Blackness and the Future Part 1
What does it mean to be Black in America? This question has been posed by many scholars and thinkers for decades. From Frantz Fanon to Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, Marcus Garvey, and many more. All Black scholars reckon with this question that is intrinsically connected to their lived experiences as Black people in a country born from colonialism and race-based slavery – a world that was not constructed for them. They are forced to interrogate the current socio-political system, questioning its origin, and the role it plays in the Black psyche. Being black is a position that is assigned by an external force; it is then a position acknowledged and understood as one’s own identity. Once “Black” is ascribed to a person, the way they move about the world and the role they fill is dictated by the color of their skin. In The Clinic of the Subject, Achille Mbembe states that “those clothed in the name Black are well aware of its external provenance” that is to say being Black is deeply intertwined with an experience of hyper-awareness. Mbembe continues, “They are also well aware that they have no choice but to experience the name’s power of falsification.” Existing in the world as a Black person is the expectation of being misunderstood because under the current system, there is no room for them to be seen outside of their Blackness. Being Black as W.E.B. Du Bois stated in The Souls of Black Folk is also “[a] double consciousness…measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” To be Black is to be burdened with an awareness of how you are perceived that fights to eclipse your sense of self.
The everyday lives of Black people in America are painted by this double consciousness whether today or decades ago – an unwelcome constant. Some experiences heighten this feeling of “double consciousness”, such as the hyper-awareness of one's own body when out in predominantly-white public. When you are Black, encounters with the police, going to the park or supermarket, walking at night, wearing a hoodie, or merely just existing in predominantly-white spaces can lead to bodily or emotional harm. This awareness has allowed Black people to develop methods of navigating white space more safely. Fanon investigates this double consciousness in Black Skin White Mask by stating “The black man has two dimensions. One with his fellows, the other with the white man. A negro behaves differently with a white man and with another negro.” Though this concept was initially investigated by Fanon, in recent years this idea has largely been referred to as “code switching.” This term was coined by a sociolinguist Einar Haygen in 1954. Code switching is widely used with black people and other people of color in the United States to maneuver space occupied by the white majority by mirroring their speech patterns and behaviors.
Being Black in America is to live within a series of concentric falsehoods. You are perceived incorrectly, as an inferior and a threat, and so to combat that you must behave inauthentically, adopting the colloquialisms and behaviors of those who do not see you as you are. All the while, you are trying to hold onto any true sense of who you are. This hyper awareness of your body caused by constant surveillance leads to the idea that Black people need to be performing in the public eye. Where does this surveillance of Black people start in America history?
