A Diverse -- and Divided -- Black Community
As Foreign-Born Population Grows, Nationality Trumps Skin Color

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 24, 2002; Page A01

NEW YORK -- Nearly two decades have passed since Odehyee Abena Owiredua
arrived here from Ghana, yet she can't truly say she has lived the black
American experience.

She once rented an apartment in Harlem, but "I didn't feel comfortable
around African Americans," she said. And though friends believe she
resembles the strikingly attractive hip-hop singer Lauryn Hill, she said,
"I have not dated an African American, because very, very few approach me."

"I love black people, but there is a negative relationship between
immigrants and African Americans," said Abena Owiredua, 34. "They look down
at me, not at me. I feel inferior around them. It's the ignorant questions
I get. 'Do you guys live in houses over there?' When I get those kinds of
questions from black Americans, I feel very hurt."

As she talked on the dimly lit mezzanine of the Times Square hotel where
she works, Abena Owiredua described a little-known reality: America's black
community, which now includes more West Indian and African immigrants than
ever, is no longer the monolithic group that many politicians, civil rights
advocates and demographers say it is.

A new African American community is being forged, sociologists and
anthropologists say, in which culture and nationality are becoming more
important than skin color. It is as diverse -- and as divided -- as the
Latino community or the Asian American community, each made up of migrants
from numerous nations.

In Miami, the West Indian population -- now 48 percent of the black
community -- is expected to surpass the native-born African American
population within eight years, according to Census Bureau projections. In
New York City, nearly one-third of the black population is foreign-born,
according to an analysis by demographer William H. Frey. And an analysis of
census figures by the Boston Globe showed that one-third of the black
population in Massachusetts is foreign-born.

The foreign-born black populations of Washington and Maryland are steadily
growing, according to Frey's analysis of 1970 Census data and the 2001
Current Population Survey.

In Washington, nearly 8 percent of the black population is foreign-born, up
from 1 percent in 1970. In Maryland, more than 5 percent of black adults
are foreign-born, compared with one-half percent three decades ago.
Virginia's black immigrant population remains small, up to only 2 percent
from one-half percent in 1970.

"This is an important story for demographers and policymakers who are used
to lumping together the black population," said Frey, a white University of
Michigan demographer. "The foreign-born African Americans and native-born
African Americans are becoming as different from each other as foreign-born
and native-born whites, in terms of culture, social status, aspirations and
how they think of themselves."

In New York, the brown-complexioned man or woman on the street could easily
be Haitian, Jamaican, Senegalese or Nigerian. In Boston, they may be Cape
Verdean. In Washington, they might be Ethiopian, Eritrean or Somali.

Yves Colon, a Haitian immigrant who grew up in Brooklyn and now lives in
Miami, said black students at his high school thought "I was just another
brother until I opened my mouth." Donnette Dunbar of Harlem said black
Americans seem surprised when she returns their greetings with an accent
flavored by Jamaican patois.

"Black is very diversified," said Flore Zephir, a Haitian who is an
associate professor of Romance languages at the University of Missouri.
"White people don't see it because they lump everyone together and don't
take into account nationality and culture. Haitians resent being lumped
together with other groups. This doesn't mean they don't know they're
black. They consider the classification that you're either black or you're
white very nefarious."

And therein lies the root of the conflict.

Unity and Diversity
That black-white classification is uniquely American, a fact of history
that has persisted since it was laid down by Virginia slaveholders in the
1700s. Black Americans, no matter how dark or light complexioned, were
united in their suffering.

By the 1950s, historians say, black unity led to the formation of the
modern civil rights movement and created a powerful Democratic voting bloc
to fight white oppression. In the '60s, black unity became "Black Power"
and "Black Is Beautiful." Black people acknowledged each other as
"brothers," developed elaborate handshakes ending in hugs and spoke slang
to communicate dissenting thoughts past the ears of white people.

But the fact of black unity in everyday life, and the history that led to
it, was lost on many of the black foreigners who started arriving in droves
after the 1965 Immigration Act -- which African Americans were instrumental
in getting passed.

Unlike black people in the United States, West Indians and Africans grew up
among black majorities that were ruled by black governments. "Black Is
Beautiful" was a given, as was black pride, because there was no
white-imposed segregation after their liberation from slavery and
colonialism.

It almost goes without saying that black people of all persuasions also
share a bond, said Jemima Pierre, a Haitian American and doctoral candidate
in the African diaspora program at the University of Texas in Austin. She
mentioned Jamaican Marcus Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro
Improvement Association and its Black Star shipping line during the Harlem
Renaissance for return trips to Africa.

Randall Robinson in 1977 founded TransAfrica, an organization dedicated to
black causes and bringing together people of African origin. In Ghana, the
Pan African Congress concerns itself with African American affairs every
time it meets.

In pop culture, two of the most popular black hip-hop artists are a
Haitian, Lauryn Hill, and a Jamaican, Trevor Smith, also known as Busta
Rhymes.

While researching a book on Haitians, Flore Zephir found that those who
grew up in the United States were less critical of African Americans than
their elders.

"They tend to want to identify with African Americans," she said. "They do
not have an accent, so they know they can pass as African American. They
change the pronunciations of their names. Michel becomes Michael, Pierre
becomes Peter, Mathieu becomes Matthew."

Garry Pierre-Pierre, editor of the Haitian Times in New York, said he grew
to see America differently than his mother, who was slightly suspicious of
African Americans.

"You see white Americans point to foreign-born blacks as role models," he
said. "But there's a hypocrisy in their selection of this role-model
immigrant. Haitians are being shot down by police just like African
Americans."

The New York chapter of the NAACP joined Haitian and African organizations
in protesting New York police treatment of Haitian Abner Louima, who was
sodomized with a nightstick in 1997, and Amadou Diallo, an unarmed
immigrant from Guinea who was shot dead by detectives on the front stoop of
his Bronx apartment building two years later.

But lately, the issues that divide the black community in New York have
attracted almost as much attention as the incidents that bring them
together.

Mutual Suspicion

Last year's Democratic primary between Una Clarke, a Jamaican American, and
Rep. Major R. Owens, a black American, ranked as one of the nastiest fights
ever over a congressional seat in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
During a forum, Clarke, a former City Council member, declared, "I'm not a
black American. I identify as a black person, but you cannot take my
identity and call me something else." She also said Owens was almost
dismissive when it came to immigration issues West Indians care about.

Owens won the race by garnering votes from black and white Americans. In
the process, he labeled Clarke, his former protégé, a liar. He also
compared her campaign for West Indian votes to Nazism.

"Whether it's [Joerg] Haider in Austria or Adolf Hitler," Owens said, "when
you appeal to ethnic loyalties as a way to ascend to power, it is the worst
possible way to come to power." Owens is a member of the Congressional
Black Caucus, made up of black politicians who campaign hard on black
issues to get black votes.

In North Miami, Josaphat "Joe" Celestin, a Haitian American, became the
city's first black mayor after an election in May. It was an extraordinary
achievement for Haitians, who were long denied immigration status by the
United States even as white Cubans were welcomed into South Florida. But
along with cheers, Celestin was greeted by a barrage of telephone threats
and racial epithets -- from black Americans.

"It's shocking, the amount of animosity and suspicion," said Marvin Dunn,
chairman of the psychology department at Florida International University
in Miami. Dunn studied the divide between African Americans and West
Indians when Haitian and black American students brawled in Miami public
schools in the 1980s.

"Whether you talk to Haitians, Bahamians, Jamaicans or Africans about
African Americans, you hear the same things," Dunn said. " 'They are
violent, they don't respect their elders, they have no sense of family,
they don't want to work, they depend on welfare.' "

Black Americans are no more tolerant of immigrants, Dunn said. "When you
talk to African Americans about the immigrants, you hear, 'They're here to
take our jobs. They'll work for nothing. They're cliquish. They smell. They
eat dogs. They think they're better than us,' " he said. "There's no moral
high ground here."

Sometimes, even love doesn't lead to an answer, Dunn said: "There's much
more intermarriage and dating between black groups than blacks and whites,
but not all that much. I wouldn't overstate the point.

"A Haitian wants his daughter to marry a Haitian. A Bahamian wants their
daughter to marry a Bahamian. The reverse is also true. African American
mothers tell their sons that Haitian girls are not clean."

Courtship Amid Conflict

Detroit native Sunni Khalid learned that things were not so different in
Africa when he interned at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1982. While
walking to work one day, he saw Zeinab Said, a striking Somali, from across
the street and followed her to work.
He quickly learned that like most Somalis, Said is extraordinarily proud of
her heritage. It took everything he had learned of African history at
Howard and Johns Hopkins universities to convince her that he could
understand her more than most foreigners.

But that was only the first barrier the couple had to overcome. Said's
relatives, especially her brother-in-law, frowned on the affair, calling
Khalid the son of a slave.

"They wanted me to marry a Somali," she said. Soon, Somali men she did not
know were knocking on her door. "I didn't want to marry someone simply
because he was a Somali," Said said. The brother-in-law forbade Said's
sister from attending the wedding.

When Khalid and Said moved to Washington in 1983, she was startled to see
so many black people in her new home. But she quickly discovered that they
were not nearly as knowledgeable about Africa as her husband.

Once, Said mentioned to an African American woman that she is a Somali and
had lived in Africa. When the woman asked, "Do you speak the ooga-booga
language?" Said was startled. "What's that?" Said asked.

She speaks three languages -- Somali, Swahili and English -- and at the
time knew nothing of Tarzan movies, where such insulting characterizations
of African language can be heard.

Meanwhile, Khalid had his own problems at Howard University. Black women he
knew looked past his wife's chocolate-colored skin and focused on her
narrow nose, straight hair and thin lips. "Sunni has gone and married a
white black woman," he recalled a friend saying. He lowered his head for
shame while recounting the story at his Baltimore home.

His wife stiffened with indignation. "What is a European feature?" she
demanded. "What is an African feature? It is an insult to a Somali for
someone to ask if you are half-Indian, the way African Americans do. I am
not an Indian. I am not white. Only in America. When I walk in London, no
one would mistake me for a Nigerian. They look at me and say, 'You are
Somali.' It's education, education, education!"

But little is taught of Africa or African Americans in U.S. schools, said
Pierre, the anthropologist -- an almost exclusive emphasis on white
American and European history is a legacy of second-class citizenship that
African Americans endure.

After arriving in America, masses of impoverished West Indians and Africans
see a land of plenty -- and don't understand why black natives haven't
flourished. The immigrants don't realize that black Americans were enslaved
the longest, and that after emancipation, they lived under legal
segregation.

What most African Americans know of black immigrants comes from foreign
news accounts and Hollywood, Pierre said. She was hard pressed to recall a
major motion picture about Africa -- "Out of Africa," "Gorillas in the
Mist," "I Dreamed of Africa," "Congo" -- that was not set in the jungle.

"Think about it," she said. "If you're being bombarded by these images of
poor, destituted countries, you don't want to be associated with that.
Think about Tarzan in Africa. You don't want to be associated with all
those people who were depicted as savages. All you know of Africa is
primitives, war, destitution, hunger."

Last year, Will Smith, the black American actor, traveled to Mozambique for
the first time during the filming of "Ali." "Everything I knew about Africa
was a solid 80 percent false," he told a reporter for the Los Angeles
Times. "I was embarrassed when I realized there were tall buildings and
Mercedes and big cities and fine women.

"I was so miseducated," Smith said. "It has the best and worst of
everything. It's like God visits everywhere else, but he lives in Africa."

Ethiopian Lily Assegid said Africans also stubbornly hold on to
stereotypes. But as in Smith's case, she said, they can fade away with
time.

"When our parents came to this country in the 1950s," Assegid said, "many
of them went to white schools, the better schools, and didn't interact with
African Americans. What they were learning about African Americans was very
prejudiced.

"But they didn't see themselves as what they were hearing African Americans
get called," Assegid said. "They said, 'No, no, no, we're Ethiopians. We're
Africans. We're different.' They would go back home and spread these
stories."

Now, living in Washington, Assegid doesn't believe a word her parents and
others said. "As far as I'm concerned, African Americans are as much a part
of Africa as a newborn child right now," she said. "They're a part of the
people. The only difference is the culture they were born into. I believe
that for all black people."



© 2002 The Washington Post Company



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