What is more important: being American or being Black?

Our patriotism is not in question: 17% of the population; 21% of the Army and 28% of all military. We have fought in every war on US soil, claiming the first fallen in the Revolutionary War (Crispus Attucks), and we have shown oftheralded valor abroad during all of our foreign wars.

This is our country!

Yet, the ongoing debate about the impact of race, racism, and the undeniable value of Blacks in Americasince its founding- has not been won.

What is that debate? How does one be Black in this country?

There were always freed Blacks, those who were never-enslavedmostly in the north- but the majority of Blacks were living in the rural, agricultural south.

What were their choices after being “freed”?

The immortalized debate about the best strategy to ease the new freedmen into the larger society between W.E.B. Dubois (who espoused, amongst other ideas, teaching the “talented tenth” to lead the newly emancipated Blacks) and Booker T. Washington (who preached self-sufficiency, personal industriousness and segregation) was a harbinger of the widening divide amongst Black folk today.

On hindsight, Dubois’s ideas might be called “liberal”, and Washington’s “conservative” by modern standards, but no doubt, while opposed in strategy and tactics, the two espoused beliefs to lift up the collective emancipated Blacks.

Yes, there is such a thing as conservative Blacks; usually Christian, some vote Republican (historically aligned with Lincoln- the great emancipator), and who hold certain beliefs that may appear to bely the collective status and standing of Blacks in the larger American polity.

While the majority of registered Black voters are aligned with the Democratic Party (especially after the 1950s when Dixiecrats moved to the Republican Party), current political belief systems range from defending a philosophy upholding rigorous individual responsibility, to demands for more federal government support, government interventions and corrections, including payment of reparations for the egregious sin of slaveryeven one hundred fifty years after the great emancipation!

Is there a definitive black or white (pun intended) answer to the questions raised? Like the argument between DuBois and Washington, the correct response is “no.”

There is no monolithic Black consciousness or ethos. We are Americans, and as such, we hold several truths at once. We are diverse: politically, racially, religiously, economically, etc.

Can there then be such a thing as a Black agenda? You know, one which addresses those who have not entered the “mainstream” of American life; one which offers a cure for the so-called marginalized, disenfranchised, neglected, impoverished, brutalized, and or those Blacks who walk amongst us: our brothers and sisters.

Does that sound like a liberal? Well, I am a Black woman- already relegated to certain boxes through the gaze of the “other.”

Wait! Do we even embrace the idea or notion that we are all brothers and sisters anymore? Or has that familial affinity fallen by the wayside, having been replaced with new concepts of ourselves as well off vs poor? Upper class, middle class, vs lower class? Republican, Democratic, conservative vs liberal? Urban vs rural? Entrepreneurial, professional, skilled, under/unemployed, or dependent? Educated vs ignorant? Religious or not? Fill in the blank.

With all these variety ways to be Black in the USA, there must be a pathway to a solution to either being fully “woke” (a lens through which to see how everything Black matters), and/or an alignment with the notion that individual Blacks should work to be part of the larger American landscape, e.g., grabbing on to the freedoms guaranteed by the laws of the land and their subsequent protections, and demanding representation in every sector of society.

I don’t think these are not mutually exclusive pursuits.

Once upon a time, when the newly freed people had literally nothing but their collective interests at the front of their minds, there was little debate about how to survive, nee thrive in their new circumstance.

We built institutions, banks, businesses, places of worship, schools, whole towns, etc.

What happened to us? A rhetorical question, I know. We are familiar with the history of intimidation, brutality, lynchings, and other acts committed to deny our humanity and render us lessor-than.

So, when/how did we become so American that we forgot that we are Black?

I don’t have the answer. But I do know this: if we don’t vote in every election, we lose our right to debate.

VOTE. Vote. Vote.

Toniwg1@gmail.com