The Myth of a Foundational Black American
This article examines the rise of the Foundational Black American identity and argues that its framework echoes exclusionary ideology rather than collective Black liberation.
A new cultural identifier has more in common with white supremacy than pro-Blackness.
This past year, Essence Fest was at the center of (yet another) controversy as it looked to show the connections of the African diaspora. Jollof vs. Jamabalaya was the theme this year and included a cook-off and several other competitions between West Africans and African Americans. The idea was rooted in the connections the two rice dishes share in terms of style, ingredients and importance within their diasporic communities. But what was meant to be a lighthearted affair and a celebration of mutual heritage and origins turned into a territorial debate around the festival. At least in online discourse, a number of African Americans were upset that an “African” dish appeared to be receiving more attention at a distinctly African American event. While, ultimately, the back-and-forth on social media wasn’t fully reflected in the feelings of those who actually attended, it did again shine light on the divisions that exist in the diaspora here in the United States.
The first time I heard the term Pan Africanism being used, I was in high school, being introduced to the Black Panthers and the Black radical tradition. I can’t quite remember if it was something I read from H. Rap Brown or Stokeley Carmichael or Huey P. Newton, but the idea was profound and made absolute sense to me. As the targets of white supremacy and colonialism, Africans and those descended from Africa shared a common threat, common inhumane conditions born of that threat, and an unjust classification of our personhood that did not distinguish us by geography or ethnicity but simply by the color of our skin. Further, those of us from the diaspora could trace language, foods, traditions and customs to any number of West and Central African countries that were ravaged and exploited by the transatlantic slave trade. The idea that we were all connected not just by a common enemy but also by our common gifts felt empowering and energizing.
Growing up, I saw that most of the history taught about African Americans erases our accomplishments, our humanity and our full story, replacing it all with a very negative and limited version of who we are. My parents were very focused to ensure that my sister and I at least had some of our true story restored and learned to find pride in the meals and the styles that made us uniquely Black. When I discovered the Black radical movements of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s alongside Pan Africanism, it was the additional chapters and addendums completing the saga. As an adult, I’ve been blessed to visit Brazil which has a large African diaspora as well as several nations in the southern region of Africa, and my interactions with communities there, hearing their stories and experiencing for myself many of their customs and traditions, have only crystallized my view.
It is one of the reasons why I was confused (and still am) about the idea of a Foundational Black American (FBA). It is a relatively simple idea, although rooted in complete ignorance; the movement makes a hard distinction between Black Americans enslaved in the United States and other African immigrants and/or descendants. It is attached to another contemporary movement, the American Descendants of Slavery, whose general aim is to fight for and claim reparations based on the status of being descended from chattel slavery in the United States. The reparations would be something akin to those the Jewish community have in parts received because of the Holocaust. On the surface, both ideas seem innocent enough, even noble and just. Campaigning for a group of individuals who are unable to fully participate in the wealth that their ancestors helped to create and, at the same time, systematically suppressed and oppressed to the extent that they are unable, within their own means, to recoup the value of their labor and contributions is a right and righteous cause.
But, as they say, the devil’s in the details. Particularly with FBA, the ahistorical narrative that there is a super-specific specialized group within the transatlantic slave trade completely ignores how chattel slavery actually worked. The most basic lesson on slavery in American classrooms concerns the business of the triangular trade between the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe. It wasn’t only goods like molasses, sugar, tobacco and cotton that were exported and imported between these regions; it was the slaves as well. There is a point, yes, within that history when the physical and human cost of capturing and cargoing humans became less as white plantation owners began to “breed” more and more of their slave labor, thus creating a “group” of specifically “American descended” Black people.
However, this ignores a couple of profound truths. Firstly, the American collusion with colonial powers after the Revolutionary War, intended to subjugate and suppress freedom for any and all Africans within the region, be it Haiti or Jamaica or Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, means that, at its very genesis and throughout its existence, chattel slavery oppressed every African born or descended person, and the United States was complicit in that oppression regardless of geography. Secondly, the claim of some African American scholars of the 1970s that Africans “came before Columbus” and were thus indigenous to this region has since been debunked by other African American scholars. Even if that had been the case, it would still show that, ultimately, the group of “indigenous” Black people at some point had the origin of their history in … Africa.
So, why is all this important? Well, the FBA movement is using the idea of exceptionalism and what amounts to a kind of pseudojingoism to divide on the false grounds that other groups of Black people are benefiting or will benefit from gains that are exclusively the boon of this exceptional group. Much of the discourse around it has been engineered to create a caricature of African people who are looking to take something from the rightful heirs, and these biased and stereotypical characterizations are rooted in what can only be described as self-hate and anti-Blackness in many instances. And that is precisely what white supremacy needs and wants. Divide and conquer. The work of white supremacy is to find ways to weaken and neutralize any and all peoples who are unlike and inferior to them in their own twisted imagination. Meanwhile, Pan Africanism acknowledges a common enemy and not only a shared struggle but a shared heritage, traditions and ideas that at the very least should make for any in the diaspora, even if not a direct genealogical link, most certainly a political one. So, not unlike what happened with colorism or the simmering tension that existed between African and Caribbean people vs. African Americans, FBA is a doubling down on ideology that ultimately serves no one except white supremacists.
