By WAIRIMU NDERITU

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As countless people worldwide protested the murder of unarmed African-American, George Floyd, on May 25 by a white policeman in the US, the absence of African protestors was initially — throughout the month of May — glaringly obvious and heart wrenching.

The crisp African Union statement from chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat on May 29, therefore, provided relief. The statement condemned Floyd’s murder by law enforcement officers, reiterated the “AU’s rejection of the continuing discriminatory practices against Black citizens of the US” and brought out an often forgotten detail, that, at the 1964 First Assembly Meeting of African Heads of State and Government held in Cairo, Egypt, the Organisation of African Unity passed the resolution on Racial Discrimination in America.

CNN reported an independent autopsy revealed Floyd’s death a homicide, dying of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure” leading to lack of blood flow in his brain. The policeman knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds and continued to kneel on him two minutes and 53 seconds after he became unresponsive.

Last year was a good year for African and African-American relations thanks in large to Ghana’s much heralded Year of Return events that invited people of black descent home with an opportunity for citizenship. This was part of a yearlong 400th anniversary of the first documented arrival of enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia. 

GENETIC LINK

This is good, as relationships between Africans and African-Americans are sometimes cold, with misperceptions based on stereotypes, despite a common ancestry, genetic link and connections through a common struggle against slavery and colonialism.

For centuries, African or African-Americans could not access education, as they were deemed to have low cognitive ability.

Africans do not appreciate the full extent of how destructive slavery was and still is to African-Americans. From childbirth, African-Americans encounter daily racism based on being black whereas Africans are born into cultures where being black is the norm. Africans however study curricula modelled on European culture as the point of reference.

Behaviour in Africa is often termed standard or abnormal depending on the degree of similarity to European culture, language and values while concurrently devaluing African history.

The Eurocentric approach means many African schools do not also teach the full extent of what African slaves and their descendants went through. For example, few Africans know what the brown paper bag test in America, practiced in the 20th century, is.

The brown paper bag, often used in Africa to pack items like sugar, was compared to the skin of black people, determining access to privileges.

A person darker than the brown paper bag was denied access to some churches, and fraternities. Henry Louis Gates Jr writes in the Future of the Race that privilege in America has always come with lighter coloured skin.

The institutions of slavery and colonialism greatly damaged Africans and African-Americans as their dehumanisation was necessary to reinforce the slave owner and colonialist’s power. They suffered severe psychological trauma resulting in internalised oppression manifested in self-loathing and identification, including a desire to take up white culture and sometimes even dehumanise fellow black people. Adaptation to white culture requires an acceptance of one’s inferiority as a black person. Some manifestations of self-loathing include refusal to speak African languages, use of skin lighteners and hair relaxers for ‘straight hair’ . Psychologists describe this internalised oppression as equating dark skin with the reason for oppression.

HIGHER VALUE

Some African-Americans do not identify with African cultural values due to inability to relate to an African continent often portrayed inaccurately through a Eurocentric lens as placing a higher value on white culture, as poverty ridden and without history.

Africans also remain unable to recognise their strength if united and without ethnic divisions. Unfortunately, the African-American is not comfortable in America too.

WEB Dubois wrote of the eternal agony of being both black and American that is somewhat irreconcilable as long as the individual continues to live within their culture.

All of the above means slavery and the colonial enterprise were extremely successful in reinforcing differences between black people worldwide.

A much-shared video has Malcolm X emphasising an understanding of African history and culture as important in enhancing the self-esteem of the African-American and their identities as African.

How do we mourn Floyd? By demanding for justice for him and all victims of extra judicial killings. By learning African history. By knowing racial and ethnic discrimination exists in numerous forms and must be condemned. By appreciating the many people of goodwill joining the discriminated as protestors, while knowing the oppressed must keep fighting for freedom.

Wairimu Nderitu is the author of Beyond Ethnicism. Mukami Kimathi, Mau Mau Freedom Fighter and Kenya: Bridging Ethnic Divides, [email protected]