WHY ARE WRITERS FROM AFRICA DISPARAGING AFRICAN AMERICANS?
Scrolling through my Facebook timeline, I noticed an article that was shared entitled “Don’t Confuse Generational Curses With Poor Generational Choices.” I noticed several “African Americans” cheering on and agreeing with this article which compelled me to click on the article for my own review. Immediately, the name of the article’s writer (Arah Iloabugichukwu) jumped out at me (she writes for Medium also). As I began reading, I was struck by the familiar pattern of writers from the African continent (along with the many celebrities from various African countries), and those from overseas who look down on African Americans. As one who is born and raised in America, who’s ancestral lineage in America traces back to the cruel institution of slavery in this country and its equally evil progeny, Jim Crow and Segregation, to name a few, I am compelled to respond to what appears to be sustained attacks on those called “Black” in America by writers who are from African countries. After reading the article (while shaking my head) I was struck by the sheer ignorance of the writer’s basis. I took to Twitter to offer a critique in hopes of having a civil dialog with her about this article and immediately I was blocked. (Note: African American is not a term I necessarily use but will use for the sake of this article to distinguish)
Arah Iloabugichukwu has several articles where she, not being an African American (but looking like one), disparages African Americans (particularly African American men. Read that article here). Iloabugichukwu’s articles abandons the historical record pertaining to African Americans and its resulting socioeconomic data that unequivocally proves that the people called White here, have intentionally kept this group (African Americans) as a bottom caste in this American society. This article, like her others, is a well-designed hit piece on the African American community.
First, she force-fits a Biblical narrative of generational curses as the springboard to her caustic article which serves as justification to formulate her basis of sneak attack on the African American community. She cites Exodus 34:7, where the God of the Bible proclaims that he will visit “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” What Iloabugichukwu neglects are examples that highlight instances where African Americans (the target of her article) use Biblical generational curses as reasons for the group’s collective shortcomings in this American life. The Christian Bible also says in contradistinction to the verse cited by Iloabugichukwu that,
“The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.” Ezekiel 18:20
If the basis or premise of such a work is flawed, the conclusion will suffer the same problematic issues. Iloabugichukwu then leads into the message she cunningly infers by using the fallacy of bootstrapperism. She goes on to say,
“But how much of our dysfunction is compounded by our decisions as opposed to our descent.”
Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps — fallacy
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps is a common backlash phrase first started by those called White in America against the African American citizenry here who sought economic inclusion in the same way the European-American (White people) gained economic inclusion; with the help of government. When African Americans sought the same help, we were told, like we are told today (as America’s descendants of slavery fight for reparations), to “go get jobs like everyone else,” among other things expressed to said group.
Unfortunately, many of what we thought were our brothers and sisters from the African and Caribbean nations have come to America and echoed these “white supremacists” talking points. This is proven in Iloabugichukwu’s statement above which deserves to be revisited. Notice, that she does not use a question mark to end this sentence although, it is framed in the guise of a question. She is asserting this point based on her own opinion as opposed to formulating a question which would lead to a broader discussion or even a debate centripetal to her premise. I would venture to say, Iloabugichukwu does not wan’t to be challenged on her premise(s) and the fact that she immediately blocked me gives credence to my assertion. The next sentence, however, has a question mark:
“How many of us hide behind the guise of inherited issues to dodge the responsibility of having to resolve them?”
This is an abuse of pathos. It’s easy to ask this question to a people who as a collective, cannot solve this problem on their own. Does the responsibility fall upon an individual or the whole group? Government and private industry created these problems and only government can fix them. Iloabugichukwu, in her article, fails to give a credible solution by which remedy can be achieved and instead, uses a shaming tactic that very few African Americans ever notice. Former President Barack Obama, is famous for using similar shaming tactics against the African American community. However, because African Americans viewed Barack Obama as “one of us” (he wasn’t; his father was Kenyan and mother was a European-American (White) woman from Kansas) we accepted this shaming although it was designed mistreatment of African Americans by European Americans that brought about generational poverty, mental illness, and a host of other conditions which were and are largely out of our control insofar as remedying these conditions are concerned. (Read here and here for examples of Obama’s shaming of African Americans)
How anti- African American sentiment spreads; among their own
What I have noticed is that, when writers from any of the African countries write or make disparaging remarks like Iloabugichukwu’s, they are usually picked up and spread by African American celebrities who have forgotten their own roots due to their new found riches and now live behind a decadent veil. As a result, writers like Iloabugichukwu somehow morph into a pseudo-authority on African American issues without ever tackling the root systemic problems beset within said community while being ignorant of, or ignoring the data and statistics that undergird the problems that she/they pretend to care about. Iloabugichukwu is telling African Americans to, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps by masking it in verbose, coupled with an obscure, out of place Biblical anecdote.
Remember, I came across this article because it was being shared on Facebook and given approval by more African Americans who were disproportionately women.
Writers like this ignore the data; they’re looking for emotional responses
Iloabugichukwu and her ilk are claiming that African Americans are somehow mired in denial and deflection when it comes to why “our” group is at the bottom of American society. To the contrary, Harvard University historian and academic Richard Rothstein in his “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America” explicitly illuminates how racist elected officials used the power of their offices to phase out African Americans from property ownership thereby destroying the possibility of generational wealth transfers.
Iloabugichukwu would probably benefit from Coates’s “The Case for Reparations” in order to truly understand the depth of how America’s “White” racists used the system to subvert laws and even worse, create racially restrictive housing covenants that locked out many “Blacks” in America from achieving upward mobility. A collaborative work entitled What We Get Wrong About Closing The Racial Wealth Gap featuring some of the nation’s top economists like Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School at Duke University , Dr. William (Sandy) Darity, was compiled with the intent of dispelling the top myths about why African Americans are at the bottom rung of America’s socioeconomic ladder. Maybe a review of highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar, who authored the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander, will serve Iloabugichukwu (and those of her ilk) in better understanding how the political and justice systems were/are being used as cudgels to knock down any form of upward mobility for African Americans in this country.
There are a plethora of sources which will show that the only generational curses that African Americans incurred was at the hands of the people called “White” in America and not by a slew of bad decisions that we somehow bequeathed to our progeny as Iloabugichukwu wrongly suggests. The economic positionality of the African American community which has lead to a myriad of mental, familial, and other issues has been designed by bigots who hold power in American society.
They look like us but, are they “Us”?
In a sense, some of these writers, including entertainers from the various African countries (some by way of Britain) are like shape-shifters; they, in appearance, become “Us” (reference to Jordan Peele’s film featuring a Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o and Tobagonian actor Winston Duke playing the role of an African American family) and lend their voices to our struggles usually by demeaning those of us who are, due to generations of accrued disadvantages placed on us by the dominant society, mired in those struggles, while maintaining their own cultural background and distinction.
This is why Cynthia Erivo can in one breath talk bad about African Americans (click here), then in the next instance, play one of our most iconic heroes in Harriet Tubman and no one will notice that this person does not descend from the culture she is cloaking herself in for the advantage that many of America’s descendants of slaves are being boxed out of. As an example, Daniel Kaluuya, a British actor, is set to play the role of Fred Hampton, an iconic African American Black Panther and civil rights leader who was assassinated by the Chicago police department in what appeared to be a coordinated attack with the FBI. In one interview (which I am finding a hard time locating), Kaluuya claims to have had no prior knowledge of Fred Hampton. I am of the opinion that the roles of iconic African Americans should exclusively go to African Americans who’s ancestors went through pain and suffering in Hollywood to pry open closed doors. It is unfair, in my opinion, that a Cynthia Erivo gets to portray Harriet Tubman and/or Aretha Franklin and Kaluuya gets to portray Fred Hampton while many African American actors who are not only more qualified for these roles, but stand upon the shoulders of the descendants of those African Americans who opened the doors in Hollywood. They now get bypassed for foreigners who have no link to our generational-specific American struggles.
Are you writing because you care?
It appears that writers like Iloabugichukwu seek to appease the “White” power structure here in America by attempting to tie into the dominant society while blending in with the like group e.g., America’s proxy bottom caste (African Americans), all the while, harboring some forms of resentment against that group. This is highlighted in the above quote when she says “But how much of our dysfunction is compounded by our decisions as opposed to our descent.” I emphasize and highlight her use of the word “our.” Let’s analyze and emphasize how she personalizes an African American issue:
“How many of us hide behind the guise of inherited issues to dodge the responsibility of having to resolve them? Probably quite a few of us. And when we take this passage as proof positive that our propensity for problematic behavior is everyone’s fault but our own, rendering us helpless to defend ourselves against it, we embrace a level of victimhood that keeps us trapped in its’ cycle.”
This quote is problematic in many ways. This is a course in victim blaming 101. Iloabugichukwu’s attempt to cloak herself in the target of her subject (African Americans) is as cunning as it is disingenuous. Iloabugichukwu, an Igbo Nigerian writer according to her Instagram page, does not share in the unique suffering and experiences that America’s descendants of slavery does. In fact, Nigerian Americans and others who immigrate to America are more likely to succeed in this country than African Americans (link) because they’re not descended from American slavery. Because these foreigners are given this opportunity which leads them to rapid upward mobility within their group, they thumb their noses at the African Americans here in the same way those called White people do and the sad part is, I don’t think they’re fully aware of it.
This action however, is not confined to Nigerian Americans; every group that immigrates to America plugs into the bigotry of this nation’s dominant society in an attempt to appear upper class and they do so by punching down on America’s proxy lower class; its African American citizenry. In this country, the European-American labelled us “Nigger”. We are called a series of derogatory names by those of the continent, particularly West African countries where African Americans are labeled “Akata” which literally means “wild animal.” This pejorative has also been picked up and used by many Nigerians in online circles. Arabians call us Abd (slave), Italians/Sicillians call us Moulinyan (eggplant); Muyate (black beetle) is the name were called by Mexicans, etc., etc.
From blogs to T.V. shows, African Americans are catching it from Continental Africans
This extremely adverse sentiment of Continental Africans disparaging African Americans can be found in CBS’s blatantly racist television show entitled Bob Hearts Abishola. In this series, Bob, a middle-aged compression sock businessman from Detroit, unexpectedly falls for his Nigerian cardiac nurse named Abishola. The show purports to delve into the lives of immigrants in America and the obstacles they face however, what this show appears to be is a front to spew “White” racism via a “Black” face. Several episodes show Nigerian Americans disparaging African Americans and in some episodes, the children of African Americans. Prompt backlash caused a petition to be launched in hopes of having the show pulled from the air for its blatant racism and bigotry as the show highlights Nigerian-Americans positioning themselves to be a more desirable class of “Blacks” to “White” people. In one scene, a Nigerian woman says that she would date men from several other ethnic backgrounds before she’d date an African American man and that she’d only date an African American man as a last resort.
A sustained attack
Just recently, another article was published against an African American political group called “ADOS,” by a women named Jessica (J.A.M.) Aiwuyor. ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) has staunchly pushed for reparations for America’s descendants of slavery and are the very reason why it has become a hot button political topic of discussion — even making its way onto the presidential debate stage. Aiwuyor claims that she is not from the African continent but has this name because she married someone from the continent. Nevertheless, she wrote a scathing, nauseatingly lengthy hit piece against the ADOS movement filled with misinformation, cherry picked tweets from random Twitter accounts that used foul language (as if this is how the whole movement speaks) along with misrepresenting what the movement is truly about. Even Representative Ilhan Omar (another foreigner enjoying American life while African Americans suffer) cosigned this hit piece. Like Iloabugichukwu, when confronted by advocates of the ADOS movement, Aiwuyor immediately blocked them, including myself. Aiwuyor claimed that she wasn’t backing down (a tweet I read on her page) but instead of facing those whom she accuses (e.g., not backing down), she summarily dismisses them by blocking them from her Twitter feed. Those of us who descend from America’s cruel institution of slavery truly have no friends in this world. For anyone seeking to understand what the ADOS movement is dedicated to, please visit ados.101.com.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article is not written to be divisive as many will accuse me while letting the writer(s) of actual divisive anti-African American articles e.g., Iloabugichukwu, Aiwuyor, etc., get a pass. Instead, the purpose of this article is to shed light on a growing trend of African writers and entertainers like Cynthia Erivo, Luvvie, among others, who have said some very damaging things about African Americans and their reward for doing such appears to be lead roles in major American films all the while pretending to care about the issues facing African Americans. In America, most “conscious” African Americans view the people of Africa as brothers and sisters in a larger global struggle and have nicknamed this struggle that connects us “diaspora” and claim themselves to be “Pan-African” however, this sentiment is not reciprocated by many brothers and sisters from the various countries on the continent.
I urge all African American writers to be on the look out for these types of articles and instances and to be so trenchant in your responses that, it will discourage future articles like Iloabugichukwu’s from being written. We’re now hip to this charade and those of us who’s lineage begins with the establishment of America, with all of our flaws and shortcomings, will not, any longer, let those from the outside pile on to what we already have to deal with here. That day is over. Peace