Our Legaci with J.A.M. Aiwuyor

They Say “Hispanic”…I see “Black” :The 21st Century and the DuBoisian Color Line is Still An Issue
By Timothy Aaron – Styles c2011

According to all indicators, the “Hispanic” population grew by 43% over the last 10 years pushing the actual numbers to over 50 million. Now, according to sources such as The Census Bureau, one out of every six North American (United States citizen) is “Hispanic.

I keep hearing this statistical, numerical and quantitative fact reported however there is one historical and cultural truth that I am not hearing, except in my own head and out my own mouth: many, if not most, of the people classified as “Hispanic” are actually of African descent and “Black.” With this in mind, my logic says if the Afro-Hispanic population is increasing in numbers, so are the number of regular ole “Black” folks which means – Black folks, overall, are becoming the “new” majority. Then why don’t they just say that?

For the record, there is really no such thing as a Hispanic “race.” As an aside, I must say that I am one of those reluctant to use the term “race” to distinguish (between) various peoples. If one believes that there is only One Human Race, then how could there be other races? How could you have sub – races? Wouldn’t a “sub – race” mean that there are “sub – humans”? Personally, I prefer using either of the following terms to classify and differentiate human beings: ethnicity, culture or nationality. But, that’s another narrative deserving more exploration and discussion at a later date.

Hispanic (or Latino) peoples are people comprised of indigenous Native North, Central and South American nations including the Caribbean (e.g. Taino, Arawak, Carib, Aztec, Mayan, Calusa, etc.); Africans; and Europeans (Spaniards and Portuguese). Their ethnic and cultural origins are traceable to either or all of these groups.

As it is well documented, the Spanish and Portuguese presence in the Americas is primarily due to colonialism – what some euphemistically refer to as, “exploration” and “discovery.” Later.

It is the Spanish and Portuguese presence that put the “Latin” in Latin America. While there are remnants of indigenous/Native and African culture throughout the “Hispanic Diaspora,” primarily, it is the Spanish language that defines, connects and “unites” Hispanic people. Put another way, the major commonality and criterion used to classify “Hispanic” peoples is the Spanish language. The term “Hispanic,” then, is primarily based on linguistics and secondarily on culture. Again – ethnically, there is no such thing as “Hispanic.”

Interestingly enough, Spain owes so much to Hannibal the African for the development of its civilization and culture. Oh, the complexities of history, culture and identity. Another topic for another time.

In nations like Panama, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Cuba, Peru, Mexico and Columbia – you will find many Black people, as well as clear African cultural influence in and through food, music, religion/spirituality, architecture, art and language. In some cases, probably rare, I will admit, you will find that the African culture is the dominant culture such as in Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico and The Dominican Republic.

So I find it interesting and sad when I hear of African – Americans taking anti-Hispanic positions as they are apparently unaware of the ethnic, cultural and historical commonalities between them and African – Hispanics.

Case in point, in an NPR story about “New NAACP Leaders Broaden Group’s Missions,” an AME ZION Minister in Waterbury, Connecticut, by the name of Leroy Perry, stating his opposition to a Hispanic person serving as chapter President based on the fact that the NAACP was started for “Black people in particular.” I shook my head as I listened to this leader of an African Methodist Episcopal church. Emphasis on “African.”

Oh, this Queens, New York – born and raised person is not naive. I know that many, if not most, Hispanic folks are just as unaware, or in denial, about both their Africaness/Blackness and their ethnic and cultural ties to African-Americans as are African – Americans about theirs to their Hispanic cousins. Yet another topic to discuss at another time. Neither African – American ignorance or self denial or Afro – Hispanic ignorance or self-denial can change the historical truths.

Black people are not just African – American. Nor can “Black” continue to merely be defined by skin color and locality. Being “Black” is just as global as globalization. And no longer can narrative and discourse about being “Black” and “what is Black?” be intelligently and honestly engaged in without mentioning a simple six letter word: “A- F- R – I- C- A.”

About the author:

Timothy Aaron-Styles has worked in media, strategic communications and entertainment in New York, Georgia, South Carolina and Bermuda. Majored in Film and Video at Georgia State University while minoring in Marketing.

He has worked with CNN Headline News, 16 The Library Channel and City 5: Atlanta City Hall’s cable television station. Has advised political, corporate and non-profit clients in New York, Georgia and Bermuda. Co- screenwriter of “Akwaaba” a a romantic comedy set in Ghana reflecting the multi-faceted fabric of Ghanaian life. His one-act play, “Shhhh!!” was adapted into a screenplay and shot and is post-production. The piece has a very interesting and unique perspective on sexual abuse.

He can be reached at Timothyaaronstyles@yahoo.com.

The U.S. Black Woman Experience

by Zakiya Lasley

In truth, specific oppressions (male domination, white supremacy, class exploitation, etc.) rarely work singularly. Instead, oppressions feed off of each other, their dynamics changing according to specific contexts. The current challenge for anti-rape organizers is to develop solid analyses of rape and rape culture that recognize a multiplicity of oppressions that constantly shape and influence each other.

Throughout history Black women have taken deadly risks in confronting rape under extreme fear and terrorism. Black women who were slaves participated in concentrated and deliberate instances of retaliation of rape by their white male slave owners. Documented in many autobiographies and biographies are horrifying accounts of female rebellion manifesting itself in the poisoning of rapists, burning of property, and assassination of their white slave owners. Also in instances of desperation enslaved rape survivors who were mothers often killed their girl children as a form of resistance to slave rape.

Looking at anti-rape activism done on the part of Black slave women forces us to think about rape in a much more complex way. Rape is not only a tool for male domination over women; Rape is also a tool for economic exploitation and white supremacy. The example of rape survivors killing their babies to keep them from being raped is also resistance to the use of rape to promote the institution of chattel slavery after the banning of the Mid-Atlantic slave trade. We can see the dominating forces of capitalist and white superiority dynamics within rape not only in the case of the rape of thousands of black slaves, but also currently in global issues such as “mail-order brides” and global sex-trafficking.

Another anti-rape movement headed by Black women is the anti-lynching movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During post-Reconstruction, southern white people were determined to regain control over Black people. As a result, they instituted a system of lynching Black women, men, and children when they “got out of line.” Lynching was a sexualized form of murder. Often, the justification for lynching Black men was that they raped white women. The issue of rape was utilized as a scare tactic geared directly towards white women. As a result, many southern white women supported lynching efforts instead of recognizing that sexual violence towards white women, by anyone, is deeply connected to sexual violence towards Black people (as well as other forms of oppression). When Black men were lynched, the mobs would often torture them before hanging them, cutting off sexual parts of their anatomy in particular. When Black women were lynched, they were often raped first.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, an activist and writer during this time, spoke openly against rape and did not defend Black men who were, in fact, guilty of rape. But after she researched and investigated 728 lynchings that had taken place during the 1890s, she found that only a third of murdered Black people were even accused of rape, much less guilty of it. Spurred by her investigation, hundreds of Black activists at the time, (including the NAACP and Black intellectuals) developed an anti-lynching movement for which activists were burned out of their homes and businesses, run out of town, and murdered.

In my assessment of the anti-lynching movement, I never stopped to look at the moment as an anti-rape movement because the goal of these activists were not specifically to end rape, but to end lynching. Nonetheless, it is so profoundly an anti-rape movement because the theory and activism work the organizers produced challenged all forms of racialized sexual violence. Deconstructing the myth that Black men are overwhelmingly “more desirous” of white women was critical in order for white women to eventually reflect on the sexual violence being done to them by white men as well as their own sexual freedom. Most importantly the anti-lynching movement forced America’s hand in recognizing that other manifestations of oppression are inseparably linked to sexual violence. There is no genuine way to discuss rape and organize against rape without being committed to deconstructing complex ways that race, ability, religion, age, economics, and sexuality are integrated into rape.

This next phase of anti-rape organizing in the 21st century must be able to hold on to the complexity of rape culture with all of its degrees of oppression. The time for thinking about rape as merely a tool of male domination is over. We must be able to mindfully articulate spaces where anti-rape organizing is inseparably linked to organizing against police brutality, for labor rights, and for immigration rights. And we must show up to these other types of organizing work as allies moving towards liberation.