Durban - Pharrell Williams, Raven Symoné and Donald Glover are The New Black – rich, famous and they don’t want to be tied down to their race.
What is this New Black I speak of? Well it’s a movement that musician Pharrell and his peers are part of and it’s about African-Americans not seeing anything according to race.
“I don’t know where my roots go to,” Symoné said in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
“I don’t know how back they go. I don’t know how far back, and I don’t know what country in Africa I’m from. I do know that my roots are in Louisiana. I’m an American, and that’s a colourless person because we’re all people. I have lots of things running through my veins. I’m an American. I have darker skin. I have a nice, interesting grade of hair.”
Her comments echoed those made by Williams to GQ and to Oprah earlier this year.
“The New Black doesn’t blame other races for our issues,” Williams told Oprah during his interview with the talk show host in April. “The New Black dreams and realises that it’s not pigmentation: it’s a mentality and it’s either going to work for you or it’s going to work against you.”
In the March issue of GQ magazine, he uttered a similar statement. “I’m a black man. I’m happy to be black, and anybody that is not happy to be black will point around and ask for that kind of sympathy. But the thing is, let’s not ask nobody for no more sympathy. Let’s get together ourselves and support ourselves.”
He also called on people to embrace the “New Black”, which he equated with high-profile success. “Oprah Winfrey: That’s the new black…President Obama, that’s the new black… Me: a guy that’s written a song at 40! Nominated for an Oscar, four Grammy awards – at 40! That’s the new black… Black ain’t a colour: Black is a spirit, and it is ubiquitous.”
Actors Zoe Saldana and Donald Glover, who also raps under the name Childish Gambino, raised eyebrows when they argued that people of colour don’t exist.
Not only has this outraged African-Americans, but it has opened up debate on how they identify themselves.
Wiliams’s comments were an Us vs Them situation. Us being Williams and his fellow wealthy African-Americans, and Them being the not so successful African-Americans. That old “I’ve worked hard to be successful, even though I’m black. You can do the same too,” rhetoric.
It’s for this reason that so many people are up in arms. Twitter comments during Symoné’s interview ranged from “What the f*ck”, to “She has lost her mind.”
A tweet from Dara Tafakari said it best: “Why is it when celebrities want to distance themselves from Blackness, they emphasise humanity? Why are the two seen as mutually exclusive?”
In her Salon piece on Symoné’s utterances, Brittney Cooper wrote that Symoné’s comments “bear the trace of the post racial rhetoric so prominent among certain (though not all) segments of millennials”.
And it’s evident in South Africa too.
During the recent black face furore in South Africa, students from the University of Free State and later, Stellenbosch University, thought it was cool and appropriate to dress up as black women and paint their faces black. While many people (of all races) were infuriated, there was an alarming number of black young Millenials who basically shrugged and didn’t think it was a big deal.
They would even call radio stations proudly state that they didn’t see anything wrong with it and South Africa should be past racial issues.
Symoné’s and Williams’s detachment from their race is a slap in the face of the struggles of black people in the US. Their comments sparked outrage because they raise questions about the politics of race and privilege.
Especially in a year where black lives seem to be very cheap.
Especially in a time where young, unarmed teenagers can lose their lives because of their race.
Especially when it’s still headline news that a network TV series’ lead character is a black female; especially when Shonda Rhimes with all her brilliance, still gets described as an angry black woman.
Especially when it’s a major news story when a black actor gets nominated for an Academy Award and in the unlikely event that they win, they are the toast of Hollywood, before they realise there are no other roles for them except slaves, maids and gangsters.
So Symoné’s comment that she doesn’t like to be labelled as African-American, but rather a colourless American, is not only her denying her race but she’s denying the history of black people in the US.
Yes, she may not have traced back her roots to Africa but the ironies in her comments are rich, especially since she got famous from being on The Cosby Show.
For them to believe that we now live in a post-racial world is unrealistic, naïve and dangerous.
Sunday Tribune