Tag: Gilroy

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Comparing Black and Green

Paul Gilroy asserts that, for African-Americans, the memory of slavery, a lived crisis, supersedes labor, a systemic crisis. However, one way in which black people and the Irish are connected to each other is through labor. Thus, Gilroy’s assertion that labor is secondary to the living memory of slavery threatens our investigation of the relationship between these two peoples. Yet, I believe that, rather than dismantling this relationship, the prominence of the living memory of slavery provides an important nuance to our study. While the Irish and people of African descent may have spoken to one another, their oppression was not the same. While it is silly to compare the oppression of different groups of people, we must recognize that, despite their horrible treatment at the hands of the British, the Irish were never slaves. Though Thomas Carlyle calls the Irish “white negroes” and the Irish occasionally call themselves “slaves,” the word “Irish” never takes on such a close definition to slavery as the word “Negro.” Blacks aren’t derogatorily called “Irish” in the manner that the Irish are called “black.” This fact leads to an important distinction elaborated on by David Lloyd: the Irish and the people of African descent are not the same. While the British considered both West Indian Blacks and the Irish “not yet ready” to rule themselves, the Irish, through the nature of their whiteness, still had hope for future self-determination after some “civilizing” effort. Yet the blacks were never going to be ready to run their own lives on the basis of their racial difference. The Irish did not become white; they were always white, but America provided them an opportunity to mobilize their whiteness for the perpetuation of racial dominance. Black people were never afforded an opportunity to utilize the benefits of their racial background in the New World.

 

I do not craft this nuance to say that the Irish and people of African descent should not be compared. In fact, from the theory we have read, the comparison often comes from the oppressors, which makes it an intriguing subject of inquiry. Yet we must also always make the distinction that the Irish and people of African descent, despite both undergoing oppression and suffering, were never considered the same.

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Essentialism and the Black Diaspora

Paul Gilroy’s “The Black Atlantic” calls into question the legitimacy of some of the terms we use to divide and identify our world. He rejects the notion of an antagonistic relationship between his personal identifiers of black and English, noting that, while popular culture may perceive the English identity to be a white person, in fact, there is nothing essential about being English (p. 1). Gilroy attacks ethnic absolutism as impossible in light of the Atlantic slave trade, where European, American, and African cultures influenced each other in ways that made each of these places more “hybrid.” Gilroy’s examination, then, requires drawing out the connections between these cultures. Fortunately, people of African descent have drawn out these connections for generations. Gilroy notes that some African-Americans waived off their feelings of exceptionalism “in favor of a global, coalitional politics in which anti-imperialism and anti-racism might be seen to interact if not to fuse (p. 4).” Similarly oppressed black people have transcended national barriers to work for a common cause. While Gilroy’s point about the breakdown of rigid nationalities through pan-Africanism is correct, this point must also call into question the black diaspora. As Gilroy asserts and science affirms, there are no phenotypical differences between different races and race is only real through society’s affirmation of it. Thus, the idea of the black diaspora buys into the social construct of race just as nations buy into ethnic absolutism. Though the black diaspora rejects the idea of national division, it does connote that there is something essential about being part of the black diaspora. Yet that essential mark cannot be blackness since race does not exist. For members of the Black Atlantic Diaspora, the defining characteristic could be a history of oppression, though that may not be a specific enough division. Though I do not currently know the solution to the issue of legitimizing the black diaspora, I think this is an important lens to work with throughout the semester. When we read black authors, we must continuously ponder whether there is anything essential about being black.