I am Not an African-American

Since I've changed the focus of this blog to deal with all issues concerning Black women...not just romantic ones...I am going to kick off political debates/conversations on A Big Butt and a Smile because, while I've been politically apathetic as late, I recognize Black women have a lot of power in this upcoming election and need to be well informed to wield it.

To kick off the political discussion I"m posting apiece I originally wrote back in my college days at the University of Miami and retooled a few years back. So here it is just as I penned it a few years ago with minor (very minor) changes.


I am not an African-American

I am not an African-American. Don’t call me an African –American. I’m an American. Period. I was born here as were my parents and grandparents and you would have to search many a generation back before you found anyone in my family who originated from the continent of Africa. It’s time black people in this country stop trying to identify with a land whose culture is not their own. It’s time we stand up and say “This land is our land” and let everyone know we have a right to this country as much as anyone.

I understand the need for black people in America to find an identity all their own. We are as displaced as a people can be. Brought here in the early seventeenth century, first as indentured servants then as slaves the richness of culture these individuals brought from their various tribes was systematically ripped away from them. Maybe in calling ourselves African-American we feel we can retrieve some of that richness that is lost to us and was stolen from our people so long ago. However the atrocities of the past are just that, the past and trying to identify with lost cultures isn’t going to help us achieve the respect and prosperity that has alluded us for so long in a country that is still hostile to those of African descent.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way suggesting we forget about the past. It’s important to study and learn from your forefathers’ triumphs, mistakes and pain. Continuously changing our identification however, is not the best way to use that knowledge. We’ve had several “identities:” from Colored to Negro, Black and now African-American. How can we expect anyone else to know who we are if we’re not sure of our own identity? How can we expect to come together as a people if we can’t agree on something as simple as to what to call ourselves? Hell the government is not even sure who we are if the census form was any indication with their Black, Negro, African-American non-hispanic category.

I say dispense with all of the confusion. We’re American. The sweat of our brow helped build this country. Benjamin Banneker a black man, helped design the white house. Something as simple as the traffic light and as life saving as the blood transfusion were created by black people. Americans. From music, to dance, to literature we have given much more to this country then it has have ever given to us. We can be proud in simply calling ourselves Americans because we have more then earned that right. It’s time we make use of it.

I was once asked if I viewed myself as an American first and black second. The answer is as long as America views me as black first then I’ll always be American second. But I’ll never be anything other then American.

Kola Boof. Speaking Truth to Power

I'm reposting this from ClassicalOne's blog. This was written by the amazing Kola Boof in response to a comment that was made on Clasical's blog awhile back. I don't have anything to say about it. It speaks for itself. And Kola Boof has officially become my shero. LOL. Enjoy. I know did.

It was recently brought to my attention by a few people at your Blog entitled "White Men Who Prefer Black Women" that a man named "Marc" had posted the following remarks about me:

"Man, I know this is going to sound weird, but I always found Kola Boof hot, even
though she hates white folks. Isn't that bizarre?"

Marc

_____

Kola Boof continues:
It's quite obvious that Marc has never read my autobiography "Diary of a Lost Girl", which was quite comprehensive in charting my sex/romantic life and the myriad relationships I've had--quite a few being with White Men, and in fact, one of those relationships (with Efrem Nelkin) lasting five years and being quite crucial in my development as it was Efrem who made me accept myself and love my blackness.

But what bothered me about Mark's comments was his assertion that I "hate white folks"--which is a glaring non-truth, and something that is almost always applied to any Black Person who is actively for the uplifting of black people and who does not want to become white and recognizes that this a White Supremacist society that "pities" blackness and is set up systematically to erase blackness and to erase black people.

Having clarity to see ones own predicament--doesn't mean that one hates white people.

In America, the withstanding "ritual belief" of the very structure of this society is that Blacks should morph into/become "mulattos".

Of course being a Half Egyptian, Half Sudanese woman from North Africa...I already know what happens to Mulattos after they "morph" out of blackness--they find that it's even worse being "mixed", they become depressed and bitter over the emotional disconnection from their original people, and in their desperation to become even whiter, they end up creating a new unhappy race--Gypsies, Arabs, etc.

My point being....I have nothing whatsoever against "White" people, not their existense, their place in humanity, their type of beauty and certainly not being friends with or having a romantic/sexual relationship with them.

But I don't set aside my own identity, my own beauty...to placcate white people.

I prefer my own race and my own men.

I also love my chocolate skin and my African hair and it was required by me that my children possess those traits, because...I could not live, as a black person in this world, and not bring black children (or the image of my ancestors) back into this world.

When my former "white boyfriends" went off to do the same (produce white children), I understood completely and I was glad they did, because it completed their naturalness for them.

Perhaps Marc's naturalness is to produce "mixed" children. That's good, as well, but that's not what I would have been happy with.

I chose and loved my children's father--a black man from Belize--and we had 10 good years together that have now ended.

Today my sons are here...and I am content and feel that Africa will go on through my sons.

But will I be with a Black Man?

I have no idea.

I live in California, a high rate "interracial" mecca where Black men overwhelmingly not only prefer other races of women, but are openly prejudiced, spiteful and dishonest towards black women.

I am a "dark skinned" black woman in their eyes with "nappy hair"---so to most of the black men here (men who were born from women who look like me), I am invisible.

As well as that, the media consistently uncovers the proof that most black men in the world--once they are successful in life--believe that the ultimate Status Symbol is to choose and love a woman whose genetics are as far from Africa as humanly possible. Across the board, high profile black men marry Non-black women and have no problem setting this example or this image for little black boys.

Like so many African women, this causes me to feel greatly "betrayed" by Black men and to not trust them.

Even worse--it causes me to lose respect for them, because the "numbers" of interracial pairings are not natural and are quite obviously--not about love.

Instead of interracial "love"---what we actually have is an "epidemic" of black self-hate (and white people's legendary naivete and ignorance) as these (*majority) Black Men endeavor to set aside their conks and redbones and just BREED their way out of blackness, MARRY their way out of blackness, ERASE themselves and all that they hate--which is each other.

No one...can tell me that I am wrong.

And...it doesn't matter what small percentage is "really in love"--it makes no difference whatsoever--because the fact remains, "blacks" are willing to live their entire lives without seeing black children be born. They're willing to marry mates who are "Lower quality" than the pool of Blacks they could have chosen from (whiteness, after all, trumps everything in a Eurocentric world), they are willing to "lie on" black women and willing to create Media (BET) where the message is constantly---"become a mulatto, it's better to be mixed, aquire 'good hair'".

These messages are constant in every type of black media that is created in this nation---BY BLACKS.

So this is not "love" we're seeing in American society, it's actually "hate" and "shame"----otherwise----the numbers would be much smaller and their would be no hostility expressed against one's own race.

I know that I am right.

And this is why, although I would prefer to love and grow old with a Black Man, it may not be possible.

I may very well find myself married to a White man or a Latino, a mulatto...or even an Arab. I honestly do not know.

But I do feel "disconnected" from Black Men as a group. I feel that I have been betrayed, disrespected and lied on by Black men as a group and I feel that Black men (the majority in the U.S.) are "white supremacists" with black skin---because almost everyone in this nation is Eurocentic, believing in the "supremacy" of white skin and white culture and whiteness as "rightness".

90% of Black American women will not wear their natural hair in public--for fear of being labeled "backwards/African" and being further denigrated and disenfranchised by a society that HATES THEM for what their wombs produce--black people.

And just today....as I went to the Post Office, the farm field to get vegetables, the grocery store to get meat, the library to return books and to my lawyer for a conference....the ONLY men who acknowledged me, flirted with me and tried to "mack" at me....were white and latino.

So please let Marc know....he must have been paying attention ONLY to my naked black breasts when he thought that I was "hot"....because he obviously has not taken any time to read what I have to say or what I believe or what I have experienced in my life. Like so many White men who want a chocolate-covered White Woman, he hears my pride in my blackness and my love for my people and....it turns his white mind off.

I don't hate "anyone"---but by the same token---I am not impressed by "whiteness" and I don't wish to be white. As an African, I am already "perfect" in the eyes of GOD (who is also black and came from my black pussy--because there was no where else to come from)."