Black history and me

Feb 24, 2019 Countryman, Features / Columnists

---

By Dennis Nichols

I don’t put undue emphasis on the idea of race/ethnicity, having grown up with a simple understanding that I and my family were Afro-Guyanese. For me though, it had less to do with colour of skin than with texture of hair, and the people I most identified with. My parents, sisters, and I were ‘red’, meaning light-skinned, with hair that more or less looked like that of other Afro-Guyanese. It was an accepted version of blackness.
Here’s an interesting note. From a scientific point of view, race is a social construct and colour an illusion. Everything we ‘see’ is made up of wavelengths of electromagnetic energy, as light is absorbed and reflected from an object. Black is that which absorbs all light; and it was what some of us proudly called a standing colour.
The February observance of Black History Month and our local input, once again force me to acknowledge the issue, and problem, of colour. It is a glaring one, despite there being only inexact definitions of race and blackness. Hundreds of millions of dark-skinned people around the world can attest to the way their perceived colour and ethnicity have degraded their lives, often to the benefit of their lighter-skinned kin. This is experienced not only by Africans but also by Indians and some indigenous people.
Many years ago, a mild racist experience roiled me to a degree I would have thought unlikely, so I can imagine what a more blatant one would have done. I was at a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and having indulged in a tentative bit of gambling, went to a nearby deli for a snack. It was filled with white customers who even to the inexpert eye, were relatively well-off. Most sported flowery shirts, Bermuda shorts, and sunglasses. I stood out, in appearance and accent. I ordered a delicious-looking burger, was issued a chit, and because I knew it would take about ten minutes to be delivered, went for a stroll on the world-famous boardwalk.
I returned just before my number was called and with salivating expectation, went to the counter and presented my chit. The serving guy (white) looked at me and with a mixture of disapproval and contempt, and said, “You don’t look like Number 86 to me.” That was all, but the tone and the insinuation were unmistakable. My skin colour, dress, and accent made me an interloper, a rejected statistic. Having found no other # 86, he shortly after gave me my burger. I was humiliated, but hungry, and left. The experience gave me a much greater appreciation for what many blacks went through during the American South Jim Crow days.
(Incidentally, I am still a bit perplexed and amused that people like the late American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi were considered black, as are Colin Kaepernick and Meghan Markle today. Even the idea that famous ‘white’ personalities like Alexander Pushkin, Alexandre Dumas, and England’s Queen Charlotte were arguably ‘black’ produces only token appreciation in many of us.) The revelations, if true, came too late.
As pointed out in an earlier article, there continue to be negative connotations of black that stem from, and penetrate, deep within our psyche after centuries of association with negative thoughts and images. Dirtiness, ugliness, sin, and death are just some of those perceptions that blindside our consciousness and commonsense, and root themselves in reactive minds, including those of black people.
Who among us will admit that, consciously or not, many deeply ‘melanated’ people bleach their skin, straighten their hair, and make-up their faces not only to appear more fetching, but also to aspire to the Caucasian model of beauty and attractiveness. As an older, aesthetically-challenged male, I may be in murky territory here, but the trends are so obvious and so troubling that I feel justified in making the point.
Of course black is also associated with many positive qualities and images such as power, authority, independence, class, and sexiness, particularly in fashion. Among people who consider themselves aesthetes, the enduring beauty of black skin is becoming increasingly fashionable in some social circles. Just ask Lupita Nyong’o, and Khoudia Diop (The melanin goddess) or nearer home, former Miss Universe, Wendy Fitzwilliam who, at 46, is still turning heads.
What about here in Guyana? Our country is a mixed bag, where perceptions of colour and race are becoming more and more blurred, and it is growing ever harder to categorize our people by them. Our three major ‘races’, East Indian, African, and Amerindian, have been mixing (some would say diluting) their ethnicity, to the point where colour of skin and texture of hair are beginning to negate traditional stereotypes. The mixed ‘race’ and an indeterminate ‘colour’ range are hopeful signs.
But the foolish, shallow, and insensitive among us still cling to colour as a determinant of attractiveness and acceptance. They include, as alluded to earlier, some dark-skinned people who simply cannot see, or apparently refuse to see, much good or beauty in themselves. Of course it doesn’t help when others say things that justify their insecurities. Maybe history can help – Guyanese history
It wasn’t that long ago that the ancestors of dark-skinned Guyanese, after 1838, toiled, fought, and built this country alongside their lighter-skinned brothers and sisters. And long before that watershed year, they had done the same under the brutal lash of the whip, subsumed under dehumanizing conditions of slavery. So haven’t our forebears translated the proverbial ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ of their forebears down through the centuries to help free present generations from mental enslavement? Have they been forgotten?
I was lucky. Having flunked European history at high school, I was later tutored by someone who brought West Indian history to life, and induced me to delve into a more personal narrative. I did, and discovered, for example, that my uncle, Dr. T.T. Nichols, who died before I was born, was co-founder, and later President, of an organization called the Negro Progress Convention established in 1922. Its name is self-explanatory, its thrust pan-African, and its efforts included raising scholarship funds for local students to attend the historically black Tuskegee Institute in the US. In 1937, he hosted Marcus Garvey during his visit to British Guiana.
Now just knowing this, in addition to the swell of black consciousness in the 1970s, helped me understand and value my African heritage which I strove to pass on to my own children. It has also helped me look at skin colour from a more balanced perspective so that while I appreciate my blackness, I am not consumed by its history.
We make choices all the time. I was born with the colour inherited from my parents and those ancestors with whom I chose to identify; the ones who originated in Mother Africa. Therefore I am forever linked to black history.

---

---