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Family Reunion
A
Message from the Editor, Victoria L. Valentine...
Recently, I was out with a friend and she asked me what the latest
issue of The Crisis was about. I told her we were going to be
discussing immigrant issues and relations between Black immigrants
and African Americans.
What do you mean by African American and Black immigrant relations,
she asked? I explained that sometimes newcomers from Africa and the
Caribbean come to the United States with preconceived, often
negative, perceptions of African Americans. And conversely, Black
Americans, perhaps unfamiliar with the cultures and countries
immigrants hale from, may make assumptions about them. As a result,
sometimes there is a communication disconnect.
In response, she asked me if I remembered the comments one of our
former co-workers made at a meeting more than a decade ago. It was
at another magazine. Our co-worker was a talented young graphic
designer from Trinidad. She had been in the United States for
several years and on the staff, as I recall, for several months. In
the midst of an editorial meeting, the floor was opened for story
ideas.
“Why don’t we do something about African American women who try to
have all these babies so they can stay on welfare?” she suggested.
There was a score of other staffers in the room, all but one other
were Black American. Needless to say, our editor-in-chief dressed
her down and schooled her about buying into racist stereotypes,
particularly those about her own people.
Our boss’s response, while certainly warranted, actually indicated
another cultural disconnect between African Americans and Black
immigrants. Many newcomers to the United States don’t necessarily
consider Black Americans “their own people” because they may not
view themselves Black, rather identifying themselves as Haitian,
Jamaican or Nigerian, for example.
Nunu Kidane, an Eritrean immigrant who is featured on our cover and
in the story “Black Like Whom,” on page 24 reports as much. When she
was working as a waitress in college, she says, her interaction with
her African American co-workers was full of tension and
misunderstandings.
She would tell them she was Eritrean, not Black. “And they would
say, ‘When was the last time you looked in the mirror? Sister,
you’re Black,’” says Kidane, 48. The activist and consultant for the
Oakland, Calif.-based Women of Color Resource Center, adds “What was
missing from our dialogue was the fact that to me ‘Black’ or ‘race’
was not an identity.”
Kelvin Sauls, who also lives in Oakland and is featured in our
story, has had his own awkward exchanges with Black Americans. The
39-year-old South African was once actually asked about his
“encounters with Tarzan.”
As a result of immigration, the Black population in the United
States is becoming increasingly diverse. According to the Lewis
Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, African
and Caribbean newcomers accounted for nearly 25 percent of U.S.
Black population growth during the 1990s.
African Americans today, particularly in large metropolitan areas,
are certainly more familiar with Blacks from other countries than
they were decades ago. But, without a doubt, beyond the issue of the
unknown, many Black Americans feel threatened by Black immigrants.
According to the Mumford Center, their populations are more educated
than African Americans and they have lower unemployment rates,
higher median incomes and live in more-diverse neighborhoods.
Only through dialogue, interaction and coalition-building will
relations between the two groups further improve. The diversity of
the Black Diaspora in the United States needn’t prompt a family
feud. It should be viewed as a family reunion.
Letters
to the editor may be sent to
The Crisis
7600 Georgia Avenue, NW
Suite 405
Washington, DC 20012 or
thecrisiseditorial@naacpnet.org
* Letters may be edited for length or clarity.
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