frank talks – black is beautiful (6)
“The concept of integration, whose virtues are often extolled in white liberal circles, is full of unquestioned assumptions that embrace white values. It is a concept long defined by whites and never examined by blacks. It is based on the assumption that all is well with the system apart from some degree of mismanagement by irrational conservatives at the top.
Even the people who argue for integration often forget to veil it in its supposedly beautiful covering. They tell each other that, were it not for job reservation, there would be a beautiful market to exploit. They forget they are talking about people.
This is white man’s integration – an integration based on exploitative values. It is an integration in which black will compete with black, using each other as rungs up a step ladder leading them to white values. It is an integration in which the black man will have to prove himself in terms of these values before meriting acceptance and ultimate assimilation, and in which the poor will grow poorer and the rich richer in a country where the poor have always been black.
We do not want to be reminded that it is we, the indigenous people, who are poor and exploited in the land of our birth. These are concepts which the Black Consciousness approach wishes to eradicate from the black man’s mind before our society is driven to chaos by irresponsible people from Coca-cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds.” (pp100-101)
“We must accept that the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” (p100)
Above from – Chapter 14: Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity
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The BPC-SASO Trial of 1975 (which dragged on until December 1976) saw Steve Biko as the primary testifier – and ironically provided him an opportunity to be heard after three years of being banned. Chapter 15 – What is Black Consciousness provides an extract from the court transcripts in which Biko gives evidence.
The transcript is something else. I’m once again struck by Biko’s phenomenal patience in taking the time to explain to a racist court the A-B-C of how white supremacy corrupts the soul and how the desire for something other than such corruption is obvious. The irony of it all is of course that this is a court that will not be convinced by evidence. It is evidence in fact that will indict Biko. No doubt he knew this.
He gives evidence on how language (and particularly English) functions to negate metaphor and complexity in African life; how language and associated normative values presribed to its words are not innocent. In this context he explains how the slogan “black is beautiful” is adopted by the Black Consciousness approach to challenge “the very deep roots of the Black man’s belief about himself” and how it challenges “the way women prepare themselves for viewing by society…the way they dream, the way they make up…” -
“They sort of believe I think that their natural state which is a black state is not synonymous with beauty and beauty can only be approximated by them if the skin is made as light as possible, and their nails are made as pink as possible and so on. So in a sense the term ‘black is beautiful’ challenges exactly that belief which makes someone negate himself.” (p115)
Hola Niteflyer:
Chapter 14 must rate as my most favourite. Over the years I have connected so much of what Biko was saying then to the politics of multiracialism, non-racialism, and of course multiculturalism.
I used to let my students in a class on racism read the chapter alongside Malcolm X’s critique of multicultural integration.
I was interested to see if they (undergrads mostly) would see that Biko was saying that integration was not about freedom or inclusion but rather it was about power.
The kind of power that creates words and theories about self and community while hiding the overal genocide that is more than just implied.
Malcolm X in his autobiography speaks to the abuse of power that integration conveys. He argued that it was not enough to appoint a place at the table of integration for blacks, and Others.
What his politics sought in the period before he broke with the Nation was to “own the table”.
I see that he was speaking to the same liberatory themes that Biko raises in the present chapter.
Integration is about power, and particularly the power to redefine identity and existence in terms that reference the centrality of whiteness.
There can be no freedom in such an ‘appointment’ because it becomes nothing more than cosmetic arrangement while it also furthers the interest in erasure.
I see in Obama the dangers that both Biko and Malcolm X feared when they critiqued integration.
Obama’s black identity is a liberal cloak that does not threaten the seat arrangements at the table of integration.
The words and theories that define that conditional inclusion have been made clear and Obama has acted to remove any notion, real or implied, that his version of blackness is threatening to the power of whiteness.
Remember how he distanced himself from Pastor Wright by rejecting the notion of black theology and a black critique of whiteness, etc.
What has emerged is a conditional existence for blacks and Others. I say ‘existence’ because I believe that what Biko was saying, and in the pains he took to explain as you write, was a honourable attempt to say that black folk exist independent of whiteness.
This argument befuddles the white court because the assumption is that blacks are contained by their relationship to white notions of existence and identity.
Biko, Fanon, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and others contest that assumption and that unsettles the coherence of whiteness. For this reason Biko’s emphasis on “Black in Beautiful” is revolutionary and dangerous to entrenched whiteness (particularly the liberal kind).
I remember one white student asking me if Biko and others were saying that “white is ugly”. I said that Biko was talking about being black and blackness as politcal struggle.
I think the student became irritated because she thought I was avoiding her question.
But therein lies the power of the chapter (in my view), it is a critique of whiteness and notions of liberal integration without rendering blackness connected to either.
Thanks for writing sista. I am happy to see you pressing on with this very valuable discussion.
Holla when you can.
Peace to you.
Ridwan
Hey Ridwan,
Excellent commentary here thank you. It’s sparked so much around highly contestable “universal” notions like integration, peace, democracy.
I’m also itching to answer your student’s question by saying that if black is beautiful then yes white is not if you wish to see one as diametrically opposed to the other. But if you don’t – because as Biko says let’s not forget that we are talking about people – then at best you can only see the two notions as paradoxically linked to each other.
It’s like a parent who cannot claim ownership over their child’s thoughts or being or what he/she will become. Whiteness may have birthed white supremacist racism, but it cannot control what this becomes…’black is beautiful’ is like the beautiful offspring of a monstrous parent because whilst opposition to the monster is what drives and informs it – it’s point of reference is no longer that of the monster.
And keeping with the metaphors – your reference to Obama’s “cloak” reminds me of your recent post and the spared Thanksgiving turkey – and how Roy sees the evolution of New Racism today. For now, he might just be the turkey that got away. He got away because his function is possibly the most important in the history of white America – to quell domestic dissent and to give to the US renewed global moral authority.
Thanks for bringing Biko into the now – and for the continued support in this sometimes-trying experiment ;-P
shanti shanti
nf