VKY

By Victoria Kabeya, VKY,

All Rights Reserved

If the members of the African diaspora want to fight against the legacy of colonialism it is more than important to remind them that our current situation is not similar to that of our ancestors. As the latter were deported from Africa more than four hundred years ago to be brought to the US, the Caribbean, Central and South America, it is important to remember that their descendants forged new categories depending on their relationship with the colonizers and the place they were forced to evolve into. As a consequence it is totally false to insinuate that African-Americans, Arubans, Boricuas or Curaçaoans share the same culture and can understand one another. This fallacy wrongly serves a purpose whose aim is to create a global blackness which could eradicate the various cultures that had been created by the different African groups.

As the Africans assimilated into their new formed societies, learning new languages and creating new customs proper to their national heritage, whether Trinidadian, Cuban, Aruban, they were no longer the same.

The orchestrated BLM protests which took place in 2020 also enhanced one specificity regarding the African diaspora. The Afro descendant groups have not only become assimilated as said previously, but the revolts also marked a certain rupture with the African continent. In the spectrum of globalism, the Afro descendant groups will be equal to the Whites and their value will be measured through capitalism only with a division between the North (wealth) and the South (poverty). In our modern day and age, race will no longer be an issue unless the government wants to manipulate the problematic of racism to their own benefits or to bring in a new political age. Besides that, more and more mixed Blacks or Indians, such as Kamala Harris, will be chosen as the new faces of white imperialism. Therefore, in this dynamic, Black Americans, though oppressed, remain privileged in their status, as Americans and their men have become the new faces of white supremacy and sexual exloitation in Latinized America and the Caribbean.

Depending on the various platforms found on the Internet, Black men lament over their rupture with Black American women they judge dysfunctional and aggressive. As many hope to grow, it has become more and more frequent to meet Black American counselors who advise Black men from the US to travel to the Dominican Republic, Brazil or Colombia in order to find new wives. The latter, who often come from poor backgrounds (not always) see in these Black men, a way to elevate their social condition and move to the US, as a consequence. It is through the power of money and of the US passport that black American men can exploit, manipulate and further colonial dynamics in geographical places they consider to be disposable, for nurtured by centuries of colonial propaganda.

In this spectrum, Black American men know how and where to choose their wives. They do not attempt to find them in Mexico, Central America or Argentina, hence places where men remain extremely “protective” of their culture and focus on the importance of marrying their own. They have an affinity towards the Caribbean (including the Northern part of Colombia) for they know about the colonial stigma left and symbolized by the sexual exploitation of the Afro-Indigenous female body. The Black American men who travel to the “South” are well aware of their financial and political superiority in the hierarchy established by both slavery and capitalism. They know that the political condition of these women weaken them and often forces them to turn to prostitution, the Dominican Republic having become a country plagued by prostitution.

However, the Black American men do not always have to travel to the “southern sphere” to reproduce the colonial approach first established by the European colonizers. They are the main perpetrators of colorism and racism in the diaspora as many elevate the mixed Caribbean women above the Black American women judged too aggressive. The idea of “submission” which also stems from machism, a concept imported by the European colonizers, has been said to be the main principle which attracts Black men from the US to the Latinized Caribbean and South American women. In this scheme however, and due to their particular condition in history, being the only black minority living in the most powerful country on earth, (USA), the Black Americans consider themselves to be the center of the global African diasporic experience, thus contributing to the exclusion of Afro-Peruvians, Afro-Boricuas, Afro-Cubans or Afro-Brazilians whose efforts remain secondary. Therefore, the South American continent is a place where new economic and neo-colonial dynamics have taken place yet disguised under a false pan-African approach.

Whether in the US or in Latinized America, the dynamic of relationships between the Black men and Latinized women are never healthy but often based upon a relation of domination over submission. It is not based upon equality but through the exploitation of exoticism. However, trapped within their own political conception as their point of view if the only one which matters, the Black American men do not even judge their attitude as being problematic at all when they know which category of women to approach and not.

This sexual exploitation has been also greatly supported by Latin Caribbean women themselves who exude a pride in such characteristics as many feel superior towards the dark-skin Black American women. The latter can even be regarded as inferior by the Black Caribbean women with roots in the non-Hispanic islands. By exploiting the women in the southern sphere, US Black men perpetuate and support the brutal heritage of patriarchy, sexual oppression and colorism.

The orchestrated decolonial movement of the 2010s which was rooted in capitalism opened a greater door between the various diasporas regarding communication and so thanks to social media. As a consequence, one observed a new influx of African-Americans travelling to both Africa (Ghana, Year of Return) to reconnect with the land of their ancestors, but also to Latinized America and the Caribbean in order to escape from the constant US oppression. Websites promoting black travels often show black American women moving to Mexico or South America, hence decisions deemed to be exceptional and worthy of being celebrated. However, even there, one privilege remains. Though oppressed, Black Americans are US citizens and they were granted international powers due to their citizenship. As a consequence, they will never experience the stress felt by illegal immigrants who want to settle in the North, as they can enter Southern spheres as much as they want while southerners can not settle in other spaces as they please.

If a Black American can start up a new business in Mexico or Colombia, Mexicans and Colombians who attempt to travel to the US can die in the desert while crossing the borders or be detained in camps supervised by the US army. Yet, if this political dynamic was to be exposed, the narrative of oppression supported by the Black Americans would be tarnished as they would also be seen as a privileged group. Therefore, it would confirm that, in our modern time, race can not only be the main issue as power is now valued through the geographical origin of the African diasporic group.