Black people are the only people in this world that have no country -no place to call home. America rejects them. Sadly, so does Africa.
At an event Monday night celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision, Francine Childs, minister and professor of African American studies, received an award for her achievements in diversity awareness.
In her acceptance speech, she said something that resonated.
He who begins behind must run twice as fast to catch up -or risk remaining forever behind
she said.
But a problem that trumps even that is the fact that most black people do not even like themselves.
The black community hates to air its dirty laundry. Understandably. Blacks in the United States have historically been the subject of humiliation and abuse. But that is not a reason to hide the fact that today, in 2004, black people in this nation are still messed up. They are messed up in the family and in the classroom.
But most disturbingly, they still hate themselves.
I see it every day on the Ohio University campus. It manifests itself, at its worst, in the relations between the African and African-American communities here.
Yes. Africans and blacks, if you will, live in two separate worlds at OU. They are very separate communities. They overlap only through the concerted efforts of a few individuals from each side.
So why are African students and African-American students so divided? I have concluded that it is because of the Americanness attached to the latter group's Africaness.
Why does Americanness always seem to have a negative connotation for everybody, except for the people that live in America?
I see my African brothers and sisters on the street, and I expect them to embrace me simply because we both have dark skin.
My African sisters and brothers see me on the street and don't know if they should embrace me. They probably think I am too different culturally, that I have no morals or values, that I am lazy, that I am ignorant or purely sexual -you know, the images that you always see of black women on television.
They don't know me, but they know what the media have told them about blacks.
But what about the things America told blacks about Africa their whole lives? Think Africa. Think primitive, uncivilized, dirty and less-than poor.
And black students, in all of their education are still guilty of subconsciously believing those stereotypes. Then some Africans wonder why the black community is so messed up. The only answers I can think of to that question would be the trans-Atlantic slave trade, enslavement, systematic separation of families, rape of black women, castration of the black man, lynching and assimilation. An uncut, uncensored history with long-lasting effects and slow-healing wounds.
And as for blacks' Americanness well, that's what television and magazines told us was beautiful and right. To be beautiful we straighten our hair, because we were told our kinks were ugly. We value our lighter-skinned members more because they look closer to white, and we think something is wrong with our darker-skinned members, because Band-Aids are supposed to be flesh-colored, but they don't match our flesh. And everyone needs a Band-Aid at some point.
The divide between blacks and Africans is there because of ignorance and a lack of communication. Neither side has bothered to find out where the other is coming from. Instead assumptions are made, and the separation is reinforced.
As a black woman, I am ashamed to admit that I don't know what country my people come from in Africa. But that is not my fault. African men and women should still embrace me.
For blacks and Africans to hate each other is for each to look in the mirror and flick-off their reflections.
Divide and conquer strikes again. They make you hate Africa. You hate African people. You hate yourself. Should it be easy for you to love -or for people to love you?
And all of that while trying to run a race called Life twice as fast.
Crosby hopes that every student at OU shows up to MARCH OUT LOUD for diversity on Saturday. Send her an e-mail at newsworthyohio@yahoo.com.
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Meghan Crosby
