Blackness
Raisa Parnell
While watching the Olympics of 2012 with my parents, hearing their comments on the physical attributes of the people of each nation was almost as entertaining as the sports event taking place on the television screen. “They’re from Brazil!?” they remarked in shock when a procession of medium to dark brown smiling faces marched down the stage during the opening ceremony. Similar remarks were made when dark skinned and kinky-textured hair participants were seen after countries like Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Bolivia, and Honduras were called. My parents, like the average Black American, never learned about the categorization of the “Afro-Latino”. In explaining the commonplace of Black and Brown people who looked just like us throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, I had to recall a time when I didn’t know about these histories and experiences I have come to know through academic and personal education. My novice thought was: maybe a few dozen Black Americans or Africans went to these Latin American countries and had some children. But the idea that we all, as enslaved Africans, were forcibly brought to and dispersed throughout the Americas around the same time, and that other people of African descent were developing their own complex culture at the same time we were in the United States was unfathomable at one point in time. How could we live a couple of hundred kilometers away from Cuba (or any country in the Americas) and not know that not only are there Black people there, but that the majority of the population would be (by U.S. social standards and classifications) considered Black? How could we have gone through 13 years of public education without knowing that there are Black people, Black communities – rich with histories, experiences, and multi-faceted cultures – all throughout South America, Central America, and the Caribbean?
These are all questions that deserve their own paper, but in this article, I would like to focus on ideas of Blackness – what it means to be “Black”; what are the different ideas about Blackness, respective of tradition, country, or culture; How does one stay clear of imposing their culture’s racial categorizations on another; how do different cultures view race.
When I began to learn about other African diasporic communities, I also began to learn and understand that not everyone has the same racial classifications as in the U.S. society. Every culture, in fact, possesses its own constructions of race, racial categories and classifications, and hierarchies. What is Black in the United States may be split into 15 different categories in Puerto Rico or Brazil or Cuba. The One-Drop Rule in the United States that considered anyone with one drop of African blood to be “Black” began as a legal policy, which then permeated social life and general racial boundaries. Similarly, the boundaries set by each country’s respective government for the races came to impact how their cultures and their personal identities.
During the heights of enslavement and colonialism, different colonial powers imposed their varying ideas on race on the colonized populations. The French, the English, the Spanish, and the Portuguese all had different classifications of where Blackness stopped and whiteness began, thus producing the differing taxonomies we encounter today.
Henry Heredia, one of our mentors/instructors in Cuba, mentioned that many of his extended family members consider him “wao wao” – a racial categorization for lighter-skinned Black people possibly with light colored eyes and lighter-toned and looser textured hair. While he simply considers himself “Black”, there may oftentimes be discrepancies between what one considers themselves and what others consider them. I heard this term again during our first reggae concert. Soon after having a conversation with a Cuban guy about whites in Reggae, I asked if one of the performers was white (who appeared to me and by U.S. standards to be white, with the exception of his naturally kinky and blonde hair, which was formed into thick waist-length locks), to which he responded “No. wao wao.” It’s important to note that not only had I never heard of this racial category, but that it is one that does not exist in the U.S. society (and it may or may not exist in other Latin-American or Caribbean nations). According to the One-Drop Rule, the performer would simply be “Black”.
Issues arise from these differing racial categorizations when we travel and encounter these different classifications. Our personal identities are often put into question. Many immigrants from parts of Latin-America (e.g., Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, etc.) have spoken out about their issues when coming to the U.S. when they encounter our racial categories. They aren't considered "Hispanic" by most because they phenotypically look what we generally consider simply "Black", while Black Americans do not consider them "Black" because they speak Spanish. Many Afro-Latinos have more recently called these limitations into question and have called for more inclusive ideas on Blackness.
Even more important, however, are the ways in which these classifications impact or influence racism and racial hierarchies. One of the first places I encountered different ideas on racial categories was in a book entitled 'Black Puerto Rican Identity and Religious Experience' by Samiri Hernandez Hiraldo. Some of the categories mentioned in her book were translated into English as "Black but sophisticated", "Black but pretty", and "Black but smart". Embedded in many of these terms was the idea that Blackness is inherently inferior - inherently un-sophisticated, ugly, and unintelligent. Considering that the historical construction for many of the world's racial taxonomies developed out of racist, white supremacist ideals, most racial categorizations are bound to have (either subliminally, or blatantly) an inherent hierarchy. Racism was and is not something that was simply imposed on Africans, but something that many of us have unfortunately absorbed into our own personal identities. It is important, not only to grasp the various categorizations other countries have, but also to analyze them from learned, critical perspectives, placing them within their proper historical and cultural contexts.
Travelling to Cuba, or any other country within the African diaspora is important in that it gives us the opportunity to truly interrogate and experience other ideas on race. Moreover, it enables us to analyze our own categorizations from a more objective perspective. Hopefully, in the future, more exchanges can take place between Africans in the diaspora that encourage these discussions on race and racial categorizations and advance our personal identities beyond the current limited classifications.
Raisa Parnell
While watching the Olympics of 2012 with my parents, hearing their comments on the physical attributes of the people of each nation was almost as entertaining as the sports event taking place on the television screen. “They’re from Brazil!?” they remarked in shock when a procession of medium to dark brown smiling faces marched down the stage during the opening ceremony. Similar remarks were made when dark skinned and kinky-textured hair participants were seen after countries like Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Bolivia, and Honduras were called. My parents, like the average Black American, never learned about the categorization of the “Afro-Latino”. In explaining the commonplace of Black and Brown people who looked just like us throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, I had to recall a time when I didn’t know about these histories and experiences I have come to know through academic and personal education. My novice thought was: maybe a few dozen Black Americans or Africans went to these Latin American countries and had some children. But the idea that we all, as enslaved Africans, were forcibly brought to and dispersed throughout the Americas around the same time, and that other people of African descent were developing their own complex culture at the same time we were in the United States was unfathomable at one point in time. How could we live a couple of hundred kilometers away from Cuba (or any country in the Americas) and not know that not only are there Black people there, but that the majority of the population would be (by U.S. social standards and classifications) considered Black? How could we have gone through 13 years of public education without knowing that there are Black people, Black communities – rich with histories, experiences, and multi-faceted cultures – all throughout South America, Central America, and the Caribbean?
These are all questions that deserve their own paper, but in this article, I would like to focus on ideas of Blackness – what it means to be “Black”; what are the different ideas about Blackness, respective of tradition, country, or culture; How does one stay clear of imposing their culture’s racial categorizations on another; how do different cultures view race.
When I began to learn about other African diasporic communities, I also began to learn and understand that not everyone has the same racial classifications as in the U.S. society. Every culture, in fact, possesses its own constructions of race, racial categories and classifications, and hierarchies. What is Black in the United States may be split into 15 different categories in Puerto Rico or Brazil or Cuba. The One-Drop Rule in the United States that considered anyone with one drop of African blood to be “Black” began as a legal policy, which then permeated social life and general racial boundaries. Similarly, the boundaries set by each country’s respective government for the races came to impact how their cultures and their personal identities.
During the heights of enslavement and colonialism, different colonial powers imposed their varying ideas on race on the colonized populations. The French, the English, the Spanish, and the Portuguese all had different classifications of where Blackness stopped and whiteness began, thus producing the differing taxonomies we encounter today.
Henry Heredia, one of our mentors/instructors in Cuba, mentioned that many of his extended family members consider him “wao wao” – a racial categorization for lighter-skinned Black people possibly with light colored eyes and lighter-toned and looser textured hair. While he simply considers himself “Black”, there may oftentimes be discrepancies between what one considers themselves and what others consider them. I heard this term again during our first reggae concert. Soon after having a conversation with a Cuban guy about whites in Reggae, I asked if one of the performers was white (who appeared to me and by U.S. standards to be white, with the exception of his naturally kinky and blonde hair, which was formed into thick waist-length locks), to which he responded “No. wao wao.” It’s important to note that not only had I never heard of this racial category, but that it is one that does not exist in the U.S. society (and it may or may not exist in other Latin-American or Caribbean nations). According to the One-Drop Rule, the performer would simply be “Black”.
Issues arise from these differing racial categorizations when we travel and encounter these different classifications. Our personal identities are often put into question. Many immigrants from parts of Latin-America (e.g., Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, etc.) have spoken out about their issues when coming to the U.S. when they encounter our racial categories. They aren't considered "Hispanic" by most because they phenotypically look what we generally consider simply "Black", while Black Americans do not consider them "Black" because they speak Spanish. Many Afro-Latinos have more recently called these limitations into question and have called for more inclusive ideas on Blackness.
Even more important, however, are the ways in which these classifications impact or influence racism and racial hierarchies. One of the first places I encountered different ideas on racial categories was in a book entitled 'Black Puerto Rican Identity and Religious Experience' by Samiri Hernandez Hiraldo. Some of the categories mentioned in her book were translated into English as "Black but sophisticated", "Black but pretty", and "Black but smart". Embedded in many of these terms was the idea that Blackness is inherently inferior - inherently un-sophisticated, ugly, and unintelligent. Considering that the historical construction for many of the world's racial taxonomies developed out of racist, white supremacist ideals, most racial categorizations are bound to have (either subliminally, or blatantly) an inherent hierarchy. Racism was and is not something that was simply imposed on Africans, but something that many of us have unfortunately absorbed into our own personal identities. It is important, not only to grasp the various categorizations other countries have, but also to analyze them from learned, critical perspectives, placing them within their proper historical and cultural contexts.
Travelling to Cuba, or any other country within the African diaspora is important in that it gives us the opportunity to truly interrogate and experience other ideas on race. Moreover, it enables us to analyze our own categorizations from a more objective perspective. Hopefully, in the future, more exchanges can take place between Africans in the diaspora that encourage these discussions on race and racial categorizations and advance our personal identities beyond the current limited classifications.