COMMENTARY: African-Americans Need Self-Affirmation

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.) (UNDATED) In the pre-rap era of the early […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.)

(UNDATED) In the pre-rap era of the early 1970s, a group of lyrical prophets called The Last Poets coined a phrase which, though politically incorrect, succinctly summarizes the feelings of many on the subject of black consciousness. In speaking of all that is beautiful yet frustrating about black people, the lead Poet cried, “I love niggers, because niggers are me.”


Though clearly not ready for prime time, the statement aptly captures the need for racial self-affirmation many African-Americans continue to feel to this day. It is at the heart, for example, of books like “Member of the Club: Reflections on Life in a Racially Polarized World” (Harper Perennial).

Written by Lawrence Otis Graham, an African-American attorney educated at Princeton and Harvard, “Member of the Club” is a compilation of essays in which Graham muses about “the price of living with a foot in each world,” one white and one black. Speaking for himself and many other members of the black middle class, Graham writes: “It is sometimes so difficult to find true acceptance in either the black or the white communities that I often feel like an outsider to both.”

Thus, the essays, which address such issues as interracial dating, cultural snobbery, racial self-hatred and black classism, provide insight into how many African-Americans negotiate the minefield between embracing what is best about black culture and rejecting the stereotypes that are harmful.

That such struggles are both difficult and have long roots in the black community is attested to by historian Charles P. Henry in his recent book, “Ralph Bunche: Model Negro or American Other?” (New York University Press). Henry writes that nearly 100 years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois presented an intellectual conflict that would engage the best minds in the black community for the next century.

“How can the Negro attain true self-consciousness and self-knowledge while surrounded by a sea of whiteness? How can the Negro attain self-respect and dignity when all that is reflected back are degrading stereotypes and amusing caricatures,” he writes. “How can the Negro achieve equality and become a first-class citizen when the very definition of American depends on the exclusion of the black `other’?”

It is within this context, according to Henry, that Du Bois took a bold step by becoming “the first important black figure to suggest that the Negro has a culture worth preserving. That the black soul and the white soul are both spiritually and psychologically different. That African-Americans are simply not European Americans in a black skin or _ more accurately for the era _ are not in a state of evolution toward the white ideal.”

Du Bois’ notion of an intrinsically valuable black culture flew in the face of the prevailing wisdom, promoted by Booker T. Washington and embraced by many whites, that blacks should accept limits on full citizenship rights as a practical means of preparing themselves to participate as skilled laborers in the nation’s emerging industrial economy.


For Du Bois, the future of black America lay in the idea of a “talented tenth” of the race, whose accomplishments in arts, literature and the sciences would provide for the uplift of the race as a whole.

Thus did Du Bois create two warring camps in the black community that remain even today. Thus, as well, did Du Bois lay the foundation for a black counterculture which has found expression in African-American religion, art, literature, music and dance for nearly a century. From Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston to Martin Luther King, Nikki Giovanni, The Last Poets and today’s rappers, the black community has found creative ways to affirm itself in the face of oppression.

Yet the struggle continues, as well it should. For as we continue to face new challenges, our sense of who we are will be challenged as well.

But if, by God’s grace, we are able to love ourselves, the struggle will be made more bearable.

DEA END ATCHISON

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!