Finally, an Answer to Self-Hate in the Afro American Community

Afro-American history starts at a dark period in our countrys history, and we are
constantly force to remember. Whether it be through outright messages such as TV,
movies, articles, advertisements or by acts of oppression remind of us of the past.
One should know their history and where they stem from, in fact, they should
embrace such. Yet, American society has not shined a gracious light on AfroAmerican history or culture. No matter how much the minority resist the oppression
and hate from the majority, it will seep in eventually and taint whatever it touches,
and in this case it has affected the minds of many Afro-Americans.
This contamination is called self-hate and has been a part of the Afro-American
community since its existence starting in the times of slavery. You keep a slave a
slave by not physically keeping them bound but mentally. During slavery you would
have slaves born into the thought that they were nothing more than slaves and
could not be anything else, because for all they knew that was their history and
their future, one of a slave. Anyone can see that if a person was surrounded with
such despair, and lack of self-hope, they would naturally hate their being and
culture or lack of one. Even though we as a people are physically separated from
this time period, our minds are stuck.
Usually self-hate is limited to hating ones appearance and/or culture but over the
years it has evolved to affect new areas. I learned this when I started my research
with the article "Why I Hate Being a Black Man." by Orville L, Douglas, who adds a
twist to the general reasons one would turn to self-hate. Douglas hates the label
imposed on him, Black male, in his eyes he is not the stereotypical black male and
even other Afro-Americans question his identity or blackness. He says AfroAmerican men are known for either sports, crime, or entertainment, yet he does not

fit into any of these categories. I had never seen this type of self-hate before and it
intrigued me to find other types other than the generic forms.
Honestly, who would want to be black? a direct quote from Douglas who makes it
seem that being an Afro-American is more of a nuisance then a hindrance in society.
Of course I agree that at times being viewed in a certain light that is not particularly
appealing to others eyes at all times is something that anyone would get easily
agitated by. What Im taking from this statement though is the sense of
hopelessness in it, as if being black is a condition that is universally despised by all
and can be easily cast off. No, being black is not a condition but a state of being, a
history of people, a group of people who need to be repowered. That is what being
black is, it does not simply go away no matter how many despise it or try to hide it,
it remains until its time to be embraced. This is what is needed, an empowerment
of Afro-American culture, history, and people.
I said, Afro-American history begins with slavery, and many may ask who can be
proud of the condition their forefathers were in. I say this, you have no choice but to
embrace this as this is your history and only history, just as you cannot choose your
father and mother you cannot choose their father and mother and so on. Yet, we
see this a lot in Afro-American culture, a gloss over slavery with a back to Africas
kings and queens mentality, or even worse they try to pinpoint their entire
ancestry back to that one person that is not black in their blood line. It is true, that
are forefathers were slaves of Africa but that connection has been so far
disconnected by both institution of slavery and time that we share more history with
European-Americans. Our true progenitors were the slaves on the sugar cane
plantations, sweating blood and tears in the cotton fields, the ones who survived the
lashes of their masters. The strongest of the strongest survived and endured to
leave a legacy which you hate when you look into that mirror.

There is a flip side to this viewpoint on slavery though, because I am not trying to
make it seem like it was all great as in this paper I am giving an honest statement
on everything. Self-hate started from slavery, even though the some of our
strongest people lived through this time they were not without their flaws. The slave
masters did everything they could to destroy the notion of freedom or even
humanity within the slaves, and made them believe that they were nothing more.
Dividing and conquering is a tactic known by all and it was well known by the
oppressors back then. Colorism, a practice of discrimination and prejudice by which
those with lighter skin are treated more favorably than those with darker skin.
Colorism mirrors white supremacy in that those with lighter skin are awarded
privileges their dark-skinned counterparts aren't. This is how the slaves were
divided by task, the lighter skinned ones would work in the slave masters house or
Big House and the darker ones would work in the fields. Envy and hate would
build between the two, light skins or house slaves would look down upon the dirty,
laborious, barbaric work the field slaves or dark skins. In turn the field slaves
would hate the house slaves for being treated better, given easier task, and their
relationship with the master. Ultimately, the lighter skinned slaves were perceived
to be better because not only did white people take more of a liking to them but
also they looked more like white people.
At its core, racial bias stems from the idea that White Eurocentric phenotypic
characteristics (e.g., lighter skin and eye color, longer and straighter hair, narrower
nose, and thinner lips) are preferable to features toward the other end of the
continuum ~Keith B Maddox I believe it to be naturally understandable for the
oppressed when put down to the extent of the slaves, to look towards their
oppressors as almost divine. They thought if they could somehow emulate the white
people, be subservient, make them happy, they would be accepted. Black is bad,

white is good, or at least getting as close to it as possible. In Argentina this was the
entire purpose of the genocide of the newly freed Afro-Argentine population in the
19th & 20th centuries. The whitest nation in Latin America, composed of a
population that claims to be 97 percent white, has not always been so, and probably
is still not today. Argentina ended slavery in the early 1800s but had the problem of
facing the overwhelming Black Plague that comprised 1/3 of the countrys
population. In less that a century the government used systematic genocide to
wipeout the Afro-Argentinians by putting them in unsanitary ghettos filled with
disease and forced drafting them to Army frontlines. Soon a gender gap was created
between the Afro-Argentinian male and females forcing the females to mate with
the whites. By 1895 the Afro-Argentinean population was so low that it was not even
recorded in that years consensus. Knowing that 97% of the population calls itself
white when knowing that most their ancestors were of color or were mixed is
another form of self-hate. A total lack of embracement for their darker side,
choosing the lighter side to be better, and willingly forgetting their history.
Most of the time a persons phenotypes show when they are of predominately black
or mixed heritage. Tightly coiled to curly hair, wide nose, brown skin, dark to light
brown eyes, of course this does not describe EVERYONE that can claim black
heritage but it is encompasses a lot of us. These traits are unique, especially when
it comes down to Afro-American hair, so why is it that billions are spent trying to not
only change hair texture but also skin tone. As I said the most common type of selfhate is the one people experience when they step in the mirror and decide to
change something that is already naturally beautiful. Chris Rocks movie Good
Hair touches on this by delving into the pocket of the multibillion dollar hair
industry created specifically by Afro-Americans. Rock came up with the idea of the
movie when his daughter, who had started to reach the impressionable age of 3,

asked him Daddy, how come I don't have good hair? She had been watching TV
shows and advertisements with beautiful models, famous black female faces,
women she looked up to who were supposed to be the embodiment of the saying
Black is beautiful.wearing hair that was not theirs, let alone hers. How is she
supposed to grow up with pride in her culture, history, herself, if she likens beauty
to something that is not naturally attainable?
This is what the reality of the situation is, there is a passive learning culture of selfhate within the Afro-American community. And the more important problem is that
there are so many channels in which it is spread, from visual approaches to the
culture in itself fostering this way of thinking.
Work Cited
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III, Charles Cole. "Let's Really Converse About Black Self-Hatred: A Semi-Open Letter
to Brother Orville Douglas." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Nov.
2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2015.
Maddox, Keith B. "Login to Atkins Library - J. Murrey Atkins Library - UNC Charlotte."
Login to Atkins Library - J. Murrey Atkins Library - UNC Charlotte. Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc, 2004. Web. 08 Feb. 2015.
Hall, Ronald, and Jesenia Pizarro. "Self-Hate as Life Threat Pathology Among Black
Americans: Black Pride Antidote Vis--Vis Leukocyte Telomere Length" Journal of
Black Studies 40.4 (2010): 653-65. www.jstor.org. Sage Publications, Inc, Mar. 2010.
Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
"Raven-Symon Rejects African American Label on 'Oprah,' Sets Twitter 'on Fire'"
Twitchy. WordPress, 06 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Feb. 2015
Hall, Ronald. "Unemployment as Conduit of Black Self-Hate: Pathogenic Rates of
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(2010): 653-65. Sage Publications, Inc., Mar. 2010. Web. 16 Feb. 2015.
Baldwin, James. The Fire next Time. New York: Dial, 1963. Print.

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