“Kamala isn’t black” is the latest lie dividing black folks (and uniting those seeking to discredit her). I take personal offense at this particular insult as the American-born descendant of black Jamaican parents. While efforts to gatekeep black immigrants (and their descendants) out of blackness are not new, the speed with which the normally fractious and divided Democratic Party united behind Kamala Harris as their new presidential nominee after Biden dropped out has given them new fuel.
Whether they brand themselves American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) or Foundational Black Americans (FBA), the most militant among them have decided to make common cause with Donald Trump (and his allies) and years of trafficking in xenophobic rhetoric directed against black and brown immigrants. Even the internet-infamous Curtis Scoon, who has made a career of pathologizing black folks for social media clicks had something to say that I agree with to those folks:
A friend of mine told me that Scoon has Grenadian heritage, which probably explains the pointed nature of his rhetoric against ADOS & FBA. Speaking of Grenada, one interesting thing I learned from the limited series podcast The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop was about Prime Minister Maurice Bishop’s speech to a predominantly black audience at Hunter College in New York City mere months before he and key members of his government were murdered and overthrown by a coup d’etat. Below is a short clip from the speech:
Political views aside, one thing that is clear from this brief clip is that Bishop’s concept of blackness was an inclusive not an exclusive one. If the raucous response of his black American audience is any indication, they were very much onboard with what he was saying. Bishop gave another speech in D.C. the same year to the Sixth Annual Dinner of TransAfrica. The full text of his remarks are quite enlightening to read this many years later. He notes the Caribbean heritage of a number distinguished black Americans–but puts their black Americanness in the forefront. A few of the names I will touch on later in this piece are all people whom ADOS/FBA would gatekeep out of blackness. To continue briefly with Grenada and its American connections, it is very important to talk about Louise Little. She is known as the mother of Malcolm X (so by the logic of ADOS/FBA he’s not black), but only when researching this piece did I learn that she was first introduced to Garveyism and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Montreal by her uncle.
Garveyism is a flavor of black nationalism named for Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the U.S. UNIA was the black nationalist organization he founded. His separatist views were at odds with the pro-integration aims of the NAACP (and Colin Grant’s biography of Garvey suggests that he and W.E.B. DuBois hated each other), but UNIA’s presence grew enough to span 25 U.S. states (and attract the unwanted attention of J. Edgar Hoover). Garvey was inspired by Booker T. Washington, and was among the people Washington corresponded with via letters. Garvey wanted to found a school in Jamaica like Tuskegee but Washington died months before Garvey would come to the U.S. to discuss his plans. During and after his 52 years of life, his ideas would influence black nationalism, the black power movement, and Pan-Africanism, the ideas which ultimately inspired Malcolm X in similar ways to his parents. Garvey’s concept of blackness too was inclusive rather than exclusive. After Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, Kwame Ture (previously known as Stokely Carmichael) would raise the mantle of black power. Ture hailed from Trinidad, so by ADOS/FBA logic, John Lewis’ successor as chair of SNCC was not black.
Garvey was far from the only West Indian to contribute to blackness in America in the early 20th century. Alain Locke’s 1925 anthology The New Negro, a key work heralding the Harlem Renaissance, contained numerous works by black authors from Jamaica (Claude McKay and Wilfrid A. Domingo), British Guiana (Eric Waldron), and Puerto Rico (Arturo Schomburg). Nearly one in four members of Harlem’s black residents were foreign-born in the 1920s. Looking back into the 19th century and the Civil War, we find that the black volunteers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry regiment hailed not only from states in the Union and slave states, but from the Caribbean and Canada as well.
Contrary to the narrow and exclusive concept of blackness that ADOS/FBA advocates, black student groups protested apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s, many years before the likes of Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff, Jeff Flake were fighting movements to boycott, divest, and sanction it (and after William F. Buckley, the intellectual father of the modern right, turned from advocating for apartheid domestically to advocating for it overseas). ADOS/FBA’s narrow and exclusive concept of blackness continues to be ignored by law enforcement in this country. Amadou Diallo (killed by plainclothes NYPD officers) was a student from Guinea. Botham Jean (murdered by his neighbor, police officer Amber Guyger) was from St. Lucia. I suspect more research would confirm that black immigrants are at just as much from police violence as black folks with solely American heritage.
Many first-generation immigrants (like my parents) have long since become citizens–and lived in the United States far longer than they ever did in their country of origin. Harry Belafonte was born in New York City, but his parents came from Jamaica. Colin Powell had both Jamaican parents and a New York City birthplace in common Belafonte. Many children of first-generation immigrants (like me) have black American wives and children. The late General Powell’s wife Alma (who passed away late last month) was originally from Alabama. My wife and in-laws hail from Columbus, Ohio, with a lineage that stretches back to Tennessee and Mississippi. Among their relatives is a now-deceased Tuskegee Airman who lived in Kansas.
Regardless of the desires and efforts of those in this country who wish to define blackness as something small and exclusive to those whose heritage is solely the United States, the history and the present of this country makes blackness a little larger. Having a heritage that includes a Caribbean island or a birthplace on the African continent does not make us any less black. Donald J. Trump and his father wouldn’t rent his apartments to us either. The anti-black racism to which too many in the United States still cling, negatively impacts every black person in this country–regardless of their heritage. Xenophobia against immigrants who look like you doesn’t improve anyone’s life.
For the better and professional version of this argument, read Adam Serwer’s piece titled What Trump’s Kamala Harris Smear Reveals.