Fore The British Blacklist April 2014
http://www.thebritishblacklist.com/shakara-speaks-it-eating-bananas/
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Okay – I am lying. I quite like bananas, very much in fact. And I have a tendency to consume them in quite large numbers on occasion. And in all the years I have been eating bananas I have learned of many health benefits associated with their consumption, but I never knew that fighting racism was one of them. So imagine my surprise when I learned that Black people all over the country were devouring and posing with this fruit of choice, precisely for that purpose.
On closer inspection I learned of the origins of the social media trend and was rather amused. The whole thing got started during a football match when Dani Alves responded to the intended insult of a banana hurled from the crowd, by taking a bite out if it, right before taking a corner. Humorous and appropriate response under the circumstance and in truth had I been in his circumstance, I may have responded similarly – may have. The social media support for Alves was triggered by fellow team mate Neymar, when he tweeted a pic of himself holding a banana with the caption “we are all monkeys”. Support under the circumstances is all good and I suppose it allowed the nation to reassure itself that racism is the problem of a few ignorant hooligans here and there, thereby washing its hands free of any collective guilt – all lovely stuff.
Here’s where I have the problem. Today – racism appears only to be recognized when openly expressed by this or that individual in a public context. Therefore, fighting racism has become an issue of sentimentality reduced to who insults who with abhorrent language or gestures; and the football pitch seems to have become the main field of battle. This approach has a fundamental flaw – it does not address the issue of POWER!
The Civil Rights and Black Power generations of the 1960’s – 80’s did a very good job of identifying racism as not just sentiments, but a issue of power dynamics. It was this era that provided us with a simple and completely functional equation for racism: Racism = Prejudice + Power
In truth racism has never been purely about what one race thought of another. Dislike of a race was never and could never have been enough to explain the legacy of racism we are confronted with today. The phenomena of Racism developed in the context of one race seeking subjugate another race by negatively affecting that peoples living reality. In other words, I not only develop a negative idea of you, I seek to impose this idea upon you and have you live according to the ideal I have created for your existence.
You do not have to agree that prejudice must be backed by power in order for it to be considered racism. The most commonly applied definitions of racism speak merely to a “Hatred or Intolerance of another Race”. What can not be denied however is that before racism is a word, it is a social and therefore Political/Economic phenomenon; and that phenomena developed firmly on the basis of power dynamics.
‘Nigger’ is a word. It has a derogatory meaning, much like the word ‘idiot’. What makes the word the ‘nigger’ an insult of far more gravity is not its meaning, but the fact that it was borne out of the brutal dehumanization of Afrikan people. It is the condition of intentional degradation that produced ‘nigger’ (or any other racially charged slur) that we are responding to when we react to its usage, not its literal meaning. Why then, do we today address racism as a matter purely of insult and not conditions?
Historically, the specification of Afrikan people as a lesser species was made a “FACT” via European sciences of all disciplines from the Psychological to the Biological. It would be taught in top universities throughout Europe. For example, Carl Von Linnaeus, an 18th Century biologist known as ‘the father of modern Taxomony’ (i.e. the discipline of identifying, categorising and naming species). It’s to he whom credit is given for introducing such designations as feline, canine and the rest. In his extensive research on human variation, Lineaus concluded that European people (or Homo Europeus) were ‘white, fickle, sanguine, blue-eyed, gentle, and governed by laws’, While Afrikans were ‘Black, phlegmatic, cunning, lazy, lustful, careless and governed by caprice’ (i.e. basic instincts and emotions). Linnaeus was also interestingly an avid economist and classifications such as his would later inform development and practice in many biological fields from Phrenology to Gynaecology.
Furthermore In his book “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race” Samuel Cartwright identified and designated Drapetomania as a mental illness. The term was used to describe “a slave that was addicted to attempting escape or escaping slavery”. In other words, a system that was built on the enslavement of Afrikan people, made it not only illegal, but clinical insanity for said Afrikans to desire freedom.
Along with religion and legislation, the justification for dehumanizing and subjugating Afrikans was well documented and enforced by every institution of society. Such as the situation defined by the economic realities of the time in which Europeans owned and controlled everything of value while Afrikans were the instruments that facilitated European enrichment. Today, though the text books may not carry such offences and Black people may generally be considered as receiving better treatment (such as a living wage), the economic realities have not changed; appreciably changed.
Recently, we have seen a number of examples of racism in sports, primarily in the Football and Basketball world. The first thing to identify here is that the considerable presence of Black people on the pitch and the court is quite obviously not replicated in the boardroom. Owners, Managers, Agents and Head Coaches generally remain white as the driven snow. We still have a situation therefore in which POWER is held by white men and are enriched by Black men and women who work for them.
In all these cases, the protests, demonstrations and expressions of indignation have not sufficiently addressed this reality. While players may miss matches and receive fines for racial offences and many of us celebrate such recompense, very few are addressing the infrastructure that holds these sports together and whether they are a greater manifestation of racism than what any player could say on a pitch.
The Donald Sterling situation is a prime example of this. The owner of the LA Clippers was recently banned for life from the NBA for stating that he did not want his mistress to be publicly consorting with his darker hued associates. The NBA bosses are now applauded for their moral fortitude in the matter. But it has been revealed that Sterling is a slum lord well known for denying Black people housing in the estates that he owns.
So in the scheme of things, what does it say about Black people, that what a white man says about us generates more of a cry for justice than how a white man uses his influence to affect Black capacity to attain the basic human right of shelter?
In 1963, Black people in Bristol (UK) boycotted buses and effectively brought the bus companies to their knees thereby ending the racist “colour bar”policy which had denied them jobs. Black people walked, arranged alternative transport and thereby shifted the power dynamic between themselves and those who would oppress them. Some would argue that such potential should have been used to developed a Black owned bus company – a relevant observation – still the example presents a lesson that would be well learned. Those racists would not have changed their minds about the Black people they did not want to employ – but they no longer had unchallenged capacity to economically disempower them.
Since the Suarez/John Terry shenanigans there have been whispers of a Black player’s football union. No doubt such a move would have a profound impact on the game in a way that the “Kick Racism out of Football” movement could never dream to have. It is interesting to note however, that in a media age in which Black people own very little platforms, Linnaeus’ characterization of lazy, lustful and violent Afrikans is not to dissimilar from how we are often portrayed today – except now we are paid for the privilege. I wonder the extent to which the advent of a Black players union is affected by the belief that such an act would be segregationist. I wonder the extent to which Black ownership is affected by a lack of willingness on the part of Black people to challenge and shake up the present status quo. If Drapetomania is indeed a certified mental illness, it would seem clear that many of the present day generation of Afrikans in the UK are not affected by it.
So – while I do enjoy bananas, I can not see this as a credible means for fighting racism. Growing bananas maybe. Opening a store in which I sell bananas – maybe. But simply posing in pictures with them will not suffice, especially seeing as the likelihood of us having bought them from a Black owned grocery store appears very slim.
In my very humble opinion, it is destructive to reduce racism to social media sentiments while all the systematic manifestations of it go unidentified or unchallenged. We belittle ourselves and our collective maturity when in a world of so much stark racial realities, a slur here or there is what sparks our attention more than all else. The most effective anti-racist campaigns in history succeed not by simply trying to change the minds and gag the mouths of racists, but by practicing independence, self-reliance and faith in the collective agency of Black people.
If challenges to Racism are to be impacting and in anyway credible, they must fundamentally address and redress the issue of power. Once the issue of POWER is addressed, the sentiments will take care of themselves.
ShakaRa Speaks on it by @ShakaRaBKS for the british blacklist