terming what is 'African'
Written February 25, 2013
Ā Why it is that I feel a prick in my conscience when I use 'African'?
We hear the term all the time in international studies, economics, politics and developmentāespecially the age-old āAfrican problems, African solutionsā (which in itself is another article). On the converse, or perhaps more correct, on the parallel, we use terms such as European, Asian, and North American to denote not only people from these regions but ways of thinking, practices, and ways of being.
But what do I mean by āways of beingā? Iām talking about the normative and prevailing behaviour, language, and speech stereotypically represented by a group of people (in this case, classified regionally). However, my fear of saying āway of beingā is largely due to the notion that being āAfricanā postulates as backwards, traditional, corrupt, impoverished, dependentāall the colonial and neocolonial adages created by paternalism and now subjugation be it in the UN or by international political discourse.
Do I avoid āAfricanā because Iām not African? Because Iām a white, middle-class, Canadian? But even Iāve tired of the over-used argument that one cannot discuss or hold genuine interest in the matters of āanotherā based on difference alone.
So I asked Google, the God of the worldwide (wondrous) web, and it returned with this answer:
African, as a noun, is a person from Africa, especially a black person (my emphasis added).
Ā I was surprised at my own surprise at the necessity of including āblack personā.Ā Surely, the definition for North American doesnāt say: especially a white person?
Upon asking Google the same question concerning North American I received this answer, a native or inhabitant of North America, especially a citizen of the US or Canada.
Once again, I was surprised at my surprise that Mexico was less than especially North American (although surely Mexico wants to be considered an equal in negotiations such as NAFTA?).
But back to the entanglement of my idealism and naivety when it comes to the term "African"ā¦
I asked myself, why is my conscience stirred at the use of āblack personā? Is it my ever-polite Canadian socialization, which should recognize all and every race, ethnicity, and culture as equal in the flora of multiculturalism that is my country? Even so, my knowledge of race, its construction, history, and influence, is minimal so I canāt begin to write on this issue. However, even if Iām a bit of an idealist there must be more reasoning behind African somehow being synonymous with black.
Let me regress to make sense of my compounding intrigue surrounding the terminology of āAfricanā. If we begin to look at racial composition statistics in Africa we find ourselves in a myriad of symbolic and real complexities including, for example, what designates black versus coloured and even what constitutes the region of Africa (Middle East versus North Africa for example). Regardless of regional and ethnic multiplicity, the majority of Africans are indeed black (given that the largest white population is found in South Africa-- around 10% of the national population).
My point is that denoting African as especially black isn't wholly wrong. And yet my resistance persists.
So I push on and ask: What about the white African? They are living colonial remnants even though many living today have little in common with their ancestorsā policies. Are they as forgotten from within the continent as they are outside of it? How do we reconcile colour as difference when we have such a colourful history of depending on it?
Finally even more shocking was my deeply hidden understanding that the connotation of black is bad.
Is such a simplistic yet powerful form of linguistic imperialism inherent in the fundamental dichotomy of black and white?
Moreover, if my subconscious reacts to black as bad, then what do I make of African(s)?
What do I expect? Some gun toting, flies-around-the-eyes, emaciated black person who in the end would only use me or corrupt me? How crude! And that's not once been my personal experience. Not in all the places I've travelled, lived, or studied.
On the contrary my black (and white) African friends are no more different than my every-colour North American friends... But of course they are not (you think aghast at such ignorance)! Shouldnāt this notion of race be far behind us?
Thus my perplexity and concern that Iāve been suspect to the dichotomy of bad/good of black/white. That willful or not, I carry with me a powerful and potentially damaging notion of 'African' in great need of deconstructionā¦
I am left wondering, if we were all blind, what would be made of humanity?
