February 16, 2007

Dear Ms. Valbrun:

Re: Ethics of Memory

I just finished reading your article, "Black Like Me?” in this morning's Washington Post. Perhaps I am even angrier than you are about the issue you raised.

  

I am a 64-year old, "native" Black American, descendant of slaves, university professor, and 1960s student activist in the Black Power moment.  When I was chair of the Black Student Union at UCLA in 1968, complications resulted in the African Student Union splitting up.  I suggested that those Africans who desired to could join the BSU, which many did.  Significantly, we all were Black.  We continued to make non-negotiable demands on society, the academy, and other social institutions in the USA.  What was additionally important was the extent to which we constantly read about historical and contemporary figures from the Caribbean and Africa who had been prominent in the Pan-African struggle: Sylvester Williams from Trinidad, Marcus Garvey from Jamaica, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, C. L. R. James from Trinidad, to name a few.  And then there were current leaders of our generation, most importantly Stokely Carmichael from Trinidad.  All of these individuals and others played significant roles in the struggle for Black liberation in the USA and throughout the world.  We had a common history of European oppression and exploitation and a common mission of overthrowing that oppression and exploitation.

Today, I encounter so many African and Caribbean immigrants who share the experiences you point out in your article.  Black American students often ask if Africans live in trees in the jungle, etc.  Like so many African students who know nothing about Black American history, "native" Black Americans know close to nothing about Africa, and even less about Caribbean history and contemporary affairs.  

Yet, I want to argue that we have an obligation to remember the lessons of the past because that memory can aid in our ongoing struggle.  The problem is that America never has valued an intellectual culture.  Look at the praise the Bush regime has received until recently.  Here is an arrogant, ignorant, stupid, reckless, ruthless individual who is the president of a major nation in the world.  Moreover, his so-called expert advisers demonstrate insufficient knowledge and expertise.  Black Americans are also a part of this anti-intellectual culture, whether we want to admit it or not.  This ignorance often surfaces when many "native" Black Americans encounter Caribbean and African immigrants.  The same ignorance is present in questions about US presidential candidate Barrack Obama's blackness even though, as you point out so well, "native" Black Americans have been touched by the white brush somewhere in their family gene pool.

How quickly we forget.  Yet, we cannot afford to forget that today's so-called Black establishments, even those around my age, were not involved in the Black liberation movement of the late 1960s.  I refuse to forget that civil rights leaders, and other Black managerial elites, constituted the "establishment" in the 1960s.  They were critical of Black Power advocates.  Interestingly, some of them, and/or their class and ideological descendants, now challenge Obama's blackness today.  Preposterous!

We must remember the past and learn the lessons of the past, even if the hopes and aspirations of those years have been dashed and decimated today.

Please, please, let me know when you publish your book about the Haitian immigrant experience in the USA.

Sincerely,



Floyd W. Hayes, III, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Department of Political Science

Coordinator of Programs and Undergraduate Studies
Center for Africana Studies
The Johns Hopkins University
Greenhouse 107
3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Phone: 410-516-7659
FAX: 410-516-7312
E-Mail: fwhayes3@jhu.edu
http://web.jhu.edu/africana/index.html