WHAT IS MISSING FROM DEI CONVERSATIONS ON RACIALISED 'African Heritage People?
Updated: Aug 2
One of the difficulties with the generic terminology of DEI meaning Diversity and its cousins Equality and Inclusion (pertaining to race) lies in the way in which their approach avoids awareness of some racial 'red herrings,' or 'elephants in the room.'
Many people are aware that the history of DEI in the UK is related to the history of discrimination and prejudice. In particular racial prejudice. If 1980s Anti Racism and Multiculturalism along with section11 funding are the parents then DEI is the grandchild. Narratives around race concerning African Heritage people in the UK often shift from talking about enslavement or colonialism, possibly including the 17th century 'blackamoor' presence in London and the more contemporary 'Windrush generation,' which is very relevant at this time in 2023.
However when we focus solely on anti melanin rich (often erroneously called ‘black’) racism and discrimination, we might notice that the narratives often omit some key facts of Wholestory (not history or his story): in particular the Wholestory of that land of melanin rich people which is now called Africa.
In the past, the European dehumanisation of Africans was accompanied by a verbal and visual discourse which made it possible to think of Europe as a saviour, somehow helping and assisting the development of a dark continent of backward and childlike people. The question is what where they developing from, according to this discourse? From barbarism, savagery, devilish 'witch doctors' and cannibalism is the answer. Does this ring any bells?
Nowadays the discourse or narratives on Africa and the Caribbean are slightly different, still savagery, (civil wars complete with warlords and feral child soldiers etc), but now incompetence, poverty and corruption have taken centre stage instead of barbarism and cannibalism. The story of ‘aid’ for ‘the needy Africans,’ is essentially a reworking and rewording of the colonial narrative of what Rudyard Kipling called the “White Man’s Burden:” translating the European task of conquest and therefore development of the poor, backward benighted Africans.
In contemporary times, the notion and practice of being an ally has arisen. The anti-oppression network, says that allyship is: "an active, consistent, and arduous practice of unlearning and re-evaluating, in which a person in a position of privilege and power seeks to operate in solidarity with a marginalized group."
This is not just about race, however the idea is that in relationship to racialised 'black' people, racialised 'white' people should work on themselves to recognise their own biases, prejudices and role in the painful history (his story) of enslavement, colonialism and then racist discrimination of African heritage or Melanin Rich people. In my opinion, it is good that that is understood and I personally support allies in this crucial work. However have you ever noticed, that the starting point (enslavement) of the above trauma time line kind of suggests that racialised 'black' people have always had a problem with being oppressed by racialised 'white' people (or Arab people before them. It does not start where it should in my opinion, with African or Melanin Rich preeminence in the world. Yes, racialised 'white' people recognise their role in 'white privilege' and 'white supremacy, but the story told in this does not debunk the 'African people used to be savages' view. It doesn't ever mention that so called 'earlier European viewpoint, it ignores it. That does not mean it is still not there though after all everyone knows that there were Africans in ancient times and everyone knows they lived before slavery. This being the case, here's a question for you:
How would you as an ally answer the question of 'how do you think the Africans lived in those pre enslavement and colonialism days?'
If no one has ever asked you this, then perhaps you have never thought about it? If you are a staunch ally and despite all your personal work, your answer evokes Tarzan and King Solomon's Mines type images. That means that these type of images and the thoughts related to them dominate your unconscious imagination in relation to the Africa and Africans of this question. You can probably get why that is a little problematic right? Does it not suggest a new and deeper work strand needing to be done to underpin the integrity of your allyship and by definition therefore, your DEI work? I argue that beyond 'unconscious bias' there is a more than common unconscious acceptance in UK racialised 'white' people of African backwardness. So if in our deepest darkest minds we do really believe that Africans and therefore by extension all Melanin Rich people are 'savage' in their essential nature, what does that mean for our approach to DEI? Is that a problem worth examining?
if Africans really were like this above depiction, then that means really Europe did civilise cannibals and devilish cult worshipers. If so , current day disparities may be horrid and reprehensible, but could also be seen as a part of a process of bringing the savage in to the present day.
That's a hard thing to think right? however when a few years ago I asked my racialised 'white' colleagues in a youth programme caring for many racialised 'black' young people the following question "When Europeans first landed in Africa south of the Sahara, what did they see? Not one of them said beautiful cities, complex buildings, well respected universities, knights, palaces, irrigation and giant market places. Instead they said the following,,, and I quote.
"In my view it was a beautiful natural land and perhaps not so many people? Hunter gatherers?"
"Some villages made out of natural materials, perhaps many villages, but no complex metropolitan areas.".
"Small farms within forests?"
"People drumming dancing and making great music. Living in a mostly natural environment in harmony with nature."
"When I was at school there was an assumption that Europeans encountered 'savagery' in Africa and the image of the white missionary in the cannibals pot was common: only half a joke. I unquestioningly accepted that ancient Africa was "more uncivilised" than Europe without ever having had that discussion and I can see that lots of arguments and discussions I've been part of proceed from that assumption. More recently I have read that Africa was home to some of the earliest civilisations and is in fact the cradle of civilisation. Not just ancient Egypt but I also read about a magnificent Islamic kingdom in Ghana. So I'm starting to see that basic assumption was completely wrong. "
I would like to tip my hat to the last colleague quoted (although she did not work with the same organisation), I think that she was brave to be vulnerable enough to tell the truth about her unconscious perceptions. Despite the fact that the Ghana she is talking about is not present day Ghana and neither was it originally not solely Islamic her comments introduce the need for a rebalancing, an introduction to some elements of Africa that are potentially not widely known
THIS IS THE ANCIENT CITY OF BENIN, COMPOSED OF THE WORLD' LARGEST EARTHWORKS CARRIED OUT BEFORE THE MECHANICAL ERA: FOUR TIMES LONGER THAN THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.
This is just one of the images that tell the story of an enlightened people, who were masters (in many cases queens) of the international gold trade for countless centuries.
Thinking about academic subjects, the ancient people of Egypt and Nubia were obviously progenitors of mathematics: (how for example did they build pyramids composed of equilateral triangle sides centuries before Pythagoras postulated his theorem)?
THE GREAT SPHINX IN THE FOREGROUND OF THE PYRAMID OF CHEOPS AT GIZA: EQUILATERAL IN FORM.
ALSO WHAT RACIALISED FEATURES CAN YOU SEE ON THE ANCIENT SPHYINX (Despite the destruction of the nose)?
"FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF DID YOU KNOWS...
Did you know..?
1. that in the West African empires of the Sahel (Ghana, Mali and Songhai) there were African Knights? Complete with a code of chivalry and honour, similar to the Japanese way of Bushido.
2. That the Moors (a mixture of Africans and Arabs) conquered Southern Europe from 700AD for 800 years to 1492 (does this latter date ring a bell)? They were responsible for the science, philosophy, archetecture and maths etc that sponsored the renaissance in Europe
3. That the Nubians were a hegemonic force in North Africa in ancient times and also built pyramids (more than 200 still remain in Sudan).
4. Africans were adepts of fractal maths https://ted.com/talks/ron_eglash_the_fractals_at_the_heart_of_african_designs?language=en
5. "Africans were inventors and innovators as blacksmiths. Their iron works were of such high quality that traders from Europe and elsewhere sought them as exports as early as the 11th century" according to William Dewey a co-curator and art historian at Penn State University) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/05/industrial-revolution-iron-method-taken-from-jamaica-briton?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
6. That along with ancient Benin pictured earlier Africans were creators of many ancient civilisations and cities considered to be “amazing” by contemporary Europeans and Arab visitors such as Timbuktu, Axum, Meroe Great Zimbabwe and many more.
ONE OF THE 12th CENTURY CHURCHES OF LALIBELA, A MONOLITH CARVED OUT of A GRANITE MOUNTAIN IN PRESENT DAY ETHIOPIA. SCIENTISTS ARE STILL PUZZLED WHY THE WALLS HAVE NO CHISEL MARKS AND ARE SMOOTH EVEN THOUGH CARVED HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO BEFORE THE ADVENT OF THE MECHANIC ERA!
THE RUINS OF THE CITY OF GREAT ZIMBABWE IN CURRENT ZIMBABWE. CAPITAL OF A GREAT NATION DURING THE LATE IRON AGE AND SPANNING AN AREA 7.22 KILOMETRES SQ
Furthermore Africans were magicians of musical therapy or the use of music to heal and to enlighten. Imagine an ancient people for whom a judge had to be the person most lauded as honest and in possession of integrity, judged by the entire people to be so, before they could become judges. Imagine if that is how we elected judges in our current paradigm?!?
Also let us remember that melanin Rich people are the first humans and were everywhere on earth. It would be more truthful than not to say there is no time or place that the beginners of civilisation were not melanin Rich. In fact it could be said that ‘melanin Rich people are Everywhere and EveryWHEN.’ What say you to that?
Without this narrative of a time when melanin rich people, their culture and their civilisations were shining examples on earth: being part and parcel of the conversation of racism in conjunction with issues of diversity, then we begin the conversation from a standpoint that can never meet resolution. As an example, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa met they did not discuss the prior African civilisation that the Boers overthew, the civilisation that had been destroyed by them. Truth therefore was not their starting point in proceedings. How then could they ever truly redress the wrongs caused? How then could those suffering the hurt and pain of the destruction of that civilisation, of that early horror ever be truly reconciled?
The type of narratives that obfusicate African wholestory are globally ubiquitous. The Melanin Rich led ancient civilisations in Asia, South America and Europe are despite wholestorical evidence treated as myths by the academic hegemony of said regions: this is not an approach limited to Europeans or Caucasians. It is also part of the reason why BAME is often a problematic label for melanin rich African heritage people in the UK.
In my view DEI without the re-emergence of a history that valourises the African human can never truly be satisfying to African or melanin rich consiousness as it will always leave a sense of incompletion, causing an unstated bitterness in many. Let’s consider this when we talk about issues of diversity particularly in relation to race.