"Being Black"

No one subject has been the epic of conversation than the idea of what it is to be black. February, the black history month is littered with praises to this idea called black. Beyonce, inspired by Fela Kuti has added to the dogma, in her own way. Whatever the disagreements in the conversations, the essentials of being black are topical. There is of course the stereo type of what black is, flip the coin and one finds what black is not.

I have toyed with the idea of blackness and tried to understand wherefrom this idea stems and where to this idea takes me. This essay, I warn the reader is rather biased. I make no apologies for this. However, I do hope the reader burdened with my thoughts would be kind enough to be a passenger to my discourse and enjoy more the journey in conversation with a stranger than where we end up.

I was born Black- itself a pejorative term I was branded with on my birth bed. Of course as a baby I was branded in more ways than this. I was given a shona, Christian name to go with my shona ancestral surname. The contradictions were blurred, tradition interred. I was given a totem, tribe and village- my birth rights were confirmed by a piece of paper. Thus the nurse- in mandatory duty inscribed on my hospital tag-black. She had, I am sure performed this task many times. The joy of a new born baby was not on her face but rather on my mother. Hers was a mechanical performance. As far as she was concerned another black male had been born. She performed the national and worldly duty of recording on a card that another black male had been born.

This journey, from my first breath to the many decades I have been on this earth has been the same. The most identifiable feature about me is my blackness- something I never chose, I was simply branded. There is a difference between a feature and a trait (embodied in character). The feature is perhaps what the nurse saw on my birth bed- if one were to ask her she would say she saw a black baby.  And the world does this so often, I do it as well. I see certain features and I immediately infer whether black or any other race- conjecture is little.  Second to this are particular traits- the usual “oh that’s so black” leaves one with an inference that indeed there are traits and qualities that are black. It is the feature meshed with trait that the world goes by in composing blackness.

I cannot with certainty question this insight. Perhaps it is what it is. The kinky hair, chocolate skin, thick lips and broad behinds are a matter of fact. The laugh, expressions, language and customs are identifiable traits. It is what it is. But to end there is a failure of the mind and failure to interrogate the essence of blackness.

This essay is essentially an interrogation of “being black” rather than the features and traits that stereo type blackness. By identifying what “being black” means I hope to knock on the door of black consciousness and walk the annals of an idea cradled in the heart of Africa.

The movie gladiator has a scene I have often pondered on. The emperor Marcus Aurelius sits and whispers to his favoured general  Maximus and talks of taking back the Roman Empire  to the senate and making it a republic again. In melancholy he questions the war victories and the military show of might- desperately trying to find meaning. Maximus chastises the Emperor, and beguiles the virtues and might of Rome- the city state the soldiers have defended. The emperor asks Maximus how he can defend and uphold the virtues of a city he has never been to- for an idea he was never part of in creating. Maximus, a Spaniard (i.e not even Roman) in defending the idea called “Rome”, a civilisation that was like no other, is illustrative of the idea of being.

That is the idea of of “being Roman” was not particular of certain features or traits. The Emperor representative of all that was glorious and might about Romans, blood as pure as ice was far away from “being Roman”.   

The paradox continues later on in the movie when the son as new emperor wants to mate with his sister to produce a pure heir to the throne (this was the culture especially in Egypt where a pharaoh had to be of pure blood to sanctify his rulership) .It took a foreigner, a person of vile slave background, impure blood to be the general and symbol of “Being Roman”.

Heidegger in his study of Being-called it an ontological expedition of Dasein. To simplify- what does it mean to exist? What is the very nature of existence?  Existence is that which is alive beyond the physical.

“Being black” entails an idea that is alive beyond the physical features and traits. It must invoke the idea of blackness beyond what the nurse saw, what people see. The debates that have ensued have dwelled and laboured hard in arguing a feature is what is black. They have argued, black was never defined by black people themselves but rather by white people. The white race in defining what is black ensured exclusivity to what is white. Thus, the argument goes, a white man in Africa cannot term or identify himself with Black Africa because he has not the requisite features or traits. His features are European. Only pure bloods, only pure bloods are allowed.  That is foolish.

It is foolish to tribalise consciousness. I as an individual can never characterise my very consciousness. What is alive in an individual is not the physical manifestation of one's being. What is alive is rudderless, matterless, featureless, dimensionless conscience . It is quite so with nation hoods and state hoods. A people can never be bordered and defined by the physical planes of a place. 

We have seen this with the Diaspora, sons and daughters of three or four generations that have never been to Africa but identify with the idea of being black. It is very much so that the kindred spirit of being black is alive.

The essence of blackness is hard to fathom and I would like to believe further interrogation is in order. But I know enough to know what is not Black. Meat and bone coloured with a certain shade of black can never be the essence blackness.  “Being black” is not an absolute phenomenon, it cannot be what we see. It is an idea that very well encapsulates our existence as black people. One should not be easily fooled by the expedience of identifying blackness with affirmative action, Black Economic Empowerment, returning land to the "true" owners. This is spatial, shallow and it too shall pass. To retain credibility supporters and beneficiaries of such programmes have to tout and define blackness as an absolute manifestation. However much booty they may acquire their folly should never be ours.