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Cetshwayo Mabhena
ONE of the most traumatising books to read for a politically conscious and intellectually sensible black person is; Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa. The book is authored by one African American journalist, Keith Richburg. One of the nerviest highlights of the book is the part when Richburg thanks God first for his providence and then the American enslavers for their generosity in kidnapping his ancestors from Africa and enslaving them in America and ensuring that he was born an American in America. Richburg writes of what he describes as the diabolic evil and violence of Africans in Africa. Chilling descriptions of black dead bodies floating in a river after the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 are used by the angry and disgusted wordsmith to portray the darkness and bloodiness of Africa.
Richburg has been described, mainly by white right wingers and conservatives as a brave writer. Black voices, including South Africa’s foremost philosopher of the African Renaissance, Thabo Mbeki who found the book monumentally treacherous, rightly lament the book. As usual the American right wing and its conservative allies found succulent relish in a black person expressing his contempt for Africa and Africans. A review of Richburg’s alarming book is not the purpose of this article but the powerful allure and reality of identity politics is the gist.
The contemptuous descriptions of Africa that Richburg circulates in his book are not new; white racist writers, colonial explorers and some conceited western European intellectual tourists have written as such and as much about Africa. The scandal is that a black man and a descendant of Africa has joined the chorus that sings Africa in dark terms. Rightly or wrongly, it is expected that Richburg’s own black identity and African roots should have prevented him from thinking and writing of the continent in the way he has done.
The present world system characterises and handles people according to what they are, who they are and where they are. Biopolitics and geopolitics are the real politics in the globe. People are not only classified but are also hierarchised along the powerful lines of identity. Identity politics, otherwise, is compelling and the organising idea of global public life. Unlike UFOS, the Unidentified Flying Objects that float in the firmament, human beings wherever they are found under the sun are identity bearing subjects that are treated as such and that experience life in the terms and content of their identity.
The power of identity politics
Writers like Richburg can very easily be understood as black cowards and opportunists that sing for their lunch and supper by insulting Africa and Africans for the pleasure of white supremacists and right wingers. Because politically siding with America and intellectually validating white supremacy and tyranny can be rewarding black people that oil the white racist machinery are given the name of Judas himself, just as in the old ideologies of nationalism and patriotism sell-outs and traitors are treated with anger, hate and even violence in identity politics in general. As human beings and political animals we truly feel betrayed when one of our own sides with the enemy or the opponent. Identity politics frequently values loyalty more than truth and justice. Even if Richburg may, in some instances be right about tyranny and evil in Africa, black Africa will still feel sold out for lunch and dinner by a black brother who writes ill of the continent and its people.
In Africa we have held forceful ideologies from African communalism, African nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Marxism. From Ghana to Uganda and South Africa to Sudan Africans have carried passionate ideologies of struggle but ethnic and tribal loyalties have frequently taken a front seat ahead of African and national unities. South Sudan, for instance, is a proud country and nation that has liberated itself from Arabic North Sudan but the euphoria about that independence cannot stop the hatred, discriminations and killings between the Dinka and the Nuer tribes. The passions of identity politics, ethnic patriotism, have managed to outdo nationalism and national patriotism in Africa’s newest country.
The United States of America is a democratic country that was founded on the epical realisation that all human beings are born equal and have inalienable rights, but that realisation has not stopped the continuing racial discrimination of blacks and other non-white peoples. American national identity that is also white racial identity that boasts of democracy, human rights and human equality has failed to conceal its identity politics and the racial and ethnic prejudice that goes with it. Ideals of democracy and human rights do not seem to be able to suppress toxic identity politics with all its narrowness and smallness. Blood must truly be thicker than water even when it comes to politics and the struggle for power and resources in the world. When it comes to racial, ethnic, gender and other positionalities of identity politics even the cleverest people become idiots of prejudice and bigotry. Identity politics naturally stupefies.
Identity politic works like a legally binding contract. Where identity politics are in flourish, being a member of an identity group that is dominant works like an unwritten contract that binds one to duty and loyalty to defend the group by any means necessary, means fair and foul. To defend the group even at the dear expense of being publicly silly is what it takes to be a true member.
When a white woman from America confronts America
As a politically conscious black person I have no choice but to love Robin Diangelo. She is the brave white author of the good book; White Fragility: Why its so hard for White People to Talk about Racism. The book calls out white people, especially Americans for their anti-black racism. She recognises identity politics as an engine of history and the enemy of all minority identity groups in the world. She notes that “the term identity politics refers to the focus on barriers specific groups face in their struggle for equality.” In her correct observation it is thanks to identity politics that human beings are far from achieving equality and social justice.
Dominant identity groups, be they racial or ethnic, regional, gender or class groups, sit on the tables of power. Notably “the decisions made at those tables affect the lives of those not at the tables.” As a white person she acknowledges the difficulty of being a member of a dominant identity group and being able to see the injustice of her dominance. With or without intention the actions and decisions of dominant groups that sit on the tables of power create barriers for those that are not sitting on the tables. Powerful groups and individuals have no motivation to see or to remove the barriers that suffocate powerless people socially and politically. Men, for instance, as groups and individuals are not motivated to see the marginality of women or do they easily find any urge to remove the social and political barriers that block the progress of women. Identity politics and interests can be blinding to those that perpetrate and benefit from inequality and oppression. Oppressors and persecutors, in identity politics and elsewhere are usually conveniently blind to their decisions and actions that oppress their victims. It is exactly for that reason that the colonisers of Africa saw and thought of themselves as a gift from God for the natives.
In my view, unlike Richburg that is hated by black scholars for his treachery of Africa and Africans, Diangelo is not hated but she is feared by white supremacists and racists in America and outside. She fills them with guilt in her exposition of the way white supremacist identity operates and hides itself. She still presents keynote addresses in big conferences and publishes more books that press home her argument about “white fragility” and fear of justice and fairness. Richburg is hated, I think, because he chose the easy struggle of insulting and lampooning Africans and blacks that are already a weak and condemned group in the globe. He chose the easy path of entertaining Empire by laughing at victims, no matter how faulted those victims are in their own tyrannies and despotisms. While Richburg sought to court power and privilege, to curry favour with Empire, Diangelo gave up her power and privilege as a white American to confront the evil of white supremacy.
Power, Guilt and Fragility
Behind the massive power and strength of white America lies equally massive fear and guilt. Dominant identity groups, even if they are super powers live in fear of the individuals and groups that they oppress. Guilt haunts them and they move around the world with a heavy conscience that they hide behind bravado and political correctness. Identity politics and identity power are accompanied by fear of other identities and other powers. The persecution that is levied upon victims generates guilt and more fear. Guilt and more fear breed desperation and insanity itself. Many historical and political observers of our time have failed to understand that what appears to be the craziness, arrogance and sometimes limitedness of mind of Donald Trump is the weight of fear, guilt and fragility that accompanies the futile attempt of representing and defending power that has blood in its hands. Identity politics, especially blind patriotism to oppressive groups, drives individuals and groups insane. For a better world, identity politics needs to be decolonised and liberated from its prejudices and violences. Identity groups, racial, ethnic, gender, religious and class, can exist and defend their interests without persecuting and oppressing other groups in the world.
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from the University of Fort Hare in East London, South Africa: [email protected].
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