PERCEPTIONS OF MY BROTHER:

A Conversation Among African Americans,

Africans & Afri-Caribbean Men   

In the latest BMX-NY dialogue forty-plus Brothers representing more than twenty geographic regions including: Ghana (West Africa), Cape Verde (West Africa), Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, Montserrat, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, New Orleans, Missouri, Virgin Islands, Milwaukee, Barbados, Trinidad, South Carolina (Gullah Islands), Georgia, Jersey City, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Harlem considered our cross-cultural perspectives about each other through the following lenses:   

What role do geography, national origin and shared historical events play in how we identify?

"When Henry Louis Gates did Black in Latin America, it was so shocking to see Blacks with the same pigment identifying differently...Yes, geography, national origin and shared history do play a role in the way we identify..."

{Facilitator asks, "Do you have any sense as to why that may be the case?..."}

"Because white supremacy has chosen to separate us [to control us]..."

"This question dates back to the African slave trade when they went to Africa [ostensibly] to do missionary work, and took some Africans back to England and Europe to do slave work...In the late sixteen hundreds when they were taking Africans to the Caribbean for 'seasoning' before bringing them to America...Then, there were revolutions in the Caribbean...In Jefferson's time...[and they began] separating us in terms of shade, young from old, etc..."

"Growing up in Riverhead, we worked on the farms...Even though the whites saw themselves as better...Here in the city you all have so much culture...[But] they were nasty to me...They called me an Uncle Tom...I'm new to all this...I'm just now acknowledging...my sexuality...I don't even know what Diasporan means..."

"[Diaspora refers to the fact that] Out of Mother Africa we are now everywhere [in the world]...Regarding the role of geography, I think there's a great desire for unity that expresses itself in many ways...I'm Jamaican, but I love soul food...I seek it out...I work downtown...I purposely won't eat at lunchtime and save my money and come uptown to eat at Black-owned restaurants...We go to each others' festivals...Listen to each others' musics..."

"[Your remarks about] Eastern Long Island went right past me...You talked about having missed out on the culture we have here in the city... You grew up alongside working class Whites...I'm from Detroit...It's not just origins, it's also class...[Bearing that in mind] geography plays an important part even on these shores..."

"I identify as Jamaican...Where you're born can impact how you identify your freedom...The history of your people...How we identify can be different than what you're called..."

""I was thinking about being blessed through different jobs to travel... [When I started travelling] I thought I would feel different within Black power structures...But, I didn't...I remember visiting West Africa and people saying, 'You're African but you grew up in White folks' house, so, you're really more White...I had similar conversations in Martinique and I said, 'So let's get this straight...Y'all didn't get here in a ship?'... Now, I'm polite...until I come up against the stereotypes that others have of African Americans...And, how much they're true...Returning to America, they ask...'Do you speak English?'...I liked that...[that they couldn't tell where I was from] I felt as if we are all one...'How many degrees do you have?...How many languages do you speak?..."

"One of the reasons I came here was to learn how it is to be Black in America...In my country I was always told that African Americans were very violent...I remember the first time I saw a Black family on TV, it was The Fresh Prince of Bellaire...It was very strange to me...I went to a symposium on Brazilian culture at NYU...I talked to a professor about how [Brazil is] developing opportunities [for Blacks]...  [He suggested that] it's not going to change...I said we have to learn more African American history...[About] how they stood and fought for their rights...[When I came here] I was uneasy to be called Black...It was like an insult...Like the 'n' word...There's a movement in Brazil now for affirmative action...They're saying it won't change anything...We'll see..."

"I only had to identify as Black when I got here...I always felt Black was limiting...So, geography really does have a lot to do with it...Think about [the] Guyanese...They're South American, but they identify as Caribbean...We're transplants, but we're forced to identify as the same...Africans are very proud of all that makes them African...I played an African in A Raisin in the Sun and had to learn [a] dialect and all the inflections...Some Africans still criticized my accent...Other [Americans] who didn't know the difference thought I was convincing...Geography has made us different...Western man has a way of limiting us...[It's an extension] of our slavery narrative...Like Red Tails...the trouble [they had] getting it distributed..." 

{Facilitator asks, "Do you have any sense as to how Western man is limiting to us or why?..."}

"Why?...Because we are not them...They're bound not to in vest in our salvation...We have to do it...We have to use the same strategies as our ancestors to get ahead..."

Is it important to know African American History as a Diasporan countryman?

"It's very important to know our history...My people are from Montserrat...When I see a Black person get a house...I see us getting a house...It has to be recognized...[Otherwise] I start to beat up on myself if I am not successful like they are...What I've learned from studying African American History is that there are struggles on both sides...[For not knowing the history] I hear Caribbean Americans using the 'n-word' now...I take on these ideas are toxic to my well-being..."

"[Knowing African American History] is very important...Just as every place has it's own history...Without knowing history there can be misunderstandings...Statistically, when people come from the Caribbean, after five years, they're doing better than average African Americans...It's important to understand because we're all in the same boat..."

"It's important to know what African American History we're talking about...Are we talking about Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks to make ourselves feel better?...Or, are we talking about oppression?...What people did to be happy [in the midst of the horrors we lived through?]...What people did to survive...Are we talking about Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome?..."

{Facilitator says, "African American History is all of those things...It is the sheroes and heroes who, for challenging our oppression, facilitated our transcendence of those forces...It is the things we did to be happy...And the extent to which the things we did to be happy worked and didn't work...Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is real...which means that, from one to the next of us sitting here, we are operating from different levels of woundedness... African American History is connected to all African Diasporan History...That is, what happened to us here happened to us throughout the Diaspora...perhaps only the degrees of oppression were different...But, it is only as we understand that stuff that we can acknowledge that we have sustained wounds and begin the process of salving and healing the wounds so that we can strategize empowerment strategies that can actually work..."}

"[In Brazil] We didn't identify as Black because it's the meaning of everything bad...It's taken time, but I understand the difference now..."

"[Understanding African American History] is important...I remember my grandmother  used to have conversations I couldn't understand...She was a Geechie...The movie, Daughters of the Dust woke me up to this culture...They have their own traditions...I watched it over and over again...My grandmother used to have dialogues... I used to ask her, 'Why are you not speaking English?'...She had to sit me down and tell me I was from Africa and about slavery...And [how] we've lost those African traditions [through] Americanized thinking..."

"It's important not just to know African American History, but to know that the origins of all history began in Africa...the place where civilization started...I was taught about Frederick Douglass and Civil Rights [struggles]...[But] Until I started reading Africentric books I didn't realize that our history extends thousands of years beyond [our bearings in] the Diaspora..."

What happens when we attach SGL to African or Afro-Caribbean?

"It seems like we disappear when you add [same gender loving]...Had I not had the BMX experience I wouldn't believe the two could be in the same body...Being in the Caribbean, you only existed as gossip at the dinner table...When I was a boy, I had a cousin [who] said [to me] 'Don't hold your hands like that!...They'll [brand] you a [homo]...I had a female cousin who was SGL...My aunt said, 'I don't care if [she] lives or dies' when she first learned that she was SGL..."

"When I was coming up I was taught to be masculine...I've been running away from this...I had to leave home because I didn't want to embarrass you...I grew up apologizing for being..."

Does White supremacy differentiate between our different identities?

"I met some of my Panamanian cousins...[About identifying as Black] One of them said, 'I'm nobody's slave'...This whole Latino thing is a farce...a [device] to separate us...I wasn't connected to African American culture...I was a little disillusioned...misguided...thinking I was different...we're Jamaican...'We don't have that history'...It was never said outright, but there was an underlying current..."

"You in South Carolina learning [American] history which isn't Black...Your class goes on a trip to Charleston to the slave market...It was eerie... you could feel the presence of the slaves...and we started asking all these questions that weren't in the curriculum...And the teachers took it upon themselves to [start] teach[ing] us African American History..."

{Facilitator says, "Thank heaven for childhood inquisitiveness...That's what critical thinking is about...Last week Jett facilitated a dialogue about our education, and screened a short film about changing educational paradigms in which the narrator discussed a construct called Divergent Thinking...which basically involves the capacity to conceive a multiplicity of answers to a question...The theory goes, a person with great divergent thinking capacity is a genius...So, they conducted a study with children at five-year intervals, starting when the children were five...95% of the five-year-olds had extraordinary divergent thinking capacity...Five years later, about 80%...five years after that, only 50%...So that, the system of education we are learning in is designed to train us not to question our circumstances..."}

"If I say I'm free, I can't use the language of oppression to describe that freedom..."

"More and more as I disclose...[when] they ask me, 'Are you gay?'...I say, 'I'm same gender loving'...I get into fiery discussions...They accuse me of semantics...I'm still learning...I say, 'I wasn't in the room when they coined the term gay, but I'm betting no African Americans were there, so, the term doesn't really have anything to do with me'...My Christian friends think there's still hope for me..."  

[Laughter...]

{Facilitator asks, "Why do you think your friends might want to dismiss your identification as 'semantics?'"...}

"I don't know..."  

{Facilitator asks, "Does anyone else know?..."}...{"It's because the gay liberation movement has been so successful in branding it that the term gay is ubiquitous...that is, it permeates the social and cultural fabric of society...so much so, in fact, that many people think the term gay is synonymous with homosexual..."}

"What do you mean?..."

{Facilitator says, "Gay is a social construct...like race...or, Colored, or, White...or, Negro, or, African American...Homosexual is a clinical term which describes biological wiring or sexual inclination...But, the gay liberation movement has been so successful in their branding of gay as a social construct that it has become part of the white supremacist hegemony...or psychological control...any homosexual who identifies their sexuality differently must necessarily be running from who they really are...That is, if you're not who I say you are, then you don't really exist..."}

How can we build solidarity across our differences?  Should we?  Why?

"We should build solidarity because the differences don't outweigh the similarities...There are all these theories that have been advanced...African Americans are lazy...Well, what have they done...Everything African Americans have acquired they have acquired through blood, sweat and tears...Nothing was given to them...For Afro-Caribbeans, that is the case too...We're all the same...That's Europeans trying to separate us...A house divided cannot stand..."

"We were taught that gay was a white thing...visited upon us by Whites...That there was no gay in Africa before Whites..."

{Facilitator says, "In fact, that is true...There was no 'gay' in Africa before Whites...Now, as for 'homosexuality'...that may be an entirely different story..."}  [Laughter...]

"Part of the challenge is in deconstructing the myth that there was no homosexuality in Africa prior to colonization..."

"Portia Simpson Miller...the first female Prime Minister of Jamaica...has declared that she will have homosexuals in her cabinet..."

"I went to Jamaica last October and something I noticed was that there was a certain tenderness among the men that isn't present here...Regarding being SGL and Afri-Caribbean...I'm gonna' claim all of who I am...I have the freedom to honor all of my experiences...It all comes together with me..."