Culture is the personality of a people. Like an individual, a people’s personality is shaped by past experiences and shapes their worldview. It affects how they react to new events. The culture of African Americans was conceived under harsh circumstances. African Americans are a people who were born as slaves and who, after achieving freedom, were kept hostage under Jim Crow laws. African American’s identity was designed by those whose aim it was to keep them subservient. The personality of the African American people has been determined by external circumstances. All conscious knowledge of their origins in Africa has been lost and all that remains are subconscious cultural memories. The problem of class in the African American culture is one of identity and is at the root of many of the community’s problems.
The African American culture developed along a parallel track with the general American public. The African American people have been separate from the rest of mainstream America for nearly the entirety of their existence, unequal in rights from the wider society. After the end of the Civil Rights Revolution the African American people remain traumatized. The trauma sustained by the African American people has given birth to two renegade twins within the psyche of the people. Those twins are the Boojie and Ghetto worldviews. The Boojie worldview is obsessed with status and the possibility of assimilating into the American mainstream. It is also obsessed with purging itself of all aspects of African American culture. The other twin is the Ghetto worldview. It lays claim to all that is “authentically” Black. It demands that all who have a tie to the African American community embrace even the most negative aspects of the people’s culture.
Both of trauma’s children are manifestations of the same extreme reaction to confusion. The African American people do not know who they are. They are a “pariah people” in search of an identity and this is what has formed the culture war that prevents real advancement economically and politically for the descendants of the American slaves. This essay will attempt to determine the root causes of African American identity issues and how they affect African American progress. It will also, if this writer can be excused his hubris, identify a solution to these problems.
Who is Black When Barack Obama first declared his candidacy for the office of the president, the question asked was: “Is he Black enough?” What does this mean? By American Standards, anyone with a single drop of Black Blood is considered Black. There are classifications such as biracial or multiracial but they have yet to catch on in the national consciousness. Obama’s father was a Black African, and since Africa is the continent that gave birth to and mostly houses the Black Race one would think that this would settle the dispute. It did not. This is because the question was not whether Barack was racially Black, but culturally Black.
In the United States, the African immigrant is a new phenomenon. West Indians have traveled to the United States for decades and have in many cases assimilated with the African American population. However Africans have not, until very recently, been very prevalent in the United States. When the majority of Blacks in the United States were of American slave stock, the designation of Black was perfect for identifying them. Black meant that one was a part of the culture that developed from America’s slaves. As the Black population becomes more diverse the term becomes less useful in identifying African Americans. The American is not especially savvy at identifying the ethnic differences of non-Europeans. Africans were, and unfortunately are, viewed as uncultured savages by many Americans; including tragically African Americans. African Americans have been taught, since their beginnings, that Africa is an uncivilized place and that Black culture is more a biological expression of race than an evolved worldview. This ignorant view, one that refuses to acknowledge the cultural differences of Blacks, is at the heart of African American’s class and identity problem.
When Africans, West Indians, and Blacks from South America, began to emigrate to the United States things began to become more complicated for African Americans. Suddenly Black became a larger category that contained many different types of people. For the African or the West Indian this is not as grave a problem. After all, if one is from Jamaica one can be Black and Jamaican. If one is from Kenya one can be Kenyan and Black. If one is an African American one is African, American, and neither. For the African American, race has been a substitute for cultural identity. Because Black has for so long meant the descendents of the slaves and their masters, the African American ability to identify themselves merely by race has been ruined by the diversity of Blacks in the United States.
The clash between Black immigrants and African Americans is the result of the failure to identify the existence of a culture unique to the descendents of the American slaves and an American ignorance of the rest of the world. For decades the African American expected to find peoples of Africa to be long lost brothers and sisters. This has led to disappointment for African Americans in many cases. There is commonality between Blacks of the two hemispheres. They both carry the burden of racism. However, the cultures of the Blacks are different and the failure to recognize these differences has led to conflict, misunderstanding, and bigotry on both sides. In the Urban Dictionary the word “Akata”, which is used by many on the African continent to represent African Americans, also meaning drama or trouble, is uncomfortably close to the word “nigger” (2004). African Americans, with a typical American ignorance of the rest of the world, can be equally contemptuous of Africans. Both groups, foreign and domestic Blacks, fail to recognize that African Americans have a unique culture and that they do not have a monopoly on the designation Black.
Why Don’t African Americans Recognize Their Own Culture America truly is a melting pot. People from all over the world are merged into a single American culture. They hold on to their ancestral cultures in subconscious ways, but Americans are the result of mixing of many different peoples. African Americans are not an exception. African culture was melted down and mixed in the same way as those of European Americans. The thing is Blacks and Whites were in two different melting pots. Those of European descent are thoroughly American but still have some cultural ties to their homelands. This is not the case with African Americans. Their links to their homelands were severed nearly completely. White Americans can still in some cases separate themselves into ethnic groups based on origin, and in many cases did when they first arrived into the country. African Americans cannot do this. African language and customs were purposely eliminated by slave owners. Their African roots are largely subconscious and their view of themselves has been largely determined by the dominant culture.
African Americans were treated as beasts of burden for the majority of their existence even after the end of slavery. They are also a group of Blacks who have been culturally stripped of their ancient tribal and national identity to a greater extent than any other people of African descent on the Earth. The North American Black is the only people of African origin to lose even their drums. The destruction of their African identity was nearly complete. Thoroughly outnumbered by the dominant culture, theirs became a culture of those who lived in the inferior position. This in turn created an inferiority complex. This complex, a belief that they are not equal to Whites or people of any other established culture led to two different coping mechanisms. One coping strategy was to reject anything that could be perceived as a part of African American culture in an attempt to overcome one’s origin. The other is to completely embrace everything that was considered Black as a way of overcompensating ones perceived inferiority. These two extreme reactions can be classified as Boojie and Ghetto.
The problem for African Americans is that, until recently, their class distinctions were not recognized by the wider society. African Americans have been the untouchables, at least outside of the bedroom, of the wider society. There could be no class because there was no culture, only a race whose worldview and actions were viewed as an expression of biology. African Americans internalized this idea. The reason that African Americans don’t recognize their own culture is because the wider society has not done so, and African Americans view of themselves is very dependent on the pronouncements of the wider society.
The Boojies and the Ghettos People have a tendency to overcorrect when traumatized. This basically means that they have an extreme reaction to severely negative stimuli. Slavery and the propaganda of racial inferiority, combined with the Civil Rights struggles of the mid-twentieth century, created the modern Boojie and Ghetto sub-cultures or classes. The ancestors of the modern Boojie Blacks are thoroughly defined by E. Franklin Frasier in his book Black Bourgeoisie. A short definition would be African Americans who have established positions of status, if not substance, and who are obsessed with their public image (1957, p. 195). They are very dependent on the wider society for their political and economic well being and care a great deal of what the wider society thinks of them.
The modern Boojie African American is not as dependent on the goodwill of Whites as his forebears, but he is overly concerned with how the African American community is perceived by the wider society. They are made very upset by the prominence of the Ghetto African Americans in modern society. They rail against African American names, baggy pants, Gangsta rap, hood flicks, ghetto literature, and the word nigger. They hate these things because, as very often African Americans are lumped together socially in the eyes of the wider society, they feel harmed by them and sullied in the face of the wider society.
The Ghetto African American is, as non-intuitive as it may seem, descendent from the Black Power movement. This is a movement that rejected the Eurocentric world view and attempted to embrace an “authentically” Black, or African, view of the world. The Black power groups gave birth to positive movements, but the main remnants of it are groups like the Nation of Islam, which paints all Whites as evil, and the Ghetto culture that is marked by its embrace of crime as normal, indiscriminate procreation, failure to obtain and maintain a vocation, and the refusal to learn basic skills that allow one to succeed in American society, all of which are viewed as a natural part of African American existence.
There are obviously many who fall in between these two extremes. The severely Afrocentric African American, who might even refer to himself as an African , searches for his identity in African culture. The goal of the Afrocentric is to find an identity and history in Africa. The problem for the Afrocentric is that while one can argue that there are similarities in the cultures of Africa in the same way that there are similarities in the cultures that make up Europe, Africa is a very diverse place. The best that an Afrocentric can do is pick and choose which African cultures to emulate. This problem is compounded by the fact that many foreign Blacks do not view African Americans as Africans. While goodwill towards African Americans does exist among Africans to most, African Americans are simply Americans.
All of the aforementioned African American identities are dependent in some major way on the dominant culture, either using Whites as a paradigm to be emulated or completely rejecting everything of European origin. They are all reactions to the trauma of the African American past and the failure of American society to recognize the significance of African American culture and they all come with a series of problems. What these over reactions do is allow African Americans to become caught up in symbolism and image rather than focus on the real problems that affect their progress.
Boojie African Americans
The greatest concern in life for a Boojie African American is how Blacks are perceived by the wider society. The Boojie hates Gangsta rap because this form of entertainment shows the African American community in a negative light. Boojies also hate Ghetto Lit because the tales of the streets can make it seem as if all African Americans live violent and desperate lives. The Boojie African American looks back on the Civil Rights movement with nostalgia, even though many were against rocking the boat at the time. To the Boojie, the African American community before the Civil Rights Revolution was strong and vibrant and the present group falls short of its historical power.
Boojie African American’s reject all that can be perceived as Ghetto culture and this is in many ways an embrace of the Eurocentric point of view. African American names are seen as low class. It is often said in Boojie circles that an African American name is a detriment to success and should be avoided. Urban dressing styles are also looked down upon. Boojie African Americans are quick to associate such dress with criminality. The Boojie African American is very dependent on the wider society for political power. If he is on the left side of the spectrum he has adopted the approach of depending on government intervention and White patrons to further his agenda. If the Boojie is on the right side of the political spectrum a complete rejection of African American culture is usually the norm. This is especially true with the right wing Boojie political pundit who often attributes every problem faced by African Americans to Black culture and a failure to assimilate.
The idea of aggressively motivating the African American community politically, outside of symbolic actions, is foreign to the Boojie. They only speak the language of symbolism not of concrete action. They stifle African American progress because they do not think African American culture really exists, they think that African Americans are a race not a culture.
Ghetto African Americans The Ghetto African American culture is one that is unapologetically Black. They embrace those stereotypes that have been used to describe the African American community, but unfortunately they mostly subscribe to the negative ones. The beliefs that African Americans are violent, criminal minded, uneducated, savages are ones that have gained popularity with Ghetto African Americans. Both positive and negative cultural characteristics of the wider society are completely rejected. Unthinking hatred of all that is not considered to be genuinely African American is the norm.
The myth that the African American is highly sexualized and a phenomenon in bed is one that is embraced by Ghetto African Americans. From a young age they are active with numerous partners. This is encouraged by the street culture to which they subscribe. The Baby Mama has taken the place of wife in the Ghetto culture, and having children out of wedlock is the norm as opposed to the exception. Crime is not something to be avoided it is a right of passage. It becomes a part of what it means to be real, to be African American.
The Ghetto Black believes that education is not for African Americans. Education is for Whites and Asians. This is something that is believed to be unchangeable. In the mind of the Ghetto African American political action is pointless. A great and all encompassing cynicism has dominated Ghetto culture. The only way to free oneself from the problems of Ghetto life is through careers in sports and entertainment. These are deemed the only legitimate way to become someone of importance unless one is a master criminal.
The problem of Ghetto culture is that it rejects all parts of American society even those aspects that are positive. The belief that African Americans cannot achieve, mostly because of White racism, is counterproductive and makes succeeding even in the best of circumstances next to impossible. The Ghetto African American is his own worst enemy, and often the enemy of the African American people.
Who Are African Americans African Americans are not a race of people. African Americans are a culture. The name of this culture has changed numerous times, many would change it again, but the people have remained the same. The class war in the African American community is a war over identity. This war has been fought by the Boojies and the Ghettos for far to long and is destructive. Both fail to recognize that they are unique and special in the world and can be proud of who they are as African Americans while at the same time achieving success in the United States and the world.
The African American slaves created a new culture within the United States. The Afrocentrics feel that they have to go back to Africa to find pride in their ancestors. This is not true. There is a great deal that was accomplished in the United States by the antecedents of the African Americans. They are not just Americans, or long lost Africans, they are a new people. The class war over identity does not have to go to either extreme. African Americans can embrace their African roots and their American ones. In fact by embracing both they strengthen themselves and the country in which they live. Both approaches that of the Ghettos embrace of all that is Black and the Boojies embrace of American ideas of success, allow for the improvement of the African American community.
What is great about the Ghetto is their pride in who they are. To the Ghetto Blacks, African American Vernacular English is not a malady to be cured but a way of expressing themselves. It is a way of adding emphasis to an idea. After all what phrase has more emotional resonance, “You made wonderful greens” or “You put yo foot in dem greens?”. African American Vernacular English is a part of the heritage of the African American people. It was formed when the honorable slaves who built this country learned the English language and it was passed down to their children. The African American use of the English language is what spawns most of the popular expressions in American life and the world. It is what makes both African American and American culture unique.
African American names, names like Shakeisha or Laniqua, and the unique way in which the African American people spell common Anglo names is a special part of the culture as well. What began as an Afrocentric attempt to use African names evolved into a unique naming process that uses certain prefixes and suffixes to generate new ways of identifying themselves. It is a beautiful expression of culture. The argument that these names are made up is irrelevant. Every name used on Earth was made up at some point. What is important is that African Americans have a cultural characteristic that they can call their own.
There is very little harm in the Ghetto lit, rap, and film phenomenon. It is a form of entertainment, and while it has little redeeming social value, every form of entertainment does not have to. What is more important is the entrepreneurial spirit that such enterprises have generated. There was a time when an African American would be severely taken advantage of in show business and entertainment. The Ghettos underground economies have taught them the entrepreneurial spirit. They create their own publishing houses that allow them to sell their own books with out depending on mainstream help. They begin their music careers by selling CDs out of the trunks of their cars. While too few of them actually make it to become extremely successful entertainers, the fact that they are beginning to take control of their own futures in these industries shows the potential of the Ghetto African Americans to become a powerful force in American society.
Boojies understanding that the wider society cannot just be ignored or labeled as antagonist, is one that benefits African American society. Whites are human beings, and while their culture is different, they should be judged as individuals rather than labeled as a monolith, just as African Americans hope they are. The Boogies understand the importance of education in advancement and encourage their young people to embrace it. They realize that, while corporate America can be trying at times, it is a beast that can be conquered. Even in those cases where race is a barrier corporate America can be used as a spring board towards true business ownership and development.
The Boogies understand that sometimes one must wear the mask. They realize that while African American Vernacular English may be the mother tongue, Standard English is necessary for success in modern society. They also realize that one’s appearance can mean the difference between getting the opportunity to advance and being barred from opportunity. The Boogie can be the undercover brother, someone who is capable of surviving in the wider society but who does not forget his roots.
Frederick Douglass (1857) once said that “If there is no struggle there is no progress” (p. 204). The African American people are a people who were born into the wilderness, into struggle. They were forged in suffering and this has left them at a temporary disadvantage. But to paraphrase Frank Herbert I would say that God created the wilderness to train the faithful (1990, p. 488). The history of the African American people is one of constant tribulation. This is their strength. African Americans are a “pariah people”, looked down upon by many (Swedberg, 2005). African Americans can allow this fact to tear them down or they can use it to lift themselves up. African Americans can determine their own self worth rather than let someone else do it for them.
Historically, African American identity was determined by outsiders. This is still true today, but this is only true because they allow it. The Boojies seek recognition and the Ghetto African Americans aggressively scorn it. To pay so much attention to the views of others is slavery. African Americans do not need the approval of Whites or Africans, or any other group. African Americans have the power to determine their own fortune. To do this they must come to terms with, and embrace, their history in the United States. They must embrace those aspects of our culture that are helpful and scorn those parts that are harmful.
There is no shame in being African American. Those cultural traits that are viewed as African American that do not hamper the development of the people should not be scorned at all. All too often, in an attempt to encourage African American success, the Boojie shoots the dog to get rid of its fleas. Aspects of culture such as dress, speech, music, and most entertainment should be left alone. There is nothing wrong with young African American men having gold fronts in their mouths unless they attempt to wear said fronts to a job interview. Some of these traits, such as the fronts, are a fad, others are a permanent part of the culture. Hip hop is not a monster to be destroyed and the Boojie elite must accept this. It is a form of expression and, like any art form, can be positive and negative. The blanket condemnation of this influential and important part of African American art serves only to create division between Boojie and Ghetto African Americans as well as between the young and old.
African American cultural traits should be embraced. The power of a pariah people is a shared history and a strong sense of identity. The shared struggles of a people make them more easily unified and able to overcome external threats. The traits of the African American community, if made a part of a larger identity, can be utilized to create political and economic power. Power, as applied to groups, is simply the ability to get a large number of people to embrace behavior that is in their best interest. The things that link African American’s together are the same things that the Boojies often attempt to destroy. When the Boojies try to cut ties to African American culture they are severing the Achilles tendon, making movement forward impossible.
The Ghettos defense of African Americans in leadership and those who are in the charge our Justice system show a great deal of loyalty to their people and a great capacity for forgiveness. Loyalty is a wonderful thing but blind loyalty is self defeating. There are members of the African American community, violent drug dealers, selfish politicians, thugs who are quick to shoot other African Americans, who do not deserve the loyalty of the people. Just because someone is Black does not mean that they are an ally to the people. It is important that the Ghettos realize this fact because many problems of the African American community originate with Blacks who thoroughly exploit the people when times are good and then use the people as a shield when they are in dire straits. The group identity that the Ghetto African American holds on to is very powerful but only if selfish free riders are not given protection by the people.
Who I Am - Who I’m Is When the focus on the wider society is removed and the eye of the African American community is turned inward, then the divisions between Boojie and Ghetto disappear. The solution for African Americans is not in finding a long lost heritage in Africa nor is it an aggressive effort to assimilate into mainstream American society. It is an acceptance of who they are. It is taking pride in the honorable slaves who are the ancestors of the African American people. It is an acceptance of traditional African American culture as legitimate. It is also a pragmatic view of the world that allows even the most Ghetto or Afrocentric African American to wear the mask so to speak, in order to gain political and economic power for himself and his family.
African Americans need a self determined identity. They must determine who they are rather than letting other groups do so for them. African Americans do not have to go back to Africa. Nor do they have to assimilate so completely that they lose the benefits that hundreds of years of struggle have awarded them. Rather than embrace either of these extreme reactions to a traumatic history, African Americans must find balance between the Boojie and Ghetto worldview. African Americans must have the confidence and self awareness to emphasize those cultural characteristics that help them and eliminate those that are harmful. The African American does not have to be White, African, or Amerindian to be significant. To be a powerful force in the world African Americans only have to remember who they are, descendents of the honorable slaves of America, the builders of the greatest nation in human history whose contributions can be felt at the farthest points of the earth.
References
Douglass, F. (1985). West Indies. Speech, Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857.
The Journal of American History, 3(1) p. 204.
Frazier, E. F. (1957) Black Bourgeoisie. New York: Free Press
Herbert, F (1990) Dune. New York: Chilton
Swedberg, R. (2005) The Max Weber Dictionary: Key Words and Central Concepts.
Stanford: Stanford University Press
T. Ms (2005, June 5). Online Transactions. Message posted to
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=akata
