It’s really disturbing when injustices that are linked to racism are brushed aside and we’re called race baiters for bringing it up. As if I’m imagining things. As if I created race. As if being silent is going to make everything okay. And the coup de grâce is that some unfortunate souls actually believe that by pointing out racism, that makes someone a racist. I find this to be a signifier of the failure of the education system. So many people know how to throw around the term, but so few know what it really means.

For everyone that’s confused, racism is a historically rooted systematic structure based on the creation of racial hierarchies. It’s racially based prejudices reinforced by systematic power structures that design global economic disparities, social guidelines for imprisonment, medical apartheid, and the socially determined value of life.

Just being born a Black woman in this current state of affairs, I simply do not have the structural power or capacity to be racist. And if it’s hard for you to grasp this information from me, please do Ask The White Guy and this really cool Bangladeshi Australian guy who gets it:

Still, I don’t deny that as an African American woman in the current world, I am born with a certain level of privileges that my ancestors didn’t have. For one, I wouldn’t be writing on this blog because it would have been unlawful for me to read or write. I wouldn’t have gotten two master’s degrees (that I’ve been told Affirmative Action paid for) because that too is a punishable offense. For being an uppity negro wench, I would have been hanged and buried in some unknown location and it would have been deemed justified because I didn’t know my place. That fact is the disturbing root of this discussion. These seemingly innocent demands of my silencing are born out of that same legacy. These are “be quiet or we’ll reprimand you” statements. 

Instead of trying to silence discourse, just admit that you’re a coward. Just admit that comfort and dare I say privilege is more important to you than justice. No we can’t talk about the prison system, the fall of the middle class or the military industrial complex without race. No, no, no! To exclude race from these topics is to participate in the erasure of reality and to disregard the validity of millions of lived experiences. These “reverse racism” and “race-baiter” accusations are built on nothing more than modern day fairy tales.

The racial divide is real:

Unequal prison sentencing: Check
Exclusion from the workforce: Check
Sexual abuse: Check
Segregated education: Check
Insufficient medical attention: Check

Pointing out all of these issues is not divisive, but ignoring them is.  It prevents us from fully exploring and understanding the crux of the problem. You’re not really for social justice if work ends when you feel uncomfortable. Perhaps you should ask yourself why your comfort is so dependent on avoiding the deconstruction of racism. If you’re not ready to have this discussion just admit that and move on. Remove your activist, social justice title and just “get to steppin.” But don’t try to silence people because you feel uncomfortable.  Those times are long gone. Mammy retired, leaving us very detailed instructions…being quiet is not on the list.

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Today at work I sat discussing heritage with three of my coworkers: a Haitian African, a Jamaican and a Dominican. They all conversed about revolutions, events and people from their homelands who are stapled into their histories. They spoke with such pride because various people and situations have helped to shape their people’s identity and culture. Whatever happened on their land happened in their history. I sat a bit envious, for though they are like African Americans in which most of them were brought to their respected lands; they and their lands are one.  They are tied to their old-new homes. They love it, and it claims them. These thoughts led me to ponder what land do African Americans associate themselves with? And what land claims the African American? From my experience, it is clear that African Americans are not deeply connected to any land.

When I consider each of my coworkers land heritage, I am troubled with my lack thereof. In African American history we have many heroes who have, on American soil, fought for us, descendants of slaves, to attain many freedoms. In a land where we were brought to as slaves, we now have rights, liberties and representation in the highest office in the free world. But does America really claim the African American as his brother, or are we simply overstayed visitors? From slavery to lynching and the countless murders of minorities throughout the years among other things, I presume that the land of the free hasn’t truly accepted the free slave. When so many injustices are allowed against us, it’s hard to feel like America is really our home. Well, I know that’s how I feel. So, if America seems unsure of our kinship, where do we call home? Where are we connected to?

At times, it seems like nowhere.

Both my parents are from the south and came north to escape the tumultuous south of the 50’s. My mother was born in Savannah Georgia, and my dad was born in Lee South Carolina. Neither of them, nor I, have ever traveled outside of the country. We don’t go visit cousin so and so in Nigeria. When we go visit family, we go down south. When West Indians or Africans ask me where my family is from, I often say the south because I have no other point of reference. I was born and raised in the New York; I have no connection to the south or Africa. I tried reconnecting with my family from the south, and as pleasant it was it left more questions. Who are we really as a family? Where are we from? I learned that one of my great grandfathers was a musician and that excited me. I felt a sense of rootedness.

I realized that I wasn’t an island, but that men who came before me excelled in similar ways and shared similar pains. Still, questions like where certain relatives got specific strengths haunt me. Not having a home land that is filled with my people, my heritage and my culture leaves me a bit misguided about who I am. It also concerns me of who we are as black men and women. Does our legacy end with jazz and the civil rights and a certain black vernacular? Or is there more? Though my parents are from the south, we are so much more than southerners. My parents themselves do not claim to be from anywhere else but the south. They have, like many of our parents and people, no connection with who they really are and where they really from: Africans from Africa.

Many attempts have been and are being made to mend the lack of identity and culture that resulted from slavery. Kwanzaa, created by an activist and scholar named Maulana Karenga, was conceived to give Afro-Americans their own holiday: a sense spiritually individuality. The Pan-American Flag was crafted with a similar intent: to give us culture and identity. With all these attempts, the thirst for a home hasn’t been quenched within blacks. Recently, many celebrities have begun to participate in DNA analysis that traces back ones genealogy. African American Lives, hosted and narrated by Henry Louis Gates Jr that premiered on PBS in February of 2006, is an example of this. It is a documentary that explores the history of men like T D Jakes, Chris Tucker, and Dr. Ben Carson as well as women like Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, and Dr. Mae Jemison through genealogical research. It married these Africa Americans to various countries and tribes in Africa which us remarkable.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the norm. Most blacks, if not in financial constraints, are at least misinformed about their access to such options. Many black men like me live either in the state of creation or in a state of assimilation. We either try to create an identity and culture for ourselves or we simply put on the American self. We align ourselves with American values, belief systems and ambitions ignoring any connection or reflection to our damaged past. We are a people whose culture continuously changes, for we have no foundation. Land-heritage brings foundation.

Going back to live in Africa can prove to be problematic, for we have no trusted relatives there.  However, finding out where our families originate from, give each of us a better context than what many of us have as African Americans. We are able to associate with outstanding music, attire, and spiritual practices that outdate our Kwanzaa, jazz, hip-hop, pan African flag creations. It is not a matter of better or worse but context. I believe saying to be extremely true: “you don’t know where you’re going, unless you know where you come from.”

On February 6, 2008, African Ancestry posted a video on YouTube of Judge Hatchett discovering her roots and she told this story while speaking to a young man:

I went to Africa with my sons last summer. And there was a Massai warrior who’s a little bit older than you are. And he said ‘where are you from?” And I said, naively, I said I’m from the United States. He said ‘nah nah nah nah nah no! Where are you from my sister?” And I didn’t know. And so when you got tested I got tested, so you have my results which I have not said I have been dying for this to come back today so I can have my result because never ever do I want to say again I don’t know.

Ask African Americans where they are from, and they will tell you some state or county, but the truth is most of our answers are like Judge Hatchett’s: we don’t know.

For black history month, I want my African descendant brothers and sisters to consider going home. Consider investing in these DNA genealogical tests because with land-heritage comes a stable culture and identity and most importantly wholeness which our people so desperately lack. Imagine finding out that your people are from Morocco, Egypt, Kenya, Namibia, Cameroon or Liberia, not from Savannah Georgia or Boston or Mississippi but Africa. Wouldn’t that be something? One real way that we can begin to rid ourselves from the evils of slavery is by reconnecting. It is by going back home. With the new advancements in science we can at least know where to start. It’s better to be a man a long way from home than a man with no land.

C. Lionel Spencer is a New York resident and writer, who is devoted to using his talent of writing to move our world community forward.