Am I Black or Blak? The definition of Blackness in Britain
Black is a politically motivated symbol of inferiority that is sometimes used to embrace all non-White groups in Britain. Note the phrase non-White, a word that gives precedence to Whites by making them the centre and the standard to which others bear a negative relation. People are described as if they are a cast along a yard-stick, with opposing ends, Black and White, the higher you are towards White the better off you are”.
In Britain, non-White people have been referred to by various names including ‘Moors’, ‘Blue men’ (fir gorma), ‘Negros’, ‘Blak’ and today they are classified as either ‘Black’ or Black and ethnic minorities (BAME). In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, racism was legitimised by White-centred theories of evolution which designated Blacks as members of a biologically inferior, barbaric and an uncivilised species and Whites as superior. This racist ideology was used to justify enslaving Black Africans and colonialism which fuelled British capitalism, the industrial revolution and the transformation of Bristol, Liverpool and London from slave ports to world class cities and elevated the country from Britain to Great Britain.
The words black and white have possessed meaning long before the British stepped foot on the African continent. Traditionally in Britain black stood for death, mourning, sorrow, forsaken love, poison, baseness, evil, sin and danger. Black was the colour of bad magic, melancholy and hell. People spoke of black art, blackmail, a black sheep of the family and the black death. When people were ostracised, they were entered into a black book, when executed a black flag was hoisted. However, White was related to virginity, purity, innocence, good magic, flags of truce, harmless lies, and perfect human beauty. When “one of the fairest-skinned nations came across one of the darkest people on earth”, it was easier for the British to slot a new phenomenon into a pre-existing conceptual pigeon-hole. “If their skin was dark, what else could they be but BLACK and the devil?”
Dr Martin Luther King speaks to this in his Black and Proud speech on the 3rd April 1968’
Don’t let anybody take your manhood. Be proud of our heritage. As somebody said earlier tonight, we don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word black. It’s always something degrading, low and sinister. Look at the word white. It’s always something pure, high, clean. Well, I want to get the language right tonight. I want to get the language so right that everybody here will cry out, “YES! I’M BLACK. I’M PROUD OF IT. I’M BLACK AND BEAUTIFUL!”
Some have attempted to reclaim Blackness. Caron Wheeler of ‘Soul to Soul’ fame’s album entitled ‘UK BLAK’ elevated the word ‘Blak’ in mainstream British society. By omitting the letter ‘c’, Wheeler was making a profound Africentric political statement that reflected a conscious move by certain members of the Black community to distance themselves from the negative connotations associated to the word. This meant that the signifier Blak, which was created within the counter cultures of the Afrikan Diaspora, had much currency and signified an alternative way of thinking about the Black presence in Britain. By using the term Blak, the British born of Afrikan descent expressed a defiant attitude that questioned and challenged the seeming acceptance by their parent’s generation.
References
Fryer, P. (2018) Staying Power. London: Pluto Press.
Henry, W. (2006) What the deejay said. London: Nu-Beyond Ltd.
Olusoga, D. (2017) Black and British. Paperback edition edn. London: Pan Books.
Please look out for my next blog : Why are Black people in France not called Noir?
Are Mbappe, Pogba and Zidane Black or Noir? The definition of a people in France.
There are two ways of being racist- first, you fix the Black ‘problem’ as an unachievable reality (whether based on biological, historical, cultural, or metaphysical principles), and second, you deny the existence of Black people, making the Black problem a negligible reality.
“Back in 1976, when I was two years old, my parents took me to a supermarket in Paris. I got lost and wound up at the customer service desk. The following announcement over the PA system was made. “A little boy has been found. He is around two years old, and is … err … dark-haired. His parents are requested to pick him up at the customer service desk.” When my parents went to the customer service desk, they were faced with a lady complaining that it had taken them a long time to come and find me. Had they not heard the announcement constantly repeated over the PA system? Stunned, my parents responded that they did not connect me with the announcement because it described a small “dark-haired” boy. Embarrassed, the lady then said: “Well, let’s say, in any case, he is … how can I put it? … He’s pretty dark-haired, no?” Dumbstruck, my parents countered: “Dark-haired, you should have said a little ‘black’ boy; then, we would definitely have made the connection” Louis-Georges Tin.
This quote shows the awkwardness that the word Black invokes and, even more so, the difficulty in defining who is Black in France. Is it the immigrants? Or even Sub-Saharan? But those from the Caribbean are neither. Is it Afro-Caribbean? But North Africans are not Afro-Caribbean. And why call them Black? It is an English word! Since we cannot define who is Black, we should not speak about them at all.
Black is defined in various ways: physical features (the biological concept of race) or the unique cultural similarities between people. Second, the everyday socio-economic and political oppressions in the form of discrimination that people face because of biases based on the color of their skin. Third, by living in societies where they don’t have a choice but to be perceived as Black by Whites. Fourth, in situations where Black people perceive themselves as Black.
The words Black and Negro have been used in French public discourse since the nineteenth century to refer to dark-skinned people, but it was not until the 1970s and onwards that the word Black became taboo. This was partly due to the opposition staged by former colonies as there were neither Blacks nor Whites nor colonised or colonisers. At the same time, the Black West Indians were embracing being Creole and multiculturalism. Moreover, the Whites in France had abandoned the word Black because Black people were inferior; therefore, there was no need to speak about them. The White intellectuals did not believe in the existence of a race, which compounded their endeavors to deny the existence of Black people. This is similar to the conspiracy of silence that W.E.B Dubois refers to in his book, The Souls of Black Folk.
In 2004, an organisation called Circle of Action for the Promotion of Diversity in France (CAPDIV) was set up and in 2005, they launched the idea of a Federation of Black Associations. At the National Assembly on 26 November, the word Black, which had been repressed for over thirty years, was back. At the same time, the CRAN (Representatif des associations noires, or the Representative Council of Black Association) was born. Here, we see the people reclaiming the word Noir. Still, often this was criticised for being an abuse of the French language or even a racist approach to reality (if there is no race, then color is not an issue. Therefore, we are all French- Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite).
Some have suggested that Noir is racist as it directly refers to one’s skin and is linked to colonialism. However, others have suggested that those who use the term Black instead of Noir are uncomfortable talking about race issues an excellent,. In France, there is a great sense of Blackness amongst those in the music industry, football, art, and cultural expressions. Black people report experiences of being second-class citizens, harassed by the police and under constant suspicion and surveillance.
The point is, France have attempted to supress the Black problem by pretending they do not exist. This is why the “lovely lady at the counter” carefully chooses her words and refers to the lost boy as dark and not Black or Noir. Also, the reference to dark signifying Black is consistent in Britain as we saw in the last Blog and even this week, the claims raised by Meghan Markel regarding royal conversations about how dark baby Archie’s skin would be. It is clear that those that are characterised as Black in France would prefer to be identified as Noir however the consensus among Whites is that Blacks are not worthy of the French word and despite the distaste, they would prefer to adopt the English word Black instead.
References
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1868) The Souls of Black Folk.
Tin, L. (2008). Who is Afraid of Blacks in France? The Black Question: The Name Taboo, the Number Taboo. French Politics, Culture & Society, 26(1), pp. 32-44.
Verge’s, F. (2010) ‘There Are No Blacks in France’: Fanonian Discourse, ‘the Dark Night of Slavery’ and the French Civilizing Mission Reconsidered. Theory, Culture & Society, 27(7-8), pp. 91-111.
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Is Neymar Black? The description of a people in Brazil
The Contours of Whiteness (COW): Is Neymar Black?
The Brazilian population profile has developed from the indigenous people, enslaved Africans and the Europeans. Brazil has the largest population of Black people outside of Africa; however, since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the White minority has continued implementing policies that ensure the whitening of the indigenous and African-descendant population to eliminate the Black group of people from the country. Beginning in 1880, the Society for the Promotion of Immigration in San Paulo, the Rio de Janeiro Central immigration Society and Brazil’s government consciously invited only White Christians to the country, offering them free land. From 1889 to 1934, over 4 million immigrants entered Brazil, with mainly Italy and other countries such as Spain, Portugal, Germany, Russia, and Poland. Moreover, on January 6, 1921, the Brazilian Congress passed Article 5 of the Federal Decree No. 4247, a Whites Only Policy that prohibited Black immigrants, or anyone deemed African, from entering Brazil. This was effective by denying them visas. The idea was that a Whitened population would emerge naturally after generations of racial mixture between White European immigrants and darker-skinned Brazilians. This is represented in Modesto Broco’s late 19th-century painting entitled The Redemption of Ham https://images.app.goo.gl/976YHm1tBr7nScL5A.
According to Fish (2013), marriages between Blacks and Whites are pretty standard in Brazil, with a third of the marriages in the 2017 census being along inter-racial lines, 47% of the total population identified as mixed race and 8% as Black. On examining the multi-ethnic population of Brazil, Fish found that people are categorised based on their physical features using the Portuguese words tipo or cor, meaning type or color in English, respectively. There are a lot of tipos in Brazil because physical features differ significantly from person to person and region to region. For example, the North Eastern part of Brazil, an epicenter of slavery and Portuguese colonialism, has varying tipos. The tipo tells you what one looks like but not their parent; therefore, two parents of intermediate appearance can have children of many tipos. The spectrum runs from White, European to Black African features.
Loura or blond is Whiter-than-White with straight blond hair, blue or green eyes, light skin color, a narrow nose, and thin lips. In the West, blond refers to hair color, whereas in Brazil, blond refers to one’s race. Then we have branca who are White; these people are categorised as having light skin color, eyes of any color, hair of any color except tight curls, a nose that is not broad, and lips that are not thick. The brancas, especially those from the elite circles, are dismayed that they are not categorised as White in the West but somewhat Hispanic or Latina/o, even though they speak Portuguese. Then comes the morena; these have brown or black hair that is curly but not tight curly, tan skin, a nose that is not narrow and lips that are not thin. Morenas that venture out to the West consider themselves at par with brunettes; however, to Westerners, brunettes are not Black. These top three categories are what I call Contours of Whiteness (COW). Then comes the mulata, who look very much like the morenas except that they have tight-curly hair and a slightly darker range of hair and skin color and then comes the preto, who look like mulatas but have dark brown skin, a broad nose, and thick lips. In the West, both the mulatas and pretos are categorised as Black; in fact, in Britain, the morenas, mulatas and pretos are categorized as BAME or Black. Another form of categorisation is that of people that are neither White nor Black. A sarard has tight-curly blond or red hair, light skin, blue or green eyes, a broad nose, and thick lips. Whereas those with straight black hair, dark skin, brown eyes, narrow nose, and thin lips are categorised as cabo verde.
According to the New York times (2018), in an interview by the O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, Neymar was asked if he had ever experienced racism and his response been, “never, not in the field or outside of it, it is not like I am Black you know”.
Similarly, when Fish interviewed his American daughter and her Brazilian boyfriend, they were asked if they were Black, his daughter replied she was Black because her mother was Black even though her father was White. This is based on the North American one-drop rule, which states that one drop of Black blood makes one Black. However, in Brazil, she would be a Morena. Just like Neymar, the boyfriend said he was not Black since, in Brazilian tipo terms, he is a multi and not a preto. However, in the West, he would be considered Black. This may seem bizarre since Neymar is the son of a Black father and a White mother; however, it shows how complex the issue of the taxonomy of race is and how inconsistent this is across the globe.
Brazil was the last country in South America to abolish slave trade and since 1888, the country has not taken any constructive action to integrate any of the millions of Black Brazilians into society. Instead, they have continued to deny the existence of racism and racial inequalities and baselessly declared Brazil a racial democracy where everyone is colour-blind and living in harmony. This echoes the recent UK Government report that denies racism.
Black people in Brazil remain mainly working class and under, suffer the worst of police violence, have limited access to education, make up a disproportionate percentage of the unemployed or work in low-income manual labor jobs, have limited representation in decision-making bodies, live in urban slums called favelas, are almost three times as likely to be victims of homicide leave alone die from Covid. On the other hand, the upper tiers of most professions in Brazil, such as medicine, media, business, entertainment, or government, are occupied by Whites.
References
Fish, J, M. (2013) The Myth of Race, Argo-Navis, pp.107-153.
Meade, A, T. (2010) A Brief History of Brazil, Facts on File.
Oliveira, C. (2018) Is Neymar Black? Brazil and the Painful Relativity of Race.
Tomas, M, C. (2012) Interracial Marriage in Brazil: a discussion about local marriage market, parents’ characteristics, and household chores.
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Who is Black: The Definition of a People in North America?