Is There Truly an American Identity We Can All Strive For?
September 19, 2023, a Tuesday that was becoming more regular since classes had been going on for two weeks by this time. Already within two weeks I had learned so much about varied understandings of ethnicity and nationalism as well as the forms of nationalism; them being civic and racial nationalism. Lecture after lecture, I started to become engulfed with the idea of the American identity; what it is, what makes a person an American, and how one can be recognized as a proud and rightful citizen of this country that has a contentious history, and a rather unsavory way of accepting it. I meditated heavily on this after and between classes, even while doing the Perusall assignments for Sensoy and DiAngelo’s “Is Everyone Really Equally?”, Gary Grestle’s “American Crucible”, and beyond. It wasn’t until the lecture, the September 19th PPT6 one that centered around one of our course readings, that I truly began to see how America has been operating against marginalized communities. I saw it in the interview with my friends, and even more down the line in class when we discussed the economic inequality experienced here. I truly believe that economic inequality is in part fueled by the concepts of necropolitics and necrocitizenship. As I sat there listening to my interviewee Renee tell me her experiences with homelessness as well as listening to my other interviewee Hachi’s experiences with racism, I could not help but realize that their responses as well as my teachings were reasons why I have so much tension with being nationalistic towards this country. A question popped into my head as well: “Does one have to die, or suffer tremendously in order to be recognized in this country?
To begin, I’d like to define necropolitics and necrocitizenship. During the lecture (Shakow Lecture ANT 315-1238, 2023) we learned that the term necropolitics was created by the philosopher Achille Mbembe as a means to describe the mentality that governments possess. It is how our government views us, the citizens, as disposable or not. Necrocitzenship falls under this too, and how it is displayed is through patriotic citizenship. According to the authors of Fencing in Democracy it is how people reenact their sacrifices to the state in ways that try to elicit empathy, a major sacrifice being the joining of the military. Since the Civil War this has been a way for African Americans to show their patriotism to the country despite being dehumanized through the act of chattel slavery and Jim Crow. Even while risking their lives to fight for the country, they were still treated as unequal to their White American brethren. It wasn’t until July 26, 1948 that the military was desegregated by the president at the time, Harry Truman, a president who was known for being openly racist to African Americans. What made him rethink his views was the case of Isaac Woodard Jr., a fellow soldier who was brutally assaulted and permanently blinded after an attack by police officers in Batesburg, SC. You see Isaac was under the guise that if he fought in the army with a nation that was fighting against facism and discrimination he would be able to come home to full access to his citizenship as an American (Ephron, 2021). Instead, only hours after discharge, he was met with the brutality of racism at the hands of people who were supposed to be servants of the law. A system of law that later on would fail him again when after only 30 minutes of deliberation by an all White-jury ruled his perpetrator not guilty (Ephron, 2021). Now I am well aware of this example being the display of necrocitizenship and necropolitics at the social level, and although there were strides made in terms of the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, we are not post-Civil Rights. We are still raging on. A side of the Civil Rights Movement that isn’t always highlighted is the fight for economic equality, something I think is extremely paramount for any citizen of any country. My interviewees Renee and Hachi can attest to this.
The women I conducted my interviews with were immensely informative not only for the subject, but also for our relationship since outside of this assignment we are friends. I was able to further understand them as human beings with complex experiences. To start, Renee identifies as an African American woman and hails from Trenton. We first discussed her upbringing in terms of socio-economic status as well as her surrounding community. “I grew up around people who looked like me and who are latino,” she recalls fondly as she dives into her memories of her community being so loving towards her. After this I had to remove her from that kind of happy daze with my question related to her economic status. Her resiliency shows as she then lays her experiences of homelessness, house hopping, and money not always being readily available onto me, a hint of sadness lingering in her voice. “I was living in a place of lack so to speak. So it’s like more or less lack” (Moore Interview with “Renee” 2023). As a fellow African American this experience felt too familiar; It caused me to instantly feel disheartened at the fact that another person I know has gone through this. As the interview progressed the topic of race entered, and when it did I couldn’t help but think about how race and class had become so intertwined together. The same can be said for my other interviewee Hachi whose experience encompasses both race and immigration. The fact that she literally became a naturalized citizen instead of a birthright citizen as a Jamaican American can be a key factor in understanding how people pick and choose who is American. In an air of annoyance Hachi (Moore Interview with “Hachi 2023) talks of her experiences as being perceived as African American after losing her accent from a very young age. “It is understandable since I don’t have a Jamaican accent…it’s like, it’s like, I don’t want to keep telling people I’m Jamaican,” she says. Following the steps of living the American Dream, her father moved their family into the suburbs of South Haven, Mississippi. The suburbs, however, ain’t what it all chopped up to be if you are struggling to make ends meet. Hachi tells of how her father had to work two jobs to keep the house afloat. She recalls her experiences of having to be home alone or come home to an empty house since her father was at work. Later on down the line we discussed the topic of immigration in depth and this was said:
“If someone lived in America for 30 years or 40 years and they haven’t been documented, they don’t have the money, or there could be any other reason why they haven’t gotten their papers yet to have them recognized as American citizens. It’s just like for so long I’ve worked in America, I’ve basically given my life, and I pay taxes like I did so much for the American Government like I do like any other regular American citizen. Why do I just need papers like what she says? Why do you need papers? If you just live here and you engage yourself into the culture?”
I think these questions not only apply to her situation but also the situation of other Americans who may not have become citizens through naturalization. When you examine the experiences of African Americans in this country, these same questions apply. They do the things that every citizen is required to do, they try to work jobs that will give them a comfortable life all the while also engaging in American culture. So why is it that they do not have full access to their citizenship? My answer concerns the economic inequality that is rooted in a racist system that, from the beginning, was not meant to give African Americans a chance to succeed.
When you look at the racial formation in this country you start to see how class was the union in which Black and White folks were able to have a common ground. Bacon’s Rebellion was the time when enslaved Africans and indentured White servants united with a common cause: to stop the wealthy elite from reaping the benefits of their labor without compensation. It was after the failure of the rebellion that brought about the process of racial formation which is the creation of racial categories along with hierarchies (Shakow Lecture ANT 315-1238, 2023) It was after this that one is able to see how class and race came to intersect. Even the poor White folks over time began to look down on a group of people that were once their allies. Through racist ideology with a system that backed this, the notion of Black folks being below White folks came to be. They unconsciously knew that their privilege of being White afforded them mobility no matter what. Following the Civil War, sharecropping became the job that guaranteed low wage as well as a form of control over former enslaved folks. Many historians have even said it was slavery without the explicit title. The story of Clyde Ross reflects this as he shared how his family would barely make a living doing this job (The Atlantic “The Case…” 2014). Coates (2014) said in his piece if cotton was selling for 50 cents a pound, the Ross family might only get a maximum of 15 cents which is the equivalent of saying they only got 30 percent while their “employer” got 70 percent. This was barely a living wage to keep the family afloat. Clyde would go on to serve in the army since he wouldn’t have to work the fields. He would come back from the war in 1947 and eventually buy a house in 1961 with his wife in North Lawndale. Instead of being afforded the benefits of the 1944 GI Bill that gave the exclusive privileges of education scholarships, low-interest home loans, and job placement to white men, he was forced to purchase “on-contract” (The Atlantic “The Case…” 2014). This was a predatory agreement that essentially made sure the house he bought wasn’t his. He could gain equity on the home which would create wealth for the family. This is just one of many instances of economic injustice. One example I’d like to highlight is the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 since it was during the time of Jim Crow, where the “Separate but Equal” doctrine rained true, and that despite this White folks could not stand to see Black people succeed. They created their own neighborhood only to have it destroyed by a White mob who vandalized businesses, stole from the shops and burned them. This was the result of a confrontation between them and Black people rallying behind a man named Dick Rowland who some say was falsely accused of a crime against a White woman named Sarah Page (“1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Ongoing). They knew that something would happen if he was alone so in order to protect their own they gathered together to fight. Their right to defend themselves as both American citizens and human beings was not understood since the White mob had only one intention: to destroy them.
The question I posed at the beginning of this essay stems from a personal search for patriotism. As described in Professor Shakow’s lecture, nationalism is “‘a sense of ethnic community combine[d] with a desire to create and maintain a nation-state in a location where that sense of common destiny can be lived out. (Guest 2015:169)’” (Shakow Lecture ANT 315-1238, 2023). The American ideals of liberty, justice, and opportunity for all have, in my personal opinion, only been afforded to a certain demographic of people. The dominant culture in our country is centered on the White one. Eurocentrism bleeds through our curriculums, through our laws, and all of the systems within America. To have a president only view the American identity as a means of take and dispose is in itself necropolitics. In “American Crucible” (Grestle, 2001) we come to understand Theodore Roosevelt’s idea of civic nationalism, a notion of nationalism that is focused on civic duty rather than racial purity, was inscribed with racial notions where he wanted to benefit from the marginalized communities’ labor while simultaneously believing that discriminating against these groups was “necessary to form an exemplary race”. He makes it clear that this nation was only meant to serve a specific set of people. No matter how many times modern day conservatives along with some neo-liberals try to preach we are in a post-racial society where race does not play a role in our daily lives, one cannot look at statistics concerning the wealth gap of African American families and believe that wholeheartedly. Despite having the same incomes high- and middle-income White families tend to be more wealthier than Black families with the same income. This is due to the fact that White families had the opportunities to accumulate wealth and have it passed on intergenerationally ( McIntosh “Examining the Black-white wealth gap” 2020). White people weren’t left out of the GI Bill, or had their areas redlined just because of their race. They didn’t have to serve in the military to be considered American. All they had / have to do is be. By simply being born on this soil, they are true Americans. I believe the reason why I have so much tension with showing patriotism is because of the denial of its history.
As I conclude this essay I come to find that there is truly one answer to my question, that answer being yes. There is one American identity that we can all strive for. In order to get there, however, is through reconciliation with not only the people of this nation, but also the ideals. For many years we have deluded ourselves into believing that we are a great nation without any faults. That everything that happened in it and outside of it was for the betterment of the nation. That is not the way to look at this country because it denies every marginalized persons’ lived experiences. This isn’t a conversation isn’t only affecting us. All around the world people are grappling with their country’s history and how it affects them. In the words of Anna Saubrey who questions the German identity: “A modern nation-state cannot be built on an ontological notion of who belongs and who does not, whether it’s outright ethnic or pseudo-cultural. It needs to build on the notion of the nation of community…” (What is German, 2016).
Bibliography
Brookings Institution / McIntosh, Kriston. 2020. “Examining the Black-white wealth gap”.
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Diaz-Barriga, Miguel and Dorsey, E. Margaret. 2020. “Introduction”. Fencing in Democracy. Duke University Press. Pg. 11-12
Gerstle, Gary. 2001. “Introduction.” In American Crucible. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pg. 6
Shakow, Miriam. 2023. ANT 315-01 Lecture “Racial Formation.” The College of New Jersey. September 8.
Shakow, Miriam. 2023. ANT 315-01 Lecture “What are Race, Ethnicity, and Nationhood.” The College of New Jersey. September 1.
The Atlantic / Coates, Ta-Nehisi. 2014. “The Case for Reparations”.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
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The Blinding of Isaac Woodard. 2021. Directed by Jamila Ephron. PBS.
https://www.pbs.org/video/chapter-1-blinding-isaac-woodard/
1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Ongoing. “TulsaHistory”.
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The New York Times/ Saurbreuy, Anna. 2016. “What is German?”.
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Washington Post / Brown, L. DeNeen. 2021. “A Black WWII veteran was beaten and blinded, fueling the civil rights movement”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/03/31/isaac-woodard-truman-integration-military/
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