Confronting the Silence: Perspectives and Dialogue on Structural Racism against People of African Descent Worldwide

by Sheron Wray

How does a UCI associate professor of dance find herself at United Nations event marking the International Decade for People of African Descent? It is quite straightforward actually; the relationship between the bodies of visibly African descended peoples and subjugation is discernibly direct, widespread; and I am one of those people, the type that resists. My work in dance focuses on interstitial aspects of African people’s aesthetics, much of which has been under- recognized in scholarship while at the same being a driving force of contemporary art-making and commerce across the globe. One would be hard pressed to find an economically developed nation that has not imbibed, acculturated or appropriated the ingenuity of African peoples’ creativity across a plethora of cultural phenomena: including music, poetry, fashion, dance, food and of course industrial inventions. Africa’s contributions are tangible. Therefore I am on the vanguard of change, to make visible gifts to humanity that are otherwise routinely obfuscated, denying them proper recognition and economic reward.

Attending this UN event seemed like a place to begin this manifold mission because the organization has made a declaration, which is to fully articulate the blight of racism that continues to affect the human rights of people of African descent worldwide, to extreme ends. Panelist Dr. Cheryl Sterling, Director of the Black Studies Program at City College of New York, confirmed that this is indeed the UN’s third series of conventions intent upon creating effective, systemic change. Between 1994 and 2004, the UN proclaimed a UN Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination; in 2001 it held the major Durban Conference, and 2001 was also the International Year of Mobilization against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, in conjunction with in the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People. This presented an opportunity to consider “the invaluable contributions of indigenous peoples to political, economic, social, cultural and spiritual development throughout the world, as well as the challenges faced by them, including racism and racial discrimination.” The third in the series was the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169, protecting Indigenous and Tribal Peoples ways of life, which came into force in 1991. So this preamble is to say this is far from the first time that the humanitarian concern of skin-based racism has been brought to bear upon the consciousness of the world. Returning to optimism as I so often do, I would comment that there is a significant difference this time round since there is such extensive media proliferation — in the form of social as well as professional media — in the hands of so many people, that there is promise that the conversation in this decade could be pivotal and lead to real action.

The topic of this UN Decade event in NY was on November 3, 2015, and was entitled: Confronting the Silence: Perspectives and Dialogue on Structural Racism against People of African Descent Worldwide. The first session opened with remarks from three keynote speakers, beginning with singer, songwriter, actor, and social activist Harry Belafonte, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Following Belafonte, the other Keynote Speakers offered sharp analyses illuminated by data relating to a proliferation of structured forms of racism that exist globally. Two of these speakers were Ms. Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, Chairperson, Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, and Mr. Mutuma Ruteere, Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. These wider spheres of the global reality exemplifying the terror racism has inflicted upon African-descended people worldwide was important for the African American audience present in the chamber to recognize. I was born in the UK, of Jamaican parentage, and I am often shocked by the typical notion that Europe is accepting of all people. Dismantling this claim, Christian Ahlund, Chair of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, described the rising levels of palpable hatred against African people in many European countries. African Americans are not alone; systemic racism is without a doubt one of the largest defects or deficits of so-called modernity.

The data relayed to us by social science and more viscerally via social media relay the facts of police violence, race riots and discrimination in all areas of social policy, work opportunities and economic development. Also part of the panel was Ms. Samira Rice, mother of 12 year-old Tamir Rice who was fatally shot by police, and Mr. John Crawfords, father of John Crawfords III who was fatally shot by police when only 22-year-old. The frequency and apparent legitimacy of these shootings creates anxiety amongst African Americans, and on more than one occasion I have heard members of the community refer to this as terrorism, a feature of their lives and their children’s lives that is largely unfathomable to other ethnicities in the USA.  The UK’s African diasporic population also suffer at the hands of the police, but as officers in the UK are not armed, the frequency of death is phenomenally lower even while surveillance and stop and search practices are disproportionately higher than for other communities. Although there are differences in terms of systemic race profiling methodologies, other outcomes are very similar such as poverty, mental illness, chronic disease, one-parent families, and unconscionable rates of incarceration. We, visibly African-descended people, are a broken people, many of whom remain disproportionately spiritually committed to life despite our circumstantial familiarity with being at the bottom of the global hierarchy. In Britain, like the US, there are a few very significant exceptions of individuals who have reached stellar heights in their careers. Claims are made that their success transcends the notion of race, which we know is a social construction, making success possible for all. I, however beg to differ.

Color blindness is a naive idea, especially in western societies that use visual deduction as their primary cognitive mechanism: to see is to believe, is it not? This utopian idea of color blindness was assertively used by one of the panelists in his bid to articulate a race-less existence, which for him was a place of progress, whereupon the sight of someone of color would not cause immediate triggers of discriminatory action. This reach for color blindness is commendable but nigh impossible, lest we literally become blind. Research as well as common sense tells us that our emotions are part of our sensory and cognitive order and therefore to separate sight from feeling is futile, lofty theory. I, on the other hand, advocate that is what is needed is the opposite, which I call colorfulness. What do I mean by this? To see, hear, imagine and intuit an increasing gamut of difference in the spectrum of the world’s people, so that they can be recognized for their myriad of specific aesthetics, values and beliefs. To progress toward human holism means that as we first encounter difference, we must consider not labeling it using our own vocabulary and limited sensory apparatus, since this means only similar groups of people are able relate to our culturally specific impressions. With our limitations in check, then we can proceed with our curiosity such that it can evolve into respecting the cultural practices of others and perhaps eventually becoming as familiar with the values of others as with our own.

This is what, we, as African-descended peoples have done in making our homelands in the diaspora. The false notion that this learning is one-way needs to be examined. African descended people worldwide have taught the west as much as they have conformed and innovated however, the materiality of this side of the exchange has not been acknowledged. The infatuation has been to maintain an illusion of African-descended people as partial humans who are impoverished in all dimensions of intellectual, spiritual and cultural life. V.Y Mudimbe’s notion of the constant ‘infantilization’ of African life is an intellectual outcome of European “Afrophobia”, a term articulated by the third Keynote.

I have a hope; it is that intellectual contributions of visibly African-descended people can also be a topic of concern during this UN Decade. The forum however was not mainly concerned with such restitution, but also the more brutal side of racism, and it was moderator’s opening words that resonated most strongly with me during the event and long afterwards.

Mr. Bruce Knotts, Director, Unitarian Universalist Association United Nations Office offered a fitting metaphor, targeted at critics of the #Black Lives Matter movement when he said:

Of course, All Lives Matter and Police Lives Matter. However, when the Fire Department comes to your neighborhood, do you send the firefighters to all the houses, or to the house that’s on fire? For over 500 years, the house of People of African Descent has been on fire. While, some have succeeded and barriers for some have been lowered, for many, if not most, people of African Descent around the world, they live in a world facing bigotry in destructive forms which deny opportunities granted to others, denial of liberty while others go free and violence with frequency and intensity not experienced by others and which, all too often, ends in death. It is particularly tragic when this needless violence results in the death of children. It is not heroic, when a big burley man in a uniform throws a small teenaged girl of color on the floor. All too often, the big burley men who beat, shoot and kill black children, face no consequences for their unjustified violence. When society fails to punish unjustified violence against black men, women and children, it screams that Black Lives Don’t Matter. It is this callous indifference to Black Lives that requires all of us to scream back our conviction that Black Lives Do Matter!

Knott’s stark illustration of the house that is on fire should make us pay attention since one house easily can turn into two, and, if there are high winds, who knows what will happen within that neighborhood? That neighborhood happens to be our world and we are all neighbors, planting our seeds of hope or destruction in the same soil.

The end of this UN conference came very abruptly, causing agitation among the audience which was also filled with eloquent, erudite people who, due to lack of time, were unable to relay their questions and articulations beyond one or two initial contributions. Of this untimely ending, Brenda Dixon Gottschild remarked, “I felt that the Confronting the Silence event was a humbling example of the sad but true impotence of the UN. Established after WW II to be a global center promoting peace and understanding, the UN early on was monopolized by the “big guys,” USA, USSR, and China, and its activities soon became elite initiatives ignored and unknown by the grassroots populations of most of its member nations. So, too, this Decade for People of African Descent. There were no cameras rolling from the network channels or NPR to document this Confronting the Silence event. And the designated “Decade” is like some well-kept secret: who knows about it and, except for we members of “the choir,” who cares? WHO IS LISTENING?” This perspective, I am afraid to say, interfaces with the sentiments of others who observed from afar. Dele Olajide, MD, Senior Consultant Psychiatrist of the Maudsley Hospital, London posted a comment on my FB page when I announced the conference. He said, “Sorry to be a kill joy. People of African descent are not an endangered group or a contagion that could be sorted in a decade. The international community, especially the UN general assembly, lacks the capacity to implement such a programme even if it were desirable”. My desire to attend was not filled with an expectation to hear “fixit” remedies but rather to see who among the “choir” is ready to step out and change roles. I agree wholeheartedly with Olajide that we as African descended people “will only take our rightful place at the high table through good governance, commerce, scholarship, mastery of technology and media, rewriting the role of the African in world civilization.”

Along with him, I support the UN for setting up this review of the impact of slavery on African peoples as it is echoing the work that the young people are doing across American institutions of higher learning, calling into question the deeds of the past that have sewn the endowments of the present. To ignore the reality of the pressure under which African descended are oppressed, living with now scientifically measurable forms of aversive racism, which shapes the negative development of almost every institution in the modern world is, in my view, to condemn the longevity of our time on the planet. The events of the day tell us all that it is 11.59 and counting; Paris, Lebanon, Kenya and Nigeria are burning.

Sheron Wray is Associate Professor of Dance at the University of California, Irvine, as well as a choreographer and director.

Photography used with the permission of Isaac Humphrie, Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild and Sheron Wray. Attending the UN event was made possible with the support of UCI’s Office of the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor and its Global Engagement’s division, who immediately recognized the significance of the declaration.

References

http://www.un.org/WCAR/durban.pdf
http://www.ilo.org/indigenous/Conventions/no169/lang–en/index.htm
http://webtv.un.org/search/confronting-the-silence-perspectives-and-dialogue-on-structural-racism-against-people-of-african-descent-worldwide/4594719759001?term=confronting
http://www.un.org/en/events/slaveryremembranceday/memorial.shtml
http://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/upcoming-events.shtml
http://webtv.un.org/search/confronting-the-silence-perspectives-and-dialogue-on-structural-racism-against-people-of-african-descent-worldwide/4594719759001?term=confronting
Mudimbe, V.Y. (1988) The invention of Africa : Gnosis, Philosophy, and The Order of Knowledge. Bloomington : Indiana University Press.