to the video. (I also understand that one might not have control over the actual headline that entices the viewer to click on the video.)
One problem I see is with the Africans and some Caribbeans who emigrate to the United States and very loudly proclaim that they are not Black. That old saying about when in Rome… They don’t seem to understand that whites don’t see anyone with the African phenotype as an individual. The whites don’t care. You look like us…the descendants of Slaves, therefore, you will forever be Black. When they want to kill us, understand they will not ask you for your country of origin, they won’t care if you speak with an accent, they won’t care that you went to an Ivy League school. Your phenotype informs them that they can murder you, discriminate against you, treat you as a second class citizen…all with impunity. That is what you become…Black…when you emigrate here for that better life.
A long time ago, I knew someone from a Caribbean island who had emigrated here. He explained to me that he was being used by the whites, as at the time the Caribbeans were the favored Blacks, now I understand it is the continental African emigrants. He was being used to satisfy the affirmative action goals of the business and he was being paid much less than he should. He said there were few jobs where he was from and he saw no other option than to use the white employer’s perception of him as more amenable, more tractable…grateful…to have the means to support himself and his family. There was a sadness about him. He could not ask for an increase in salary because he would be deemed ungrateful…like us Black Americans. He understood that if he had any attributes of a Black American other than his skin color, he would be terminated. What I’ve said seems contradictory, but living in the United States as a Black American, one’s existence is rife with contradictions.
One night, this was when I was in graduate school…I was talking with a recent graduate of the school. He told me about a party he had attended and a drunk white told him loudly that it was a shame that slavery had been abolished, because he would have liked him as his Slave. He told me never to forget the mindset of the so-called educated elite. I remember a person on the cusp of graduating finding out he was too dark for the positions he coveted. Seems like a white interviewer thought he was doing this person a favor. When you are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, that callousness is enough to send you over the edge and it did. I don’t think he graduated.
That’s another thing. I had no idea of the debt some of my classmates incurred. I didn’t know how lucky I was to have a tuition scholarship. When they would talk about the money they owed, I couldn’t fathom owing that much money and hoping that I would land a job making enough money to pay that debt. My class wasn’t that lucky. We graduated during a recession, rising interest rates…tough economic times. Economic times were tough and affirmative action for Blacks was on the back back burner.
But whites have always blamed everyone but themselves for their failures and lacks, while appropriating anything that could possibly be of value. In my time in the work force, I have seen so many whites get jobs because of familial connections, friend connections, looks, etc. Most were not qualified. Some learned the position; some did not, because who would fire them if they didn’t do the job? I know specifically of one Black person who was given a job because of a familial connection. Unfortunately, he was not qualified for the position and no Blacks were hired, in any position, for a long time after he left. Remember…we are a group.
Language is all about communicating. English is a language that freely borrows from other languages. I think we need to stop using familiar words to express a new concept and make up new words…then the context of the new word would be clear. If one absorbs the light, then one is the light. We forget that in the midst of all the negativity that surrounds us. Sometimes, I place a prism in just the right spot on the window sill and a rainbow of color appears on the floor that moves with the passing of time. I make a point of standing in those wavering, energetic colors and, for some reason, I usually find myself smiling.
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