First of all, whenever I see pictures like this of President-Elect Obama looking brown and dignified, I find myself involuntarily uttering “This is our President!” in pride and amazement.
Obama is now the grandest example of a very interesting trend that I noticed some time ago. The children of African immigrants, or those from the wider African diaspora, have come to America and are succeeding in typical American immigrant fashion. I’ve observed this phenomenon in music, with musicians like TV on the Radio and Dragons of Zynth, in acting, in sports (which I do not follow closely), in my personal life (I have good friends who fit this description), and now finally in politics.
For the original African-Americans this is a bitter sweet turn of events, and one that I think requires more analysis. I can tell you without a doubt that no one from the civil rights movement predicted this. The movement has always nurtured a vision of Pan-Africanism that presumed we, the descendants of slaves, would be the ones going back to the continent, and elsewhere, to blaze the trail of progress and justice. Although Africa is more of a basket case than ever, it seems more likely those trails will be blazed by African-Americans of more recent and direct African descent.
I believe his phenomenon renders the final verdict on whether or not the failure of America’s slave descendents to achieve broadly defined success, after the most recent crest of the rebellion in the 1960s-early 70s, is due primarily to external or internal factors. With the success of people who look even more African than we do, there is no doubt it is the latter. It places in stark relief the absolutely devastating impact that slavery and the subsequent general repression has had on the the very core of our being. Our sense of self is tattered, misshapen- and our community rarely operates as an actual community. The inheritance of our experience in this country weighs heavily about our necks, mocking and dull. These are our greatest impediments to progress, greater than all others can be, because only people with the exact opposite attributes can overcome the obstacles before us.
I am inspired by the rise of Obama, as are the vast majority of the great slave rebellion’s progeny, and indeed- a great majority of all Americans. However, I hope we original African-Americans take this occassion to turn a critical eye on ourselves and re-embrace the notion that our own behavior will ultimately determine the outcome of this struggle. I hope we no longer feel it necessary and prudent to tell our children that they cannot be a black Bill Gates because white folks won’t let them. My only response then was “They can’t stop me”, but now I can add to that “Yes We Can”. Thanks Obama, I needed that.
Ma Famille 