I have worked in circles where, unfortunately, there is an open hostility and disdain for African Americans. And it isn’t white folk that I’m referring to. The belief of the inherent inferiority of Black Americans, comes from none other than Caribbean immigrants that have set up shop in the United States, raised their children here, and have benefited from the strides and sacrifices that African-Americans have made to make life better for themselves and people that look like them. Caribbean immigrants sometimes forget, though, that they were able to take a plane, train, or bus here because of the various black people that were brought in boats and chain to build this nation. As a …
I have worked in circles where, unfortunately, there is an open hostility and disdain for African Americans. And it isn’t white folk that I’m referring to.
The belief of the inherent inferiority of Black Americans, comes from none other than Caribbean immigrants that have set up shop in the United States, raised their children here, and have benefited from the strides and sacrifices that African-Americans have made to make life better for themselves and people that look like them. Caribbean immigrants sometimes forget, though, that they were able to take a plane, train, or bus here because of the various black people that were brought in boats and chain to build this nation.
As a first-generation American, a Caribbean-American, an Antiguan-American, Antiguan-African-American or whatever other hyphenated identity marker that pronounces my love, adoration, and attachment to being culturally linked to two great sets of black folk, I find this worldview hurtful. I have lost many a Caribbean friend and found myself in many a heated office debate with Caribbean coworkers because of their negative beliefs about African-Americans.
And as a Pan-African, I intellectually find it unforgivable. Fighting over which black is better than which greases the wheels of white supremacy and keeps us away from thinking more systematically about pooling our human and financial capital to create institutions that work for our collective uplift.
Since the delusion of supremacy is an emotional and cognitive experience, I have found that my most effective retort comes in the form of facts.
So when you hear, “Back home (insert your favorite Caribbean island), we don’t do (insert the undesirable behavior, value) that these black Americans (insert sourpuss face) do,” run down the list of Caribbean or Caribbean-American folk that saw beyond the twigs and saw the forest when it comes to their connection and common struggle. These are my favorite five, though there are many, many more.
1. Pearl Primus: Trinidadian was a dancer and choreographer with a mission of re-imagining the view of African dance in the Western world. She founded her own dance company in 1946 and often based her dances on the work of black writers and on racial issues. In 1944, she interpreted Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1944), and in 1945 she created “Strange Fruit”, based on the poem by Lewis Allan about a lynching. “Hard Time Blues” (1945) is based on a song about sharecroppers by folksinger Josh White.
2. Malcolm X: Did you know that Malcolm’s mother, Louise Helen Little, is from Grenada and his father, Earl Little, a Georgia-born minister was a Pan-African, Garveyite, and local leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) who inculcated self-reliance and black pride in his children?
3. Stokley Carmichael otherwise known as Kwame Toure was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Stokley Carmichael moved to Harlem, in New York at the age of eleven. Kwame Toure attended Howard and joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), the campus affiliate of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), participating in the Freedom Rides of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to desegregate the bus station restaurants along U.S. Route 40 between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. When he became a full-time field organizer for SNCC in Mississippi, he worked on the Greenwood voting rights project. Throughout Freedom Summer also known as the Mississippi Summer Project in June 1964, he worked with grassroots African-American activists like Fannie Lou Hammer.
4. Louis Farrakhan is the present-day leader of the Nation of Islam, a religious organization which mission is to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African Americans in the United States and all of humanity. In 1995, Farrakhan organized and led the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., calling on black men to renew their commitments to their families and communities. This Bronx-born black nationalist was born to a mother from St. Kitts and Nevis and a father from Jamaica. His stepfather was from Barbados.
5. Audre Lorde: Anyone that has taken an African-American or Women’s Studies course knows this woman. Within the black feminist/womanist community, Lorde is known by spirit and by name. Lorde was born in New York City to Caribbean immigrants from Barbados and Carriacou, this fierce activist writer wrote collections of poetry, memoirs, and critical essays on feminism, queer identity, and civil rights. Lorde set out to confront issues of racism in feminist thought. She was also very influential in the Afro-German women’s movement in the 1980s and 1990s.
As black folk in America, we have enough hell to deal with white folk without bringing more unnecessary stress to those we know, love, and work with. So next time you encounter cultural bigotry from your Caribbean friend, be gentle but don’t let it go. Because remember, when they come to shoot, they are not checking for accents.
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5 Caribbean-Americans That Don’t Believe They’re Better Than African-Americans
