check your anti-Blackness

As the US and other parts of the world celebrate Black History Month, I want to take the opportunity to reflect on our communities and how we can strive to make it better for all of us. This piece is written in the context of living in Caribbean islands and how the blatant anti-Blackness in majority Black nations and communities and held us back socially, politically, and economically. 

The best way to start this off by setting the main blame to the ones that deserve it the most, to the colonizers. It’s interesting to see that there are people who do not truly see how the majority of the negatives in our society and communities stem from colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy. Yes, you might live in an area where white people are the few and your people have power positions but it would be ignorant to ignore how we got to these systems, these “societal” ideas in the first place. 

As Europe, and then America had their heavy hand across the globe, they made sure to separate and conquer. Find every reason to separate the various types of people whether by tone, language, disability, sexuality, gender, hair texture, everything. These types of situations and tactics have led us to the world that we know today, an anti-Black Black nation. 

To note, your anti-Blackness can consist of colorism, ableism, anti-fatness, classism  homophobia, and transphobia. 

The first thing you’re subjected to at birth “oh yes the baby is so light, I hope they stay this color and do not get dark”. That type of subjection lives through the life of the child as they integrate into society. At a certain age, children stop wanting to play outside in the sun because “they done Black enough” or “they don’t want to get dark”. Darker children are compared to tires or the tar that’s used to pave the streets. But those children had to hear those words from somewhere? Some adults in their lives pride themselves on having to be lighter because they know it’s going to give them more opportunities in work or make them look more desirable to those in public. Children hear and see and share those same thoughts with other children. It creates bullies and kickstarts a lot of mental illness issues within a lot of children as well. Change the wording of this paragraph with wording and slurs and that fits ableism, anti-fatness, classism, homophobia, and transphobia and you have an early catalyst to your issue. 

Then we make it to high school. Students are more understanding of the power of their words and have been indoctrinated to say what their society tells them is 100% true. Add that to the colonial systems that students are slightly aware of, in these institutions and now we have a bigger issue. The main example I’ll be using is my high school, St. Dominic High School. For those who aren’t familiar with Sint Maarten and their schools, St. Dominic was the only catholic high school and was considered the school that all the “smart” children attend. These students were seen as stuck up, “upper middle class” and felt they were better than everyone. This school was also seen as the “Indian” school as many members of the Indian community sent their children to this institution. The issue is the school had an image, a very anti-Black we conform to what is a “presentable” image, and that structure was harmful to many students. I am only able to speak for my year, and year above me, but we didn’t fit the norm of the institution. Most of us were “too local”, we spoke with heavy accents, we were loud and we hung out with people that might be considered as the “wrong crowd”. We were too local, too Black and they treated us as such. 
 
My first form year, specifically class had some issues. If you know, you know, if you don’t know, well, just know it wasn’t the best. However, a lot of the issues could’ve been avoided if they treated us like normal human beings. The institution allowed all forms of bullying to thrive whether it was between those within the same year or those who were upperclassmen. They also did not truly care about anyone’s well-being. Now you may ask how is this anti-Black. Remember, my first form class wasn’t the best, and we also had a higher concentration of Black students, the more “well behaved” class had a higher concentration of Indian and other non-Black students. Issues in that class were resolved with mediation them punishment, the issues in our class were resolved with punishment which led to more issues and more punishment, and then finally some type of mediation and forcing a bunch of 12 and 13-year-olds to sign a brand new document holding them accountable for all their actions. This type of behavior continued when it came it dress codes, absents, and basically just breathing in the institution. They policed Black bodies every single day and allowed non-Black bodies to have a little freedom from the none we had. 

Do you know that very anti-Black rhetoric of sexualizing Black girls? That was the main issue when the boys in the school were fighting for short pants. We live on a tropical island, wearing long pants all-day can get uncomfortable. Various students expressed this and even got most of the school to sign petitions (pen and paper by the way) asking for these shorts. The papers got to the principal’s desk and stayed there until it was time to throw them out. The students were rightfully mad. The argument that was made? The pants would’ve been too short and would fit inappropriately on the girls. Curves, the issue was curves. 
Situations like these, teachers questioning and mocking your sexuality, privilege on who got to grow out their hair or not, or could get away with coloring it “their non-natural color” or not or how many piercings you have or not has affected all children and spilled out in society and how we determine what is moral, what is professional, what is accepted. My hair color, my skin color, my piercings, my fatness, my sexuality, should not be the determining factor if I’m a capable human being and if I deserve the right to live. We love to shout human rights but we don’t realize the blatant anti-Blackness in our Black communities are violations such rights to survive, we harm ourselves and others to fit into this status quo, and if they don’t we harm them. 
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Check your anti-Blackness. 
Happy Black History Month.