Is
‘Black’ Really Beautiful? The identity of the African Person
The statement ‘Black Is
Beautiful’ is always proudly flaunted by Africans and people of African descent.
This simple sentence has been so much vested with power of pride so much so that
the possibility that such a statement could mean something negative, and
racially counterproductive, is never contemplated.
So when I ask people questions
such as “Is ‘Black’ Really Beautiful?” the immediate answer I get is YES.
However, this statement and its ‘yes’ answer have always bothered me. I’ve
tried as much as I can to understand the meaning and the idea behind the statement.
The more I tried to understand to get used to it, the more I realized the
repulsive implications and the more I realized that the people who utter the
statement don’t actually think much about it.
People utter it as a question
of conventional conformity and tradition enforced from without. Asked what the statement
means, these people either don’t know the meaning of what they utter or they
scratch their heads, lost and confused.
‘Black Is Beautiful?’ means
nothing if not well explained contextually; and in most cases, it’s never
explained. It even undermines the same
people it’s supposed to elevate, racially speaking. This statement, for those fond of it,
actually reduces a whole race to a
mere color devoid of human values. Well,
this color is vested with values!
This is something I find strange and troubling.
However, those who use the
statement would want to convince us that ‘Black Is’ Beautiful’ is meant to
convey the fact that people of African descent, or Africans, are beautiful. Or
more appropriately, the meaning intended is that the skin pigmentation of Africans
and people of African descent is beautiful. This sounds about right because the
assumption here is that ‘black’ is used as a metaphor or symbolism for the
African Person. An identity of people as symbolism is even more troubling. The
identity should be plain and ungrudging.
I don’t have any problem with
the ‘black symbolism’ as long as ‘black’ is used as a metaphor. However,
‘black’ is not only used as a metaphor. It’s been used to forge a proud
identity from the very essence of Africanness. We have black consciousness
movement in apartheid South African, the Black Panther, Black Entertainment
Television…etc.
Even when someone mocks blackness as a color in itself (not as
applied to people), Africans and people of African descent feel offended. I
don’t know when I’m allowed to see a difference between blackness of the color black
per se and blackness of the
Africans and people of African descent? When people say a black cat is a sign of black luck, Africans and people of African
descent feel offended. I get confused. We are talking about a black cat and this cat is literally
black not figuratively black. These people don’t see blackness only as a
figurative description; they’ve owned blackness and see it as who they are
literally.
‘Black’ has come to mean
African and African meaning Black. People have become so lost in the ontic of
their color that they don’t see the difference between who they are and the
color that describes them.
Black is a description used by
others to describe Africans and people of African descent. People have become
their color and their color has become them. Black is no longer seen as a figurative,
derogatory and childish description. That one can separate ‘blackness’ and
Africanness makes some people wonder.
This wonder results from the
loss of internal ingenuity in the African Person. Everything for and about the
African Person comes and is enforced by outsiders. Names and derogatory debasement of the whole
humanity of the people have been accepted with remarkable resignation. The fact
that blackness was used as an anti-thetical positioning of the African Person
on the opposite side of Europeaness has been either forgotten or accepted out
of powerlessness. A proud entity has been forged, by the African Person, out of
that damning biblical blackness.
‘Whiteness,’ which now means
Europeaness, was an elevation of the European Person while Blackness was a
debasement of the African Person. The description itself is not bad for each
and every race has a knack for self-elevation. What is bad is an attempt by the
African Person to either own blackness or to see Africanness and blackness as
one and the same.
Instead of African people
saying ‘I am Beautiful’ as an elevation of a sense of self and beauty, the
African Person is so lost to the point that she praises her description. She
prides in her description. And this description is by no means glorious! It’s
an outside imposition; an imposition that was meant to mock her; to place her
in a position that’s grotesque and undesired. So, ‘Black Is Beautiful’ is an elevation of a description of the African person, not an elevation of the African Person. Blackness doesn’t capture human traditions, values, cultures, intellectual development and the essence of Africanness. Reducing or equating a whole race of people to a mere color is the worst that can be done to a human population. However, these mad descriptions were understandable during colonialism, slavery, segregation, apartheid, or now, with radically racist people.
The words African, Sudanese,
Senegalese, Jamaican, African-American, Haitian, Bahamian, Trinidadian and so
forth, have so much respect attached to them in terms of traditions and human
values. They represent, not describe people. These words are full of meaning. I
hear Jamaica and my mind goes straight to vibrant people with traditions and
values. I hear ‘African-Americans’ and I see ingenious people with values and
traditions. I hear ‘Black People’ and I’m stuck with emptiness and intellectual
loss. To reduce these proud people to a mere color is terrible; socially detrimental.
I want people with respectable
import, to see themselves as separate from their describing color. When we say ‘Black is Beautiful,’
is it the blackness of Barack Obama or blackness of Kuir ë Garang, or that of
Soledad O’Brien? We don’t look the same color-wise so why should we be
described by the same color? What is common among the three of us is not
blackness; it’s the African blood in
all of us. To reduce our human connection to a mere color is a terrible offence. However, we’ve become so used to being
mocked and described that to question such things sounds like some martial
hermeneutic.
So, “Is ‘Black’ Really
Beautiful?” No! But you are beautiful! Never say ‘Black is Beautiful!’ Just say
‘I am Beautiful!’ Beauty is a quality of individuals not a quality of a Race.
And beauty should not be sought in descriptions, but in the people per se.
Twitter: @kuirthiy
