Not Undermining Black Americans is the Least Black Immigrants Could Do

When you are Black in America, do as Blacks in America do.

Last week, I read this Medium post from Laura M. Quainoo. In the post Laura, a native Black American, asks Black immigrants and other Blacks in the diaspora not to undermine Black Americans. She writes:

always, ALWAYS consider where your lack of experience just may not allow you to see another’s pov from their lived experience. At the very least, think twice, thrice and five times or more before using your platform to say something contrary.

This is not the first time I have seen a native Black American basically beg non-American Blacks not to undermine them. I was actually watching Tarique Nasheed ask the same thing on one of his YouTube lives.

But Black Americans shouldn’t ask us not to undermine them. Not undermining Black Americans should have been something we do without being asked. It should have been something that comes to us naturally.

We shouldn’t be asked at all because.. not undermining Black Americans is the LEAST we can do. It is the absolute minimum we can do.

What Black immigrants should do is not just not undermine Black Americans, but also support Black Americans. What we should be doing is fighting racism with them.

We should fight with them because their fight is ours. When they lose, we lose. When they succeed, we succeed. I mean our very presence in America is a result of Black Americans succeeding during the Civil Rights Movement.

As Laura points out in her excellent post, we don’t have to listen to Black Americans on everything. Black Americans are not experts on the weather. They are not experts on African food; they are not experts on Swish weather and so many other things. But when it comes to racism and White Supremacy, Black Americans have lived experience that makes them experts.

Black Americans have lived with the most depraved aspect of White Supremacy for more than 400 years. They know about the depravity of Whiteness more than any other Black people. We should be listening to them because they are talking from a 500-years of experience.

We should be listening to them because not doing so means we are invalidating the lived experience of Black people. We are saying that Black people are too stupid to be experts on something that they have lived through for generations.

When we challenge Black Americans’ analysis of White Supremacy, we are challenging the intelligence of Black people.

Black immigrants face anti-Black racism. Yes, us not being American Black protects us from some of the microaggression. Yes, our accents distance us from Black Americaness. We are not seen as aggressive, as lazy, as uncooperative as native Black Americans.

But guess what, we still face the same racism that Black Americans face at a macro level. We are more likely than other immigrants to be underemployed. We get paid less than other immigrants.

Racism even affects our health.

So, really when we are undermining Black Americans’ fight against racism, we are undermining ourselves.

And let’s remember, our children and especially our grandchildren will not have our accents. They will be assimilating into Black America. They will look and sound like descendant Blacks. And they will face the same racism that descendant-Blacks do.

So, when we are cheering anti-Black racism because of the little protection our accent gives us, we are cheering racism that our children and grandchildren will face. We are being our grandchildren’s first racist abusers.

I grew up learning from my super pro-Black brother. I have always taken the side of Black people. I don’t even consider myself an ally to Black people of different ethnicity. I consider myself a sister to Black people of any ethnicity. I consider it the height of self-hate to undermine other Black people’s struggles. The little cookies you get from Whiteness for undermining Black people is not really worth it.