The African Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere

The total population for people of African descent in the Americas is quite substantial. Far more than enough needed to envision a unified, Pan-Africanist state within the hemisphere rather than to Africa. Haiti, in the 19th century, offered itself as a beacon for freedom as well as citizenship to people of African and indigenous descent throughout the Americas if they settled on Hispaniola. Indeed, an estimated 6000 (perhaps even higher) African-Americans (as well as people of African descent from other areas of the Americas, though their numbers are not known) settled in Haiti. Some of their descendants still live on the island, especially in Samana in the Dominican Republic, but most returned to the United States due to the language divide, lack of opportunities under Haiti's autocratic president, Boyer, and religious divides. Some descendants of these free black Americans became prominent Haitians, just look at the career of Haitian intellectual Jean Price-Mars. However, due for multiple factors, some beyond the control of Haiti, large-scale immigration from other corners of the Americas never materialized beyond that of African-Americans during the 1820s. Interestingly, some white Americans, including Lincoln, were considering sending freed blacks all to Haiti as a quasi-Liberia 2.0 venture to rid the United States of all peoples of African descent. Obviously, that didn't happen and would have been very difficult to do. Furthermore, before the Civil War, some Southern planters and politicians were actually pushing for incorporating what is now the Dominican Republic and Cuba into their slave labor empire, which would have complicated everything else in the Caribbean before the rise of well-known US imperialism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

I am not calling for a return to a similar ideology whereby everyone of African descent is encouraged and given incentives to immigrate to Haiti or another Caribbean island (though, that could be useful for bringing more skilled professionals to Haiti and help restore Haitian agriculture if they work cooperatively with Haiti's poor...). I do believe, however, that increased collaboration between different areas and populations of mostly African descent would be beneficial to our mutual struggles against racism and poverty. We know that the Black International has existed since at least the 19th century, and that Pan-African Congresses have met that included peoples of African descent throughout the Caribbean and United States. In addition, people of African descent throughout the Americas have evinced signs of cooperation and mutual influence through music, literature, and political organizing. African-American music from the United States, for instance, has influenced the rest of the diaspora both in this hemisphere and in Africa, truly contributing to what should properly be termed, the Black Atlantic. Hip-hop, jazz, funk, soul, and doo wop can be found in Afro-Colombia, Brazil, the Caribbean, and across Latin America. Likewise, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin music forms and rhythms from Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, and Jamaica have profoundly shaped African-American jazz, hip-hop, and funk, so the Black Atlantic's cohesion through music is bidirectional. Moreover, black resistance to slavery, whether through militant, violent means, or other forms of abolitionism, has fascinating parallels across the Black Atlantic. Likewise, the African-American Civil Rights Movement and Black Power era profoundly shaped black consciousness and political activism in Brazil, the Caribbean, and apartheid South Africa (Black Consciousness Movement, look it up!). Indeed, some of the strategies and tactics adopted by states for redistributive policies have spread to Latin America, with affirmative action in Brazil being a great example (although affirmative action in the US is partly based on a similar policy in India for Untouchables). In literature and the arts, we also see a conspicuous display of interaction between artists (Jacob Lawrence's series on Toussaint Louverture, for instance) and writers, especially those influenced by or working in conjunction with the Harlem Renaissance and negritude. Claude McCay, a well-known Harlem Renaissance writer, was of Jamaican heritage. Langston Hughes worked with Nicolas Guillen, an Afro-Cuban poet. And Hughes was a friend of Jacques Roumain, Haitian Communist, novelist, and poet, eventually translating one of his best novels.

If we who are darker than blue are facing similar challenges and also using similar ideas and tactics to cultivate black pride and overcome racism and other forms of oppression, why not collaborate more often through better permanent coalitions and organizations? We know that Pan-Africanism has several things working against it. Essentializing millions of people and assuming that racial identification with 'blackness' alone is not enough to unite and maintain a permanent coalition. That's why forms of black cultural nationalism which seek to unify us based on mythology or romanticized notions of an African past will never work. Furthermore, racial classification systems in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean differ, so most Afro-Brazilians, for instance, or Afro-Colombians, the third largest national population of African descent in the Americas, may not identify as "black." However, their experiences of exclusion from higher education, government posts, higher rates of poverty, and the denigration of people of African descent through negative stereotypes, Eurocentric ideals of beauty, and cultural supremacy of those of European descent give us a common enemy, racism. There is one established advocacy group in Washington, the TransAfrica Forum, partly led by Randall Robinson, which does endeavor to push Congress for effective anti-racist legislation and policy regarding Africa and the African diaspora. Organizations like TransAfrica need permanent, international affiliations and chapters to ensure continued political solidarity of people of African descent. Like Marcus Garvey's UNIA, which had chapters throughout the Americas, if a strong network and coalition existed, we could organize boycotts, push for similar redistributive economic and social programs, and further our unity with other people of color by dismantling white supremacy. This would only further the instrumental role of African-American internationalism in resisting American imperialism and supporting human rights internationally. In fact, African-Americans, the NAACP, and the black press were huge in documenting human rights abuses and criticizing US imperialism during the occupation of Haiti in 1915-1934. African-Americans were/are also vocal critics of European and American imperialism in Africa and the African diaspora. So why not work together to further solidify our bonds and interconnectedness for human rights?