This question was recently posited by POSH Publisher and Founding Editor, Janette N. Brin. About a year ago, I stumbled across her Webzine one afternoon while performing some online research for SFM, and since then I've gone back to the site from time to time - if nothing else, just to check out the latest celeb featured on the cover, and to soak up the substantial number of colorful pages filled with some really, beautiful Black people. It's a general interest magazine that includes the standard Fashion, Political and Travel categories - but presented from a perspective that focuses on the impact made on people of Caribbean descent, and the unique contributions they bring to societies table. As you can tell from my profile and the attendant nature of my posts, I have a deep interest in exploring and better understanding the various intersections that constitute the nexus between the AFAM/Caribbean experience; so when I flipped to the Mag's Conversations section and encountered Janette's question, I had to pause for a moment of reflection - and was immediately reminded of a central theme I've been coming back to...over and over again since the election was called for Barack last November.
For me, it started with two previous experiences which in my opinion, articulate a number of underlying societal and psychological forces at work. Both occurred several years ago - the first resulting from a discussion I had with Jamaica Girl after she got upset over a comment made by Ed Gordon (back in the day when he anchored the news for BET). I don't even remember the specific context of the statement, but during the program, he mentioned something about Black Panamanians. This annoyed Jamaica Girl to no end - kind of set her off actually, and she summed up her rant by claiming that Ed was projecting a destructive (and uniquely American) obsession of color consciousness onto a region and its people who very likely would prefer not to be saddled with the same racial baggage Mr. Gordon had accumulated while growing up in Detroit. Of course, I didn't understand why she was so upset, and a lengthy conversation ensued in which I tried as best I could to defend the viewpoint (from my own perspective) that might have influenced the Brother to say what he did. Jamaica Girl wasn't having it, and went on to stridently suggest that most Americans simply didn't understand (nor were we inclined to even try) the opinions and/or world view of cultures and societies that existed beyond our own. I felt she was overreacting, and told her so; but looking back on it, I'd have to say that she was right - to a point; although I believe that her reasoning for why Mr. Gordon selected that particular color-based phraseology was a bit off the mark. Let me see if I can explain why:
At no time, do I think that Ed Gordon was ever conscious of the fact that his reference to Black Panamanians might frustrate, upset or offend certain members of his audience; nor was he projecting some type of fundamental bias regarding his socio-philosophical views. I didn't quite understand it at first, but my many years of West Indian immersion has taught me a thing or two about how I'd come to perceive myself - as an adolescent, and then later as a young man and adult; and over the years just how much my environment and the dominant culture had played into that perception. Hence, another clear example of Du Bois' theory of Double Consciousness: an awareness of one's self that is juxtaposed against an equally influential and (if not more significantly) internalized sense of being perceived by the larger world around them. For anyone born and raised in the United States, the burden of Double Consciousness has been an incredible load to bear - made even more difficult for those of us who grew up beyond the cultural reach of a major urban center, where the novelty of our skin tone, broad nose and kinky hair subjected us to an even greater degree of social segmentation. Of course we understood that we were Americans, but we were Colored/Negro/Black/ or African-American first...and not necessarily because that's the way we wanted it, but because our environment (Sitcoms, Movies, Books, the Evening News, our nation's Laws and the not so subtle opinions of members of the Paler Nation (as Stephen L. Carter likes to describe them through the characters in his books) continuously reminded us that it was so. My second revelation came during my first trip to Jamaica. I was standing on Halfway Tree Road, watching Jamaica Girl and her Sisters eat Pepper Shrimp, while I nursed a Ting and worked on my Patty. The sidewalks and streets were crowded with people - on foot, browsing the various stalls, or riding bikes and in cars interwoven with crowded mini-buses packed to overflowing with harried passengers and their bags. And I was struck by an overwhelming sense of connectedness to all those Cappuccino, Mocha and Almond faces. I was in a Black Country, administered by and for the benefit of Black people... and at some point over the course of my silly musings, I mistakenly came to believe that somehow, I too fit neatly into the foundation of that tropical, Chocolate mix - until I opened my mouth, offering up self conscious, halting responses - unable (at that time) to comprehend the rapid, lilting cadence of the Patois-laced questions directed towards me, and then further confirmed their suspicions that I was not Jamaican through unintended signals conveyed by the way I looked, walked or dressed. I'm sure that to any non-American, this might sound crazy, but I'm not joking when I tell you that that moment was the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE that I actually felt like an American! It took going away to another country, where the layer of Double Consciousness I had grown up with was stripped away... leaving nothing but the true essence of who I was and the country I represented. Those Jamaicans on Halfway Tree Road (and Hellshire Beach, Portmore, Boston Bay, Mona and New Kingston) were not seeing another Black Man (as this fact was self evident and not worthy of further consideration). Rather, who and what they saw was an American, and through that undiluted West Indian lens of Single Consciousness, I too was able to experience it - awesomely and amazingly, for the very first time in my life!
That was a long time ago, and sometimes when I think back on it, it still shakes me to my core; to imagine the degree of influence one group of people can exert over another through the images and messages they allow to be presented - even in the face of a positive, nurturing environment where academic achievement was encouraged, and where mental and spiritual nourishment was meted out on a daily basis, such as it was in the household in which I grew up...
Which brings me back to Ed's comments, and Janette's question about the meaning of Obama's presidency to Caribbean people...
In my opinion, Ed Gordon was simply speaking through his layer of double-consciousness. I've come to recognize that many of us do this unconsciously, and in some cases, I dare say it is something we are often forced to do, given the many reason's I touched on earlier. But unlike Mr. Gordon and so many more Black Americans, Barack Obama (even though he spent a part of his childhood in the US and was no doubt reminded of how he was different) was able to master the requisite skills of introspection and self-definition that enabled him to step outside of the box that others were attempting to prescribe for him - to conceptualize his own identity and forge a relationship with his country. By following his example, and the transformative imagery of our Commander in Chief, the beautiful first lady and their two daughters as they go about their business in our nation's capital, it is my belief that over time, we Black Americans will come to define ourselves as simply Americans - and not by diluting or ignoring the unique fabric of the African heritage that defines us, but by embracing it as a factual component of who we are, and the vibrancy it brings to the composite American experience (and this point is critical) - through the clear and unvarnished lens of Single Consciousness heretofore more successfully demonstrated by our African and West Indian Brothers and Sisters; something that in the end, brings us all closer together through an enriched understanding and mutual paradigm of respect for our shared Diaspora.
