Say It Loud — I’m Afro and I’m Proud
Why we need to replace our racial identity labels with (pan-)ethnic ones
I am an Afro-American. I am an Afrodescendant. I am an Atlantic Creole.
These terms much more accurately and satisfactorily identify me than “black”, a hangover from a long outdated racist system of human classification born out of Atlantic slavery. I wish I could say I am done with it, but it will unfortunately be quite some time until we cease racializing people as “black”, “white”, “yellow”, or “red”. (Well, at least we’ve practically dropped the latter two.) So, to conveniently operate in and address (rather than ignore) our racist system, I will tolerate being racialized, and will racialize others if necessary. However, I will also join the growing number of others in asserting our post-racial ethnic and pan-ethnic identities and hope others will catch on.
My Afro Identity
The aboriginal population of Australia is similarly racialized as “black” in opposition to the “white” European colonists there who subjugated them. “Black people” (just like “white people”) do not have a culture…
Afrodescendants (or simply Afros) are the descendants of Africans who were dispersed. The collection of communities of these descendants is known as the African Diaspora. Thus, we are also called diasporic Africans, in contrast to continental Africans who have remained on the continent of Africa. Most Afros trace their ancestry to the sub-Saharan region. As people from sub-Saharan Africa are generally characterized by dark skin (amongst other features such as curly hair), sub-Saharan Africans and most Afrodescendants are often racialized as black people (i.e. negroes), in contrast to white people, which often refers to (especially Northwestern) European descent. Such a designation (or degradation) is not exclusive to sub-Saharan Africans; the aboriginal population of Australia has been similarly racialized as “black” in opposition to the “white” European colonists there who subjugated them. “Black people” (just like “white people”) do not have a culture, existing only a social construct having no basis in a particular civilization of people.
One of the major categories of the African Diaspora is the Afro-Atlantic (or “black Atlantic”). This group of Afrodescendant communities developed in the Atlantic World, the interconnection of the societies of Europe, Africa, and the Americas surrounding the Atlantic Ocean during the early modern period. The people (specifically Afrodescendants) born of this unprecedented interconnection between the Europeans, Africans, and the Indigenous Americans were known as Atlantic Creoles.
One such creole ethnic group are the Afro-Americans, the descendants of enslaved people primarily from West and Central Africa who were trafficked to the British Thirteen Colonies (or the later Eastern United States) between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. I am member of this group. Others include Louisiana Creoles, Afro-Nova Scotians, and the various Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean groups such as the Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Cubans, Afro-Colombians, Afro-Bolivians, Afro-Jamaicans, Afro-Haitians, and many others. Other Afrodescendant groups outside of the Atlantic include the Siddis (Afro-Indians), and Afro-Arab groups such as the Afro-Saudis, Afro-Iranians, or Afro-Palestinians. I’m not being unreasonably excessive; I’m trying to demonstrate how handy “Afro-” is.
Why Afro Identity
So seeing my fellow Afro-Americans naïvely claim exclusive rights to “black (American)”…to assert their unique ethnic identity — and sadly reject the Africanness in which their culture is undeniably rooted — is both embarrassing and disappointing.
Besides being a racist relic imposed on us by European colonists and not even specific to the African diaspora, “black” improperly emphasizes superficial features of Afro people. One’s “blackness” is inherently dependent on how closely you resemble a “black person” — how dark your skin, hair, and eyes are; how curly your hair is; broad your nose and lips are, etc;—to determine your belonging in a race of slaves (or second-class citizens, depending on the era) to “white people”. However, “blackness” has become more than just the ‘color of our skin’ for us in the Diaspora, especially Afro-Americans. “Blackness” encompasses our culture, as we had to rebuild it while being racialized so.
These two concurring meanings of “blackness” has inevitably caused several conflicts. The “black” identity of many half-caste (or “biracial”) Afro-Americans is constantly doubted or criticized by “monoracial” Afro-Americans despite the former’s active membership in the “black” (i.e. Afro-American) community via their participation in its culture and sharing its history. A common reason for this skepticism? Any combination of their having lighter skin, looser curls, or thinner facial features than other Afro-Americans despite those factors being, in reality, unrelated to one’s engagement with their heritage. The “black” or even “African American” identity of African Americans who have recently immigrated from the Caribbean or Africa has also been criticized by many Afro-Americans. The reason for skepticism? Differences in culture despite Afro-Caribbeans and continental Africans being just as racially “black” as Afro-Americans (if not Continentals being more so).
The reasons for these two struggles for “blackness” are distinct in content, but unnecessarily connected because racial “blackness” is also used for ethnic “Afro-Americanness”. Moreover, because of the inherent racial basis of “black” identity, while the conflict with biracial Afrodescendants may be won, the conflict with other (presumably “monoracial”) African Americans will not. So seeing my fellow Afro-Americans naïvely claim exclusive rights to “black (American)” (or, even worse, “Black American”) to assert their unique ethnic identity—and sadly reject the Africanness in which their culture is undeniably rooted — is both embarrassing and disappointing. Black Americans will — for as long as racism exists — always include all Americans of “black (sub-Saharan) African” origin, and mixed-race people of Afro-American heritage have the right to identify the same way as other Afro-Americans if they so choose, just as they have historically. So, we need to find another term (and stop capitalizing the “B” in “black” while misleading others to the same — I can’t stand it).
Terms such as “African”, “Afro”, and “Afrodescendant” more properly assert what we in the West commonly mean by “black people”. Don’t be scared to call me, a multi-generational American, “African” (or “Afro”). I welcome it. You need not redundantly add “American” after each time. You call multi-generational Asian- or Mexican Americans just by their ancestral nationality or “continentality”—and not without reason, as they often maintain distinct connections to their ancestral locations that distinguish them from Americans of other origins (besides being physically distinct), and saying “American” may implied in context. Diasporic Africans have neither lost their African heritage in memory nor customs, not even Afro-Americans (whether they active recognize it or not), despite what some people — Afros or not — may ignorantly say about the supposed utter “stripping” of African cultures from enslaved African people by Europeans.
Terms like “Afro-American” can help us “old-stock” African Americans assert our unique ethnic identity, without cutting off fellow heirs to our culture based on race or color and burning bridges with our siblings in the Diaspora and on the Continent. Plus, it is better than terms like “Foundational Black American” or “American Descendants of Slavery” by being a historical term (documented as early as 1831), not associated with unjustifiable xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment, and being one-word.
Terms like “Atlantic Creole” highlight the unique, continuous, cultural and historical connections between Afro-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latinos, as well as the various repatriated and native creole groups in West Africa such as Sierra Leone Krios, Gambian Akus, Americo-Liberians (or Congaus), the Tabom of Ghana, the Saro/Aguda/Amaro of Nigeria, or the Métis of Senegal. Rather than being wholly isolated from each other in the places off where the slave ships initially dropped them, Afros have always been in continuous contact with each other on across the pond as well as with Europeans and Indigenous Americans, sharing concepts and ideas. These global yet localized processes of creolization lead to emergence of the similar yet distinct cultures mentioned above. “Atlantic Creole” recognizes the fact that I, while rooted in Africa, am a product of a special period of early modern globalization and world fusion that relates me to more than just Afro people.
Beyond Afro Identity
Feeling the right as an Anglo to be identified only as “American” reinforces the narrow view of an American as a “white”, English-speaking, person — preferably Protestant Christian — of (Northwestern) European heritage.
This started out as just a short “encyclopedia-like” entry for the various identifying labels in bold for personal use, but I decide to share it because I believe it is important for people, not just Afros, to hear. To “white” Americans, I would suggest something similar.
“White” Americans who are either of “old-stock” British descent or have since fully assimilated into WASP culture, I would call you “Anglo-Americans” or simply “Anglos”. Hispanic and Amish people have already been doing it (though, the Amish say “English”). You are not the only “white” Americans (the Amish and many Hispanics are too), nor are you “just Americans” who happen to be “white”. While many of you want to identify just as “Americans”, that is a privilege that “non-white” Americans have not been given (nor would it be something most of us, being proud of our own cultures, would want anyway). Feeling the right as an Anglo only to be identified as “American” reinforces the narrow view of an American as a “white”, English-speaking, person — preferably Protestant Christian — of (Northwestern) European heritage.
This type of Americanness has dominated the country to the exclusion of other Americannesses for far too long, and those that have been marginalized will not be the ones budging. When people — both Anglos and non-Anglos — misguidedly say “white people have no culture”, they really mean to say “Anglos have no culture”. But the thing is, Anglos do have a culture. It is simply that the notion that Anglo-Americanness is ‘default’ or ‘standard’ has unconsciously been even accepted by Americans with other heritages.
Conclusion
I am not “black”…I am not “just American”, and you will not tell me otherwise.
Race is not real. It has no real use for a post-colonial future, and racism (the notion that we can be divided and differentiated by races) should be discontinued. I am not “black”, and neither are you. I can express all of the things about my heritage that I might have by saying “black” more accurately with intersectional terms such as “Afro” (and its variations) and “Atlantic Creole”. And, of course, I can also be unhyphenated American, like any other citizen or national of the United States of America. I do not always have to specify if the situation does not necessitate it. But I am not “just American”, and you will not tell me otherwise. We (should) known that “colorblindness” as a means to combat racism is disingenuous, disrespectful, and ineffective. So is uniform nationalism. Humans have developed to have differences—biological and social — from each other, and we should not have to ignore them. Those of us who have a shared history of oppression and marginalization for our physical and cultural differences also have the right to celebrate and be proud of them now. I’m saying it loud: I’m Afro and I’m proud.
Some Further Reading
Race by Oxford Bibliographies (see specific works there)
Atlantic Creoles by Oxford Bibliographies (see specific works there)
Afro-Descendants: A Global Picture
Creolization in the Americas edited by David Buisseret and Steven G. Reinhardt
Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomble by J. Lorand Matory
Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic by James Sidbury
The Black and Green Atlantic: Cross-Currents of the African and Irish Diasporas by Peter D. O’Neill and David Lloyd
My Personal Reading List on Africana and Atlantic Studies
