To be Black is to Have No Country
In the United States, Black is to be of a people, a people with one history, who were enslaved and had started anew in an unforgiving land. More than a skin color, it is a history, a culture, an experience. For those whose roots begin in the United States, Black American means to have no country, to have enslaved ancestors. Currently, as I travel overseas and mix with other people from around the world, I am reminded of the history that does not exist. The history that has been erased. The history of my people erased when they were forcibly enslaved and brought to a new land to erect a state that would subjugate generations of their children to the vile serpent that is white supremacy. With our history erased once, this state continues to erase the history that we have created thus far since our arrival. Overseas, I see people proudly talk of their nationalities and of their backgrounds, proudly able to talk of their family history and where they have come from. They speak with this sense of history, this sense of standing and longevity that can only come from a remembered past that has been passed down to them over the generations. There is no second guessing who they are, and where they come from. I, like many other Black people in the United States, lack that.
The only identity I have is that I am Black. Outside of the United States, I am asked “where are you from?” They say oh you are American. While yes, I am from the land that the state has laid claim to, I am not American. I am Black. By saying that, there is no land, no established grounds in which claiming that identity can be pinpointed to. No land that can be looked at as that is the land of those people. Now I will say we are indigenous people of the United States as our history and identity as a people begin here. But, that is to be written about later.
Answering these questions about my nationality hurts, because many are seeking the on-paper answer, while it is a reminder of the generations of slavery, erasure, and inhumane violence that my people have faced. Such a simple question packed with so much nuance. I am not American. How can I be? Why would I want to be? Yes, on paper I was born here and have an American passport but that is mere paperwork from a state that erected itself off the blood of my people.
When you ask me about my family I have very little to talk about. On my mom’s side most of my family is racist English people that I have not had contact with for many years. They hated me and treated me hideously when I was a child due to my skin. Cool, I do not miss them. The other half of the family on my dad’s side are estranged. The ones nearest and dearest to me have passed away, the others have been incarcerated or no longer around due to interfamilial conflict. Family is complicated. The family members that are closest to me are in heaven, and I have very few pictures of them, only old photos and their faces engraved in my mind. Of the few there are, I did not get the chance to know them to the fullest as they passed away when I was young. I wish they were here on Earth to see what I’ve done in life and the person I have become, to share this earthly experience with them. The ones I speak of are the ones who showed the purest love and embodied the purest humanity. Outside of my immediate family, that consists of 4 others, this is all the family I have.
The biggest pain is the lack of research that I can do on my family. I have worked to research, to gather files and data, to find out more of where I’ve come from. With very little results to show for it. I can go no farther back than my great-great-grandparents. Which is not saying a lot especially given the fact I was alive for some time to meet and live with my great-grandparents. The information of their parents was limited, I had their names and there are one or two records that exist that contain their information. The rest of my family and the ones before them have been erased. One can logically deduce as a Black family from the South of the United States, this is most logically because of slavery and white supremacy that there lies no records.
Here I am, only four generations removed from slavery, and since then we as a people have faced a continued harsh reality of white supremacy. From Jim Crow, KKK, police violence, CIA and FBI targeting, Segregation (in the county where I’m from segregation was still legal when my dad was born), Disenfranchisement, war on drugs, mass incarceration, the list goes on. To add to that, all history in the United States ties back to white supremacy, the United States is a constant reminder of the oppression of Black people. From confederate statues, schools named after KKK members, common household sayings stemming from racism, logos, streets, highways, the list goes on. Racism and white supremacy have never left, the conditions have never improved, and modern revisionism would like to have you believe so.
As I write this I don’t care to provide examples, providing examples is only needed for white people and state sympathizers who are positioned against liberation and the Black experience. The people that get it, get it. Reality and history are not difficult to observe. Some will use Obama and Kamala Harris as signs of Black advancement in this country, black faces in high places will not save us. I don’t care to debate liberals, assimilationists are not my friends, those on the right at least we recognize that we are enemies openly, liberals like to play dress up as radicals.
With this I say I am not American, how can I be when I am Black. To be Black is the antithesis of what it means to be American. The United States and all things “American’’ are built off the subjugation of Black people, and we are reminded of this everyday. They say to be American is to believe in a set of common ideals. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If that’s the case when in American history has life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ever been afforded to Black people in history or contemporary times? At every corner in the history of this country we have faced subjugation, oppression, and violence from state and “non-state” actors. We have been denied life, denied liberty, and denied the pursuit of happiness. The state denying us these ideals is a clear indicator of how they view us. These are virtues that are often spouted by politicians as rights for all Americans, yet we as Black people don’t receive them. One can only conclude then, we are not Americans.
Black is the antithesis to being an American. They cannot coexist. A Black American does not exist. To be American means to be a citizen of the U.S. I argue we are not citizens but occupied people. How can we be citizens when we don’t receive the promised rights of citizens? We are the antithesis because our very existence is a threat to the illegitimate state that occupies us. Everyday we live, we fight, we express ourselves, we directly threaten the state and the structures of white supremacy that America is established on. Our lives are an act of resistance. With that being said, we have no country, we will never be accepted as equals in this state. This state can’t exist with us as equals.
