True Identity

By Sterling Hawkins, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW

One month ago, I completed the book titled "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Penguin-Random House, LLC 2015). Coates is a journalist and author. His works feature stories about culture, politics, and social issues. Between the World and Me is a New York Times Best Seller. The late Richard Wright inspired the title for the book. The book is a letter to Coates's adolescent son Samori about the story of his reawakening to the world as seen from his childhood into becoming a man. He recounts many first-person experiences about race and the politics which govern people of color. The recounting of his own experiences is beautifully woven from personal narrative, historical insights, and revelations about being African American in a society marked by racial injustice. The book is still fresh and emotionally charged as I re-read parts of it for this article. Little has changed since 2015, and Coates's words resonate within me. Events leading to the death of George Floyd re-ignited a fire in the souls of Black America, which has been smoldering for decades.

For a long time, to be black in America was to be defined by how non-blacks defined and "identified" you. Over the last 50 years, I'm pleased to see this trend shifting in the opposite direction. However, racial discrimination and hatred toward blacks are not shifting fast enough.

Our identity is who, what, and how we define ourselves as a people and not someone else's definition. Blacks in the U.S. have been denied access to education, housing, health care, food, and jobs based on racial inferiority.

Dr. Kishana M. Ross, Professor of African American Studies at Northwestern, uses the term "Anti-Blackness" to describe the "theoretical framework that illuminates society's inability to recognize black humanity- the disdain, disregard and disgust for our existence." The death of George Floyd and other people of color at the hands of white police officers over the last eight years is not the exception, "but rather, it is the rule in a nation that literally made black people into things."

Morris, K. [2020] Call it What it is- Anti-Blackness. Retrieved on 5 June 2020. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/george-floyd-anti-blackness.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap

The identity formation of Black America has been crushing as our identity has been shaped by 400 years of oppression, rage, and exhaustion. This identity formation creates for blacks a form of "disembodiment." Coates uses this term to validate that black Americans have been unable to control or protect their own physical body. A recurrent theme throughout the book. And, the result of becoming disembodied has developed into a fear of knowing.

When describing one of his interviews with the mother of a young African American male who was unarmed and gunned down by a police officer, the mother of the slain youth, directed a message to Coates's son who had accompanied him to the interview. The woman said: And, "no one should deter you from being you. You have to be you. And, you can never be afraid to be you." 

The fear of knowing is the knowledge that African Americans are more often hated simply for being black. There's a complicated philosophy associated with skin color, much of which is false. And, much of what is used to justify racially motivated aggression with the intent to cause harm. Coates explains this sentiment in describing his life in learning the codes of conduct while growing up in the rough neighborhoods of West-Baltimore. "Not being violent enough could cost me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body. . . I was a capable boy, intelligent, well-liked, but powerfully afraid. And, I felt vaguely wordlessly that for a child to be marked off for such a life to be forced to live in fear was a great injustice."  

Coates connects this fear in contrasting himself with the violence he and other blacks observed in the world outside the streets of their West Baltimore neighborhood. This fear, he says, ruled everything and is connected to the Dream- the freedom and equality experienced by whites. He concludes that sharp contrasts exist between the white and black worlds.

When describing such contrasts, Coates reflects years later while traveling abroad. "I saw that what divided me from the world was not anything intrinsic to us, but the actual injury done by people intent on naming us matters more than anything we could ever do."

Coates acknowledges that after years of searching, he is still discovering and attempting to understand the breach between the world and himself."

I believe Ta Nehisi Coates would like for us to remember that our body represents our unique worth and dignity of being human and that American society has established laws, authorities, and institutions to destroy our body. He reminds Samori that while black lives matter, we as blacks cannot adequately protect our lives due to systemic injustice. 

In grieving the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, and others, we must not fall prey to the lie that says that inequality and injustice don't exist. Our identity with this pain as Black Americans is tied to a history that can never be eradicated. For this reason, all people of every color and every creed must continue to stand up and fight to oppose it.  

So where do we go from here? What can help us as a nation and a people address injustice and bring reforms which restore accountability and condemnation of wrongful acts of violence, both physical and psychological, against African Americans?

We must continue to organize, support, and provide empathy for those who experience systemic racial injustice and stand with those who seek to correct these imbalances. We must educate and elect legislators who support fair and equal treatment under the law. We must challenge those currently in office to advocate for better policies that address grievances regarding protections for Minority communities. We should march, protest, and demonstrate to keep the message alive and vibrant. In the words of Malcolm X, "I'm for truth no matter who tells it. I'm for justice no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such, I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole."