American Pride

As many of y’all - shoot, just about everyone reading this on FB should - know, I’m from South Florida. Everyone also knows that South Florida has a large population of people who come from the islands.

Note: if you’re from the islands (especially if you’re female), you’re liable to not like me very much by the end of this piece.

For some reason I thought back to a time in high school when I was asked this question (by one of my FB friends, actually)…

“Are you Jamaican, Haitian, from the Bahamas, or just black?”

Now I was slightly turned off by the question, but my level of offense isn’t what it should have been then and surely would be now. I think I even answered it, although I can’t remember the exact verbiage I used. Now as I recollect, I should have been a lot more upset. “Just black”? Seriously? As if I’m somewhat plain or something while folks from the islands are supposedly this exalted group of black people that are on a higher level simply because they or their ancestors made a detour from Africa and didn’t come straight to America.

I then started to think back from high school to now, and I came up with a rather interesting - and lengthy - set of memories in which people from the islands (many of whom I consider friends to this day) figuratively looked down on me because I’m American. Sometimes this amuses me highly, and sometimes it wears on my nerves. Below are some of the thoughts I have when dealing with such ideas.

1. If your country is so great, why are you here?

Now, I’m not anti-immigration in the least - so stop with that. I’m not even saying anyone should, say, root for the Americans in international athletic competitions (World Cup, Olympics, etc) rather than their countries of origin. Shoot, I don’t even root for the Americans most of the time. If someone wants to come and live here, that’s great - but that’s the thing: someone would want to come live here. The only people who did not come here are…us. Everyone else came under their own accord - including folks from the islands.

2. In the eyes of the majority of America (and I don’t mean just white people), people from the islands are the same “just black” that they like to call black Americans.

Let’s be real about this: in the grand scheme of things, a person of dark skin tone’s being from Haiti or Harlem, Jamaica or Jacksonville, the Bahamas or Birmingham…means as much as a person of light skin tone’s being from Italy or Indiana, from France or Fresno, from England or New England (it was too easy). Chris Rock once talked about this concept in Bigger and Blacker, and it’s true. Once again, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be proud of their heritage. I am saying that shooting down the heritage of others closely related to you in a societal sense does much more harm in a societal sense than it does good.

Now that I think about it, I can’t come up with any noticeable differences between my American and island friends…that don’t come from my island friends pronouncing their island heritage.

3. We built this country (in the South, quite literally). I think we deserve a little more credit from you, considering that you’re here largely because of us.

I guarantee you this country wouldn’t be what it is if black Americans weren’t as involved in its creation and growth as we were. If anything, it was our push for civil rights that finally forced America to realize its potential and live up to the words found in its most cherished documents (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, etc). The movement was the single biggest act in the history of humanity that did not distinctly involve war and/or religion. I’m not pretending that black Americans were the only participants, but it’s more than obvious that we were the primary contributors.

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Now I’m not saying that I hate my island (or African, as well) brothers and sisters. For anyone to think so would be ludicrous for a number of reasons. I am saying that in my old age and appreciable life experience that I’m growing tired of this seeming belief amongst my island brothers and sisters that they are somehow innately better than the rest of us. Quite frankly, such an attitude is no better than that which our melanin-deficient brethren have held over the rest of humanity since at least the Middle Ages - and the only reason it hasn’t had a similar worldwide effect is that the latter group controls a vast majority of the world’s resources.

Next time someone calls me a Yankee - and I’ve come to consider that term derisive, thanks to its usage - I’ll have a good mind to tell them that I’m not a Yankee and am an American. Owing to the above paragraph, it’s the same as a white person calling me a Negro - or me calling someone a wetback or making some absurd ‘banana boat’ reference.

I’m proud to be an American. Now, I’m not super red-white-and-blue and carrying flags everywhere I go (which, coincidentally, is what I think of when I hear the term ‘Yankee’); but I do have a certain sense of pride when it comes to this nation and the role my ancestors played in its history. I’m proud to come from people who overcame the largest atrocity in human history, who literally built a country that hated them, that pushed a ruling class to act against itself for the greater good, that did not shun its brothers and sisters who came from other places and make their experiences in America any more difficult than they already were. If you think that my being American makes me less of a person in any way, then I will use my American right to freedom of speech and tell you to kiss my Uncle Sam/my country 'tis of thee/apple pie/red white and blue…