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Wassup with tha Luv?
Are Blacks and Africans getting along?
By: Hadji Williams
One brother speaks in African, one sings Jamaican soul.
Both of them are black men, but they still cant get along.
Digital Underground/Tupac (Wassup with the Luv? 1992)
Exactly when did domestic black folks start hating on foreign black folks?
Whenever I tune into BET or Comedy Central virtually every black comic does a bit about how crazy, dirty, stupid or weird Africans are. To hear the average black comic tell it, every Jamaican is a lazy weedhead, every Haitian is crazy voodoo practitioner and most every African is still stuck in the bush, in a refugee camp or swinging on vines with monkeys. And Ive lost count of the number of Black female comics riffing on how ultra possessive or violent or funny smelling Jamaican and Haitian men are. And whether its one of those what the blood-clot?!/boo-ya-ka! punchlines or some coonish pseudo-African accent, like the one Eddie Murphy dropped back in the day the crowd always laughs.
And beyond comedy, I hear similar attitudes echoed on black/urban radio and in popular music videos and movies. When Im on buses and trains, or in the clubs on the Ave. or visiting schools, I hear way too many black folks, mostly young ones, some in their mid-30s on the same program, spewing the same nonsense that mainstreamers have spewed against us: Jokes, stereotypes, broadbrushed generalizations and assumptions, indifference to their communitys plight/suffering, commoditizing/marginalizing their culture, double standards and hypocritical criticisms Its crazy.
Maybe Ive always romanticized the connection between blacks at home and those abroad. Maybe Ive just always assumed that our shared histories, heritages and struggles should automatically make us closer than we really are. Maybe I just assumed that because all the worlds music originated in Africa that wed all have more love for that part of the world. Maybe I just assumed that for all of our, Dont call me negro, call me afircan-american, talk that somehow wed be seeking stronger ties to Africans and foreign blacks. Maybe Im making too many assumptions. Maybe the Diaspora is as much an illusion as whiteness and as race in general.
Maybe the simple fact is, were just all so completely different from each other and that we as black Americans are just as xenophobic, elitist and culturally arrogant and ignorant as everyone else. Maybe part of gaining acceptance in America is turning on those who havent quite made it yet. After all, every generation of European immigrants did the same thing. Whiteness is a by-product of Irish, French, Germans and other ethnic groups deciding that their skin tone was more important than their heritage which drove the more assimilated immigrants to see the recent arrivals as them. Maybe black folks are simply doing the same with Africans and foreign blacks. Maybe theyre just the new them.
And maybe I have too many expectations of hiphop. Somehow I expected hiphop, with all its skills come first and it aint where youre from, its where youre at proselytizing, to be the great cure-all for racial and cultural divisions. Maybe I shouldnt be surprised by the racial divisions within hiphop and the elitism and classism. Maybe hiphop is truly just a mirror for the larger society and as such its correct and true to be filled with just as much bias as any other artform.
I dunno
But this much Ive figured out: Hiphop is a global community and black folks are just one house in the village. Theres no way we can be equal partners or neighbors in this if were going to internalize and spread the same hate that others have put on us.
Hadji Williams is author of KNOCK THE HUSTLE: HOW TO SAVE YOUR JOB AND YOUR LIFE FROM CORPORATE AMERICA, (www.knockthehustle.com, coming August 2005.) Its hiphops first success guide for business, culture and life. Email him at: author@knockthehustle.com.
