no winners in diaspora wars
If you listen closely enough, you can hear the ancestors screaming at us.
In all my years of being chronically online, I don’t think any recurring internet discourse has been more frustrating than the diaspora wars; the cross-cultural rifts that emerge across different nationalities and/or ethnic groups that exist within the same larger racial group.
As a first-generation daughter of African immigrants, and having grown up in the United States, I occupy a strange space in the discourse. To my parents, I am culturally American, and far closer culturally to African-Americans. To African-Americans, I am African – and distinctly not African-American. Within myself, I find it difficult to disentangle my identity from either group. However, there is an inherent, invisible distance from both groups. Despite how critical each has been in my identity formation, and how inseparable both are from how I am perceived in this country, that difference is present and informs my perspectives on the world.
Alas, this is not a sob story about my identity. Any grief I feel while writing this lives beneath the surface of the diaspora wars. With no end in sight to ICE’s de facto ethnic cleansing operations, immigrants have been thrust into the center of American discourse. And in conjunction with the immigration crackdowns popping up across the United States, the reemergence of these frictions online has been even more painful than usual.
Earlier this month, some of the biggest celebrities in the world took impassioned pro-immigrant stances at the Grammys. Many of the speeches of support (from the likes of Bad Bunny, Oliva Dean, Billie Eilish, et al.) were embraced by the audience, and the online world watching. However, Shaboozey (a Nigerian-American country singer) made an acceptance speech that quickly caught ablaze online:
“Immigrants built this country, literally. So this is for them,” he said. “For all children of immigrants, this is also for those who came to this country in search of better opportunities, to be part of a nation that promised freedom for all and equal opportunity to everyone willing to work for it. Thank you for bringing your culture, your music, your stories and your traditions. You give America color, I love y’all so much. Thank you.”
Within the context of the ongoing immigration crackdowns, I didn’t immediately find fault with his statement. However, his words that night eventually yielded a formal apology to African-Americans, as the backlash online was quick and loud. He went on to acknowledge the inherent erasure embedded in his misattribution of immigrants as the people who built this country. The resulting disconnect online between Black immigrants and African-Americans has resurfaced deep and troubling pre-existing tensions between both groups that often go unaddressed.
In terms of Shaboozey’s speech, I believe that context here is important. I think it is imperative to locate his comments within the context of the heightened security and surveillance that immigrants in this country are facing. From that understanding, I think it’s fair to reasonably assume he (like the other celebrities that night) wanted to use his words to uplift a group experiencing deep persecution at the moment. However, timing matters, too. He had the unfortunate luck of making that speech on the first day of Black History Month (in the United States). As a result, I can certainly understand why African-Americans felt erased from that statement. This country was built on the backs of enslaved Africans and the genocide of Indigenous Peoples. And for a group that has been through unimaginable cruelty, while constantly being deprioritized and/or completely erased from conversations (compounded with the current administration’s ongoing attempts to erase them from history), I can understand the sensitivity to those wounds.
Following Shaboozey’s apology, I was dismayed to see that it wasn’t enough for a lot of people online. The drastically different responses to him, his initial statement, and his apology all birthed this new wave of the diaspora wars. I felt that with the apology, he had clarified his statement, acknowledged the erasure, and reiterated his support of Black people in this country. And yet, for many people online, that was simply not enough. And although I cannot (and have no desire to) accept apologies on behalf of other people, a part of me (my criminal justice brain) sees that as a reflection of how carceral our culture is, both online and in real life. I always say that the surveillance state has everyone acting like a cop, but I’m even more reminded of such when I see how relentless internet culture is when the masses grab for the pitchforks. Mob mentality has cemented itself within the psyche of the online world. And if an apology isn’t enough, this deep desire to punish an African immigrant in perpetuity for his perceived betrayal is not actually about needing him to correct his mistake. Rather, it is to outcast him and to ostracize anyone in alignment with him. Punishment for the sake of punishment. It is a sobering reality to be confronted with, but one marred in a lot of misplaced pain.
I think that the root of the outrage reflects a deep-seated need for community repair, recognition, and restorative justice. I was talking to my book club just last week about how Truth and Reconciliation Commissions took place in South Africa post-apartheid, but there have been no parallel restorative efforts here. With all of the attempts to erase African-Americans from American history, I would argue that the opposite effect has occurred. In those glaring absences, we find immense grief and unresolved rage. But I still don’t see that repair coming from anyone other than the group responsible for the bulk of the harm against African-Americans (and that would not be Black immigrants).
In retrospect, I think the seeds of resentment for both groups towards each other were planted long ago. Like Vic Mensa said recently, as an African, I will be the first to admit that plenty of Africans have been extremely anti-Black. Thanks to colonialism and the grim reality that nowhere in the world has been untouched by the shadow of white supremacy, antiblackness is universal. (There’s a reason that they say the sun never sets on the British empire.) However, I’d be remiss to leave out any acknowledgment of the xenophobia I have seen online and in real life towards Black immigrant groups both pre- and post- the ongoing ICE abductions. Nothing stung quite as much as seeing people that look like me proclaim online “that’s not our fight” when it came to taking up the mantle of defending Black immigrants and the need for collective resistance against ICE. Haitians have long been the very visible face of ICE’s targeting, now Somalis are facing similar scrutiny. Of course, any nonwhite person is now susceptible (regardless of your citizenship status) when the criteria for abductions is an assessment of how brown you are.
Audre Lorde warned us long ago:
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
Not only has this rhetoric been painful, but it has also been a departure from Black radical tradition and the staunch internationalism that our heroes (Malcolm X, Assata, Paul Robeson, Huey P. Newton, et al.) all espoused. But of course, rarely do I see these perspectives or realities acknowledged. Instead, they get buried as seeds of resentment and bloom in the diaspora wars we see online. Antiblackness and xenophobia serve to till the soil of disconnect between both groups. The distancing that occurs between both groups from the other can only be explained when you confront these realities at the root.
I think that when we turn against each other in these conversations, we have effectively chosen the wrong enemy. The enemy is not laterally positioned, or a part of another oppressed group. The enemy, the root, is colonialism and white supremacy.
Further, this attribution of either group having “built this country” is one I see often invoked in a complimentary manner, but rarely deeply evaluated. Upon closer review, I don't think that either group actually stands to benefit from that rhetoric. Which isn’t to denigrate Shaboozey’s intentions, but to invite an examination of the defenses oppressed people deploy in times of extreme persecution and stress.
I often see other immigrants invoke this language to reassert our value to this country through our labor. To remind the oppressor that yes, we do deserve to be here; not by virtue of our humanity, but because of how we stand to improve this country. Quite frankly, I think that we are so much more than what we can contribute. And an unfortunate byproduct of this rhetoric is how it reinforces the good immigrant/bad immigrant paradigm that serves as fodder for the right. I also think this argument inherently erases the experiences of disabled people (or people who are unable to contribute to a capitalist system) and renders them even more disposable under the eyes of the empire. I think that capitalism as a system conditions people into reducing their value in a society to what they can produce. At worst, I fear we stand to lose our humanity by tethering ourselves to these standards. One of the most jarring extensions of this rhetoric emerges when people take the Kelly Osbourne route; celebrating immigrants for doing the jobs that others don’t want to do.
As for the impact of this language on African-Americans, I had a conversation with my friend Quentin recently about why the outrage felt hollow for him.
“I get why so many folks were upset with Shaboozey’s speech, but personally, I wish the “my people built this country” spiel would die. There’s nothing endearing about the fact that so much wealth and institutions were built off the backs of slave labor. There was no agency to be had, it was forced at every turn. All reads as, ‘Ain't I American too?’ Why is that something to hang your hat on? Why are you pining for that acceptance and acknowledgment? My pride doesn’t come from being American. My pride comes from being the product of people who were packed onto ships like cargo, trafficked across seas, dropped in a place they didn’t know and managed to make a way in spite of.”
Quentin’s argument pulls apart any romanticism when you hold the labor of African-Americans up to the light, and place it next to the brutality that it took to build up this country. It’s a bittersweet thing to have to root your pride and patriotism in your labor. On most days, I would say it’s more bitter than sweet. In fact, I would argue that phenomenon is one that both African-Americans and Black immigrants experience. It crystallized for me when my friend Alex pointed to the consequences of the colonial connection, and how it has led both Black groups to lionize labor and hard work. You hear it all the time from Black elders across the diaspora, who have become some of the loudest evangelists of the bootstraps myth.
The real gut punch of Quentin’s statement lies in the phrase: “ain’t I American, too?” In light of our conversation, I decided to revisit Frederick Douglass’s speech “What to the American Slave is the Fourth of July?”:
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy— a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”
I have always seen people say that regardless of what you may have read about enslavement, it was so much worse. Douglass’s words are a reminder of the barbarism this country has inflicted on African-Americans. I think it also does a good job of rupturing any illusions about this country, which is why I have always struggled with patriotism. I cannot look at the American flag and not see blood on it.
I think these sentiments reveal something a lot more somber about the emotional state of oppressed people living in America. I would argue that lifetimes of generational trauma have forced us to functionally operate in an abusive relationship with this country. And the deployment of these defenses of both groups reminds me of some of the most common stress responses psychologists have identified (i.e., fight, flight, freeze, fawn.) “Ain’t I American, too” and “immigrants built this country” both feel like fawn responses. Vying for validation from the oppressor, as if our only worth and value as people should be flattened to what we can give to this country. Have we not given enough? And why must we defend our worthiness at all? Legitimizing the idea of worthiness of individuals validates any discussion on whether or not we deserve to be here (and makes room for discussion on who doesn’t), which only leaves us all even more vulnerable to disposability by the empire. In that lens, I think both Black immigrants and African-Americans are actually mirroring each other. Asserting our worthiness and/or deservedness to be in this country through how much we can demonstrate our utility to the empire.
With immigrants under a microscope, the president’s desperate calls for the revocation of birthright citizenship, and the threats of denaturalization of citizens, we have been barreling towards a complete undoing of our national understandings of citizenship and identity under fascism. Under these stressors, I can understand why some people feel compelled to present themselves as worthy to the American empire. But I wish more people would understand that citizenship in this country has always been a moving target. And for oppressed people, there is no amount of virtuousness you can signal that will protect you in an environment sustained by your devastation.
Turning against our own people makes us no less safe. Not when whiteness has been the default for citizenship in this country since its inception; and white Americans are the only group who have never had to hyphenate. With whiteness as the default understanding of citizenship, every nonwhite person is forcibly positioned to prove their value to the empire.
The diaspora wars online will have you convinced that we are far more different than we are alike. However, there are far more things that bind us than just as survivors of white supremacy. When I look across the diaspora, and especially in my travels abroad, I have always found so much comfort in recognizing the congruence of Black experiences I see reflected back to me. Our dances, our language systems, our greetings, our celebrations, our funerals, our rituals. Our handshakes, our childhood games, our food, our music, our storytelling methods. I remember reading about the invisible string theory, a myth taken from Chinese folklore that has been used today by romantics to imagine an invisible thread that connects lovers across time. I think the same theory must be true for the diaspora; there has to be something invisible connecting us. I see it so clearly when I leave the U.S., and all I see are reminders of the same faces and sounds of all of the Black people I grew up around and have been inspired by.
In an attempt to understand this country, I have found myself reading the words of the ancestors a lot over the last year. One thing I am constantly reminded of across texts, is that we have been having the same arguments for decades. In trying to write this blog post, I read The Fire Next Time over the last week to see if the spirit of James Baldwin could deliver me through writer’s block. And then, I came across this passage:
The word “independence” in Africa and the word “integration” here are almost equally meaningless’ that is, Europe has not yet left Africa, and Black men here are not yet free. And both of these last statements are undeniable facts, related facts, containing the gravest implications for us all.” - James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
It’s been 63 years since he wrote those words, and sitting with how much they resonate today brings me right back to that bittersweet feeling. Whether it is via serendipity or synchronicity, I see both sides of my identity in his statement. Both sides of the diaspora wars bubbling to the surface, and both sides of my people. Europe has still not left Africa, and Black men (people) are still not yet free.
What, to the descendant of enslaved Africans, is American patriotism amidst the rubble of enslavement? What, to the Black immigrant, is American patriotism in the wake of neocolonialism? I find both of these questions far more interesting than the surface-level aggressions that diaspora wars tend to reveal. Instead, that discourse does the work of the colonizer and ultimately ends in service of preserving white supremacy and colonialism. There are no winners in diaspora wars, and no glory in draping yourself in a bloodied flag.
