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Black Nationalism
Racial identity has been a priority for black Americans since the end of the civil rights movement. According to a recent Pew Report, 74 percent of black adults regard being black as either extremely important (52 percent) or very important (22 percent) to their identity. By comparison, 15 percent of white adults see race as central to their identity. Pride in one’s racial or ethnic identity can be a good thing. But American black identity has come to be too narrowly defined by—and dependent on—consciousness of racial victimization.
As a black man, I can report that defining ourselves as racial victims serves no good purpose. It encourages a negative self-image and an unduly mistrustful account of American society. If blacks have not reached socioeconomic parity with whites, this fact is treated as proof of “systemic racism.” This diagnosis precludes a more nuanced assessment, which would consider marriage rates, family structures, educational aspirations, and other cultural factors. With their talk of systemic racism, black activists and white allies may imagine they are promoting justice and black uplift. In truth, they are exacerbating an identity crisis.
As a cultural group whose history is rooted in slavery, then in second-class citizenship under segregation, American blacks understandably feel racial insecurity. As the saying goes, once burned, twice shy. Nor is it surprising that black Americans sometimes feel a lack of national belonging. As a result, blacks have repeatedly attempted to reinvent or redefine black identity to elevate in-group self-esteem. Again, this is understandable. But the intergenerational effort to redefine who we are, always in pursuit of pride, so emphasizes the evil of racism that too many blacks are left with little or no conception of who we are apart from our history of oppression.
The importance placed on racial identity, its basis in racial victimization, and the psychological consequences of a selfhood defined by victimization have given rise, I submit, to our identity crisis. This crisis is manifested in our politicized racial identity. Certain cultural traits, ideological preferences, and demands become obligatory; we are told that being black requires supporting a particular political party and voting as a bloc. Relentless focus on historical oppression and the cultivation of grievances creates a sense of entitlement, which prescribes waiting for others to remedy black problems. Our identity crisis is exacerbated by the insistence that people, groups, and institutions—or society in general—accord us a certain privilege, granting us dispensations as restitution for historical discrimination. Double standards are taken for granted: Because blacks suffered in the past, it is not only unfair but unreasonable to hold us to universal measures of character or the rigors of merit-based achievement. On this account, since blacks are still victimized by discrimination, anyone who judges us as equals is blaming the victim.
It is all too easy to imagine that this compassionate bigotry does blacks a favor. But lower standards not only diminish expectations and thus outcomes; they also cast suspicion on black achievement. When “everybody knows” that the bar is lower, doubt about the legitimacy of success will be widespread. It exists even among blacks, for whom self-doubt rooted in claims of oppression is compounded by the double-speak of affirmative action.
Self-doubt can harden into self-contempt, reinforced by a race essentialism that justifies societal interventions on our behalf—doing for us what our “patrons” think we can’t do for ourselves. This paternalism encourages and reinforces black disempowerment and black disability. Manufactured merit and glib talk of “equity” are enemies of black development. They create perverse incentives for blacks to trade on our presumed racial weakness rather than on our native abilities. It’s no wonder an identity crisis exists. What affirmative stance can a black man or woman take in twenty-first-century America?
Patriotism is the beginning of an answer to that question. In my experience, most Americans, some in difficult circumstances, take a heartwarming pride in our country. That pride gives them an identity—a firm place to stand amid the trials and tribulations of life.
Unfortunately, many blacks lack a strong sense of national identity, a sense of belonging in America and of sharing in our accomplishments as Americans. Again, the legacy of racism makes this understandable. Yet our cultural elites have for too long persuaded too many blacks to decline full participation in American society. This elite, which profits from the race grievance industry, has convinced blacks that America remains stuck in the pre–civil rights era. They tell us that we are still persecuted by white supremacists bent on terrorizing black lives.
Rejecting this narrative and affirming our American heritage will require surrendering what many blacks hold dear: our hyper-racialized identity as historically persecuted. We enjoy the advantages of life in America, but we hesitate to embrace the full integration that the civil rights movement began. By straddling the fence, we preserve our resentment, self-consciousness, and hostility. This part-American, perpetually oppressed attitude constrains our development and limits our autonomy. The endless emphasis on oppression prevents civic engagement with society at large. By requiring racial solidarity and ideological conformity, it compromises our ability to determine our own fates. It compels a collective mentality at the expense of the individual liberty that is our birthright as Americans. As Shelby Steele observes, it suppresses
individuals with the mark of race just as certainly as segregation did, by relentlessly telling them that their racial identity is the most important thing about them, that it opens to them an opportunism in society that is not available to them as individuals.
Preserving our cultural memories as descendants of slaves and celebrating the resilience and courage of black Americans as objects of past racial animus are not bad things. What’s unproductive is how we have chosen to define our identity. We’ve tried to increase our racial dignity at the expense of individuality, personal development, competition and achievement, and critical thinking, among other factors—all of which would give rise to a real and empowering sense of pride.
Until the civil rights victories of the 1960s, blacks identified as Negroes. Though more polite than terms such as “colored” or the n-word, “Negro” came to connote the “passivity” of the nonviolent, integrationist ideals of the civil rights movement. It was therefore discarded in favor of “black”—a reclamation of a word whites had disparaged. For black power advocates, black was beautiful, full of pride and confidence, assertive rather than passive. Most importantly, being black now meant rejecting integration in favor of separatism. Although few went as far as the black nationalism of the Nation of Islam, a wedge was driven between being black and being American.
Cultural pride led blacks to identify as Afro-American. Eventually, this term, too, was dropped in favor of African-American, the hyphenated designation of one’s membership in two different locales and two different cultures. This evolved into African American (no hyphen)—a seemingly dignified proper identity, rather than a modified one. This term is now being splintered into the acronym ADOS: African descendent of slaves, denoting a nobility arising from oppression that is increasingly valued in today’s woke environment, where everyone competes to be the most put-upon. This splintering also branches out to the catchall term “people of color,” a throwback to “colored people,” the unpleasant appellation given to blacks during segregation. We’ve come full circle.
To solve our identity crisis, blacks must reject racial self-definition and define ourselves by our national identity. Rather than being black Americans, African Americans, “people of color,” or some other exaggerated construction of our racial identity, as blacks, we should see ourselves as American. Our national identity can transcend the reductionism of our race-based identity.
My parents were born and raised under segregation, so I know that America has not always been kind to us. I, too, have experienced discrimination. But I interpret those experiences as a part of America—a wicked part—that is dying. I find it more reasonable to think about the many good things the country has done, and attempted to do, to atone for its injustices. Otherwise we cannot celebrate the resiliency that has enabled the religious, cultural, economic, and political success of blacks as Americans. It’s time to say, we have overcome.
We must reject the separatist attitudes that nourish estrangement; we must embrace our national identity. We have a responsibility to our country, to which we have already contributed a great deal. Let us live not as exiles but as citizens. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his last speech that he had “been to the mountaintop,” that he had “seen the Promised Land,” and that “we, as a people, [would] get to the promised land.” King had faith in America and her potential. For some blacks, affirming our national identity before our racial identity will be an act of faith. But as one pastor put it, “Faith isn’t just about learning how to get to the promised land. Faith is learning how to live in the promised land.”
America is not perfect, but she is good. Despite our country’s contradictions, blacks who live in America enjoy a higher quality of life than do blacks in any other place in the world. We must dispense with recounting the sins of the past; people are tired of hearing it. No amount of anger, shame, or emotional manipulation can change history. Most white people will never feel shame or remorse commensurate with the evils of the past—and rightly so, for they were not the ones who enslaved and discriminated. Since white Americans do not embrace their racial identity, they do not see why they should draw a direct line from the deeds of white people in Mississippi in 1860 or 1960 to their own lives. What happened, happened. Black affirmation of national identity shows that the tribulations of the past don’t define who we are, nor do they determine our future.
The embrace of our national identity works against the coercive racialism and divisiveness of Black Lives Matter and the deceptions of the 1619 Project. It frustrates the fractionalized limitations of identity politics. It diminishes the feelings of victimization, anger, and manipulation that fuel calls for reparations.
Pride in who we are as Americans can produce a life less consumed with racial paranoia, anger, bitterness, and self-doubt. By affirming our national identity above our racial identity, blacks will send a clear message that we see and believe ourselves to be equally American. As equals, blacks will demand to be treated and judged by the standards that apply to all Americans. We will establish our equality on the basis of our self-determination—and achievement—rather than on the fabricated parity granted us by the benevolent chauvinism of our purported patrons. Courage, determination, and national pride should be the foundations upon which we establish who we are: Americans.
- This was originally published in the Catholic periodical, First Things, for its August/September issue.
Thank you for the article Mr. Green. There is much work left to do.
Thomas Sowell, in The Thomas Sowell Reader, gives an instructive example of the dangerous consequences of identitarian politics in what unfolded in the Bohemian town of Budweis, as ethnic Germans and ethnic Czechs ceased to think of themselves as Budweisers and instead as Germans and Czechs: “…the rise of a newly educated intellectual class in the 19th century polarized the society with ethnic identity politics all over Bohemia…”
That is a great turn of phrase.
Great essay. Thanks for posting it here.
Like what?
Terrific post. Larry Elder, Shelby Steele quality. Given how far the U.S. has come since 1964 still confused about the racial identity stuff. Have been around hard working, and successful, African Americans since my Navy service in the 1970s. So almost never exposed to any African American with an identity crisis that I could see. Lucky I guess.
The Habsburg analogy, I’m afraid, is indeed an apt one today…see my post An American Version of the Habsburg Empire?, also, American Weimar or American Habsburg?
Embracing victim-hood is a loosing strategy. And blacks are by no means the only ones who do it.
I have also served with black service men and women. I never had any reason to doubt their patriotism.
Dg’s post not at the Thomas Sowell level. But close.
And who is it, predominantly who is still attempting to keep the black people in their “chains of victimization”? That would be the White Left. It will take a new movement of black Americans to throw over their white leftist oppressors, and make good lives for themselves. How about they start by denying Robin DeAngelo her millions?
There is systematic racism in Minnesota. It is caused by the Minnesota Democrat Farmer Labor party. We literally lead in every single racial disparity category (ratio of black to white etc., not absolute figures) they have. Some of it is decade in and decade out. Plenty of wealth and progressive power to fix it. Some Christian group move George Floyd here. He would have been better off in Compton.
The DFL is starting to get a little bit embarrassed by it.
My favorite one is, we are number #1 in housing disparity. That has to be a real trick to do that in the Midwest.
I’ve served in 8 foreign cities, none African and a few with large numbers of Africans descendants. While raised in the Rockies, I went to school in Louisiana one year in the late 50’s and it was unambiguously racist. Now all of the US is the least racist country and Japan unambiguously the most, with Singapore not far behind. Probably Honduras was the least racist where blacks were seen by poorer more Indian Hondurans as superior to them. Blacks mostly come from their own islands and speak English. In South America blacks are second class citizens, but black mixtures with white or Indian on the white side if born to middle and upper class families are just considered Ecuadorians, Colombians or Venezuelans. When there are mixtures some kids come out darker with black features. They are called La Negra, or El Negro, but it’s just acknowledging the mixtures they all know most people have and it is not the least negative. In the US, Democrats remain the most racist party and try to keep blacks poor and dependent so they remain Democrats. These policies are probably more strategic than racist, but racism continues to exist and mostly among Democrats but that is also going to change if large numbers of black Democrats continue to act out their own black racism This is another Democrat policy that is going to help destroy the country. Black Democrats should realize that as the economy shrinks and becomes dominated from the top blacks will be among the big losers.
Why should someone be proud of something they have no control over? I’m one of the 85% of whites who doesn’t walk around thinking about how great it is to be white. In fact, the only time I do think about it is when some yahoo starts raising hell about “white privilege.”
What privilege? It’s insulting to think all of the hard work I put into advancing in life was due to my skin color. IMHO, part of the reason blacks experience the “soft bigotry of low expectations” is because so many look at their skin color as important (for good or bad).
Perhaps if we follow the Rev. King’s ideal of colorblindness, most of the differences among races will melt away. Then again, “colorblindness” itself is now called racist . . .
Oh, great post!
From Quillette: The Evolutionary Advantages of Playing Victim.
Those are all very hard problems. We need to reverse 50 years of neglect, disaffection, and sabotage. America needs a revival and a rebranding. We need to sell the idea of America to Americans. I assume it will take 50 years to fix.
Nobody is going to do anything about anything related to this.
Hard drugs should have been legalized 40 years ago. Give them safe areas to kill themselves. Everything else is a fiscal hamster wheel that has given the cartels so much money they don’t even need to sell drugs anymore. Human trafficking and everything else they do is more efficient.
The immigration part is solved by having a comprehensively libertarian economy. You can let in every Tom Dick and Harry if you got totally serious about that. Stop letting people in from countries where the immigrants are always getting in the news like they do in Minnesota. None of this will happen.
Amen.
Many illegal immigrants are in debt to the cartels, so they will go into drugs just to make the money to pay them back.
Conservatives have been pointing to the way the welfare system breaks up poor families for more than 50 years, but they’ve done nothing about it, as far as I can see.
One small idea would be to reserve the best apartments in public housing — penthouses, balconies — for married couples. Another odd idea that just occurred to me is that criminals who are married might be treated more leniently.
This is exactly right.
For clarity, I am not endorsing any illegal immigration. What I’m saying is, you can actually let in a lot of low skilled people if you set up your economy right. This is not going to happen so we might as well not even discuss it.
Nobody ever says anything creative like this.
Thanks for reading!
Navyjag– Thanks for the compliment.
You were/are very lucky. They blacks in the Navy weren’t indoctrinated by the silliness that comes from college or the race-agitators that manipulate white guilt for more socio-economic concessions. When people are actually doing things that are productive, they don’t have time for foolishness. I know… my pops was in the Navy and he had no patience for racialized bs.
Don’t forget Ibram X. Kendi. Also, it’s happening in the Christian world as well… Jemar Tisby– who briefly worked for Kendi– Ekemeni Uwan, and others are consistent in their application of ‘white supremacy’ being a tool to keep blacks down, even in the church.
They’re only “proud” because race is the last (only) refuge when people refuse to compete based on ability. We’ve had multiple generations of blacks– along with the progressive white left– claim that blacks still suffer because of ‘systemic racism’, ‘white privilege’, ‘white supremacy’ or some other fanciful oppression that prevents black from achieving. The real problem is that blacks, broadly speaking, haven’t controlled all of the things that are in our power to control– marriage, having children in wedlock, emphasizing a culture of success– all of which, in the end, amounts to a privilege that many other groups enjoy because they are willing to make the sacrifices to determine their fate. If blacks could achieve in an America that was decisively more racist during segregation, blacks today are able to achieve even more.
But there’s an addiction to both an identity too tied with ‘oppression’ and the manipulation of white guilt in pursuit of ‘equity’, which casts all black achievement as suspect.
I believe both Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson have remarked on how unstable multi-ethnic countries tend to be. America has been a notable exception, but the left and various factions who profit from grievance mongering seem intent on ending that.
Public housing is a scam to paper over bad zoning policy that disrupts market solutions. We have a culture problem and we need a culture solution. It starts from our churches and flows into public policy.
I suspect that “extremely important” does not mean “most important” for most people. It is good that people share a common story that results in triumph and creates an identity. I have read the Bible and those stories are important, because they document historical triumphs and create an identity. Jews have Passover and Christians have Easter to annually celebrate past victories and are parts of those identities. These are good and extremely important things. The Irish that came to America en masse were survivors of a genocidal famine. That is a powerful binding experience for that group. This is “pride” in a good way. It binds people together and reminds them to be strong in times of adversity. It is also good that “whites” America don’t have a racial identity, because over time they have adopted Americanism as their identity.
It’s strategic racism — racism used as a tool.
That is totally how Minnesota is organized by Democrats in my opinion.
I don’t get the desire to think our skin color determines who we are. I have more in common with conservative black people than liberal white people. It is obvious to me that Thomas Sowell, Walter E Williams (RIP), and Clarence Thomas are smarter and more accomplished than I am and worthy of more respect.
Previous black generations were more patriotic even though they were less removed from slavery and while enduring the injustices of Jim Crow. Their service in the Massachusetts regiment was honored in Glory. The Tuskegee Airmen are as respected a group of warfighters as you will find. I have met several and stood there in awe. Even seeing a “Red Tail” in an air museum moves me.
One of the greatest advancements in human history by any group was the advancement black people made from the end of the Civil War until the “Great Society.” This must be celebrated and repeated. It won’t happen again through welfare programs but by teaching young people how it was done before. This will require a return to traditional morality, marriage, a respect for education, and a return to biblical values. These lessons are universal. They apply to all racial groups. All groups suffer when these lessons aren’t followed.
Sadly, black people and even white college students have become pawns of political actors. Why? I think elevating victimhood into a higher social status to be worshipped is part of the problem. Politicians chumming for votes throw money at the victim culture, encouraging more of it. I find it especially evil that so many grow their power by convincing people the world is racist and against them, thus making them believe it is pointless to try to get ahead.
This gives the whole thing away: “the advancement black people made from the end of the Civil War until the ‘Great Society.’” Thomas Sowell has made the same point. Black people in America were advancing fastest right up to the point the Federal government started to “help” them.
Ironically, the end of housing segregation may have also played a role. When Harlem was a good place to live, it was where blacks of all social classes lived, from the poor to the rich. As a result, kids had good role models to look up to. But as soon as they could, rich blacks left, then the middle class, then the working class. Left behind were what sociologists call “multi-problem families”.
I learned that from reading and listening to Sowell.