McGriff traces history of African-Americans
By NOREEN GILLESPIE
News Writer
The roots of intraracial tension dig as far back as the origins of the slave trade in Africa, according to Ronald McGriff, professor of social sciences at the College of the Sequoias. Because of a long history of deep wedges within the African-American racial group, intraracial tensions and prejudice is a subject that needs to be addressed, McGriff said in a Black History Month address at Saint Mary's Monday evening.
Because outsiders to racial groups have a tendency to group various ethnicities in one category, different ancestries among African Americans can be ignored. McGriff, who claims a mix of Irish and African ancestry in his family, traced the origin of intraracial prejudice to the onset of the slave trade in Portugal in 1493. A division was created among African Americans when many were brought into the slave trade by members of their own racial group — not only whites. The assumption that the entire African American race felt the same about the slave trade is false, McGriff explained.
"The wealthy blacks along the coast [of Africa] were wealthy for the very same reason whites were wealthy in the south — the slave trade," McGriff said. "It lays the groundwork for people to be separated by racial prejudice."
Early diverse cultural and geographical demographics in Africa also makes the solidarity assumption about the African American culture incorrect. From Portugal's acquisition of Africa in 1493, the continent has been host to several different religions, cultures and languages that divide the race into different value systems.
"Africa is not a country, it is a continent," McGriff said. "Some people will tell me that 30 miles will put you into a different language, a different culture. You're talking major, major differences. There are rooted differences of language, religion and different cultures…they are about as similar as a Frenchmen and a Norwegian. The share perhaps their color, but nothing else."
Once in America by result of the slave trade, intraracial divisions continued over the fight for abolition. Many well-off African Americans had no reason to fight for the end of slavery because their life remained relatively unaffected. But for less wealthy African Americans and women, the issue of slavery was a critical fight, McGriff said.
"Women were concerned about abolishing slavery because if black folk got the vote, women would get the vote too," McGriff said.
However, the fight for abolition was self-centered for many women, who sought to stop interracial sexual relations between white slave owners and black slaves. Many women were simply tired of "husbands, brothers and sons having liaisons with black folk … creating brothers, sisters and cousins of color," McGriff said. But as these relations began to produce a population of mixed heritage, intraracial divisions over the abolition movement deepened.
McGriff referred to the relationship between Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson, which produced eight children of mixed heritage from the interracial affair.
"Those who were like the Hemmings began to become different from those in the fields. The desire for emancipation was not across the board. Those who didn't want it were those who were doing well, who were living in the big houses," he said.
Intraracial tensions have continued even after the slavery era, as the African American community has struggled with internal stratification due to skin tone. "Lighter" skinned African Americans with more European features have enjoyed either preferential or detrimental treatment depending on the community. Showing a video clip of two boys, one light skinned and one dark skinned, dealing with the prejudice against darker skinned African Americans, McGriff explained that some blacks will stratify members of their racial group according to appearance.
"The undoing of difference of color is more of a theory than actual practice," he said. "We are wired to see people in an actual group. Blacks themselves will begin to stratify when they look at each other [according to skin tone]."
McGriff was critical of Marcus Garvey's leadership in the black community, arguing that Garvey's view of racial solidarity to unite African Americans was selective and did not include all members of the race because of visual differences in skin tone.
While the movement was successful in deconstructing some of the socially constructed negative images and self-hatred many members of the African American community experienced, it did not reach far enough.
"He himself had a problem with people who claim to be black, but didn't look like him," McGriff said. "He was excluding people of color who he claimed weren't of color enough."
Addressing intraracial tension today involves recognizing the roots of intraracial conflict and deconstructing our socially constructed view of what race is, McGriff said. The outside observer's tendency to group all members of one racial group into one category is a starting point. Discussing the problems with racial grouping on college applications and on the U.S. Census, McGriff emphasized that there are ancestral differences within the African-American community that need to be recognized.
"People are starting to want to say, `I'm tired of disappearing my grandparents, my relatives, because I have to fit into this box,'" McGriff said.
Overall, addressing intraracial tension will have to come in a historical perspective, McGriff said, and progress over time.
"I'm not so naïve to think people won't lump people of color into groups," McGriff said. "The difference the people of color see is predicated on wedges set years and years ago. Many think people of color are all like when in reality, we've never been alike. The observer doesn't see it, but those of us who are of color do see it, and it needs to be put to rest."
All News Stories for Tuesday, February 20, 2001
