#Black Identity

[alwaysbewoke]

this is chief among the reasons why i have no respect for black republicans.

[wesleysniperking]

Usopp, Representation, and the Black Experience: My Perspective (maybe TL;DR)

Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal interpretation and connection with Usopp's character. I understand that not everyone may share the same perspective, and that's okay. This is just my own take based on my experiences and thoughts about identity and representation.

When it comes to Black characters, I’ve noticed a recurring theme where they often distance themselves from their non-Black friends or take time away due to personal struggles. It’s a reflection of the weight they carry, and sometimes there’s even some regret for doing so. I can think of plenty of shows that have touched on this, and honestly, I get it. A lot of Black people, myself included, feel the need to face things alone, likely because of deep-rooted issues tied to our history, upbringing, and the challenges of navigating predominantly non-Black spaces—especially when tokenism is involved.

I’ve been that person, and in many ways, I still am. My sister and mom often joke that Usopp feels like a Black guy with a lot of “white” friends. They also mention how Black men, especially those in subcultures like the hipster scene, often juggle two social circles. My cousin, a big One Piece fan, is the perfect example of this. Even Jacob Gibson, who plays Usopp in the live-action series, gives off a similar vibe.

I know this might come off as blunt or even as a generalization, but to me, Usopp reflects a part of the Black experience. He’s like the Lando (or Finn) in Star Wars, Link Hayes in The Mod Squad, Noah in Young Riders, and Marcellus in The Originals. He’s the Renee in Ally McBeal, Tucker in Danny Phantom, Black Panther in Avengers, Cyborg in Teen Titans, Gerald in Hey Arnold, James Rhodes in Iron Man, Chris Washington in Get Out, Ben in Night of the Living Dead, and Christopher in Scrubs. He’s that Black guy.

Maybe One Piece could show Usopp as more than just his race, but it’s hard to ignore the connection. And that’s okay. It’s something I’ve been reflecting on for a while, and I wanted to share it.

GIF credit

[creatingblackcharacters2]

I'm Serious.

I promise I'm not just talking out of my ass lol. I do feel passionately about the topic. And again, I can't make anyone do anything, and every Black person may not feel the same. But if you're going to write to me directly to ask me for help about my identity, show respect to my identity by capitalizing the B in Black.

[steve-needs-a-hug]

It's really, really interesting to see how certain people are talking about a biracial mixed-race woman now that she may be about to become the US president.

At the orange felon's rally, Michaelah Montgomery (a Black woman and conservative activist) defended his comments claiming that Kamala Harris had always used to be an Indian woman, and has suddenly "turned Black" now. Montgomery went even further to say that "the same Black people who are mad at Trump for being confused about her race, ethnicity, nationality, whatever, are seemingly forgetting that while you're touting her as a savior for black people, she identifies as an Asian woman, [...] She chose her side, and it wasn't ours."

Someone I know on IG messaged me saying Harris is not Black. I responded that her father is Jamaican, and they responded by stating that doesn't make her Black, and sending screenshots of news headlines touting Harris as the first Indian-American US senator.

As a mixed-race person myself this rhetoric sounds incredibly bizarre. In what world does Harris being the first Indian-American senator and then VP make her not Black anymore? She is Black and she is Indian. It's not complicated.

Although I'm sure there's variety in how mixed-race people conceptualize their identity, I know that even though I'm genetically half-Slavic and half-West Asian, I have never identified as half-anything. I am a Pole and I am a Persian. When I'm singing along to disco polo with my Polish friends, I'm Polish. When I'm on holiday with family eating joojeh kabob, I'm Persian. I've studied identity for the past 3 years of graduate school, and I know that the identity that defines you most in the moment is determined by the context you currently exist in. It's not complicated.

This divisive rhetoric has reached a new level of insane, and I hope to hear more people speak out about it.

[ghost-37]

On this day in 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, NY.

Edit: In a conspiracy that involved federal, state and local officials, on 28 February 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, NY.

[blackstar1887]

Unraveling Identity: Cam'ron, African Americans, and a Pan-African Perspective

[sbrown82]

Did you have any difficulty growing up as a mixed Afrolatina and relating to your African American side? I know most of my friends had a hard time but was it different then than it is now?

Hol' up, hol' up, anon! I'm not sure of how you came to this, but I am not mixed, I am not biracial, I am not ethnically ambiguous, I am not a "5 percenter"....I AM BLACK! I may be a little light-skinnedededed 🥴🤣, but, like many light-skinned Blacks, I don't know, nor do I care where my fair complexion comes from. I am a mono-racial Black woman. I was born in New York City to two Black Nicaraguan parents, both of whom speak Spanish as a first language, they both have Caribbean accents and Jewish last names. And even though I was born in this country, I don't actually identify as "African-American" mainly because I don't feel like the term fully describes who I am (to me, it erases my Latinaness and my Caribbeaness). It also represents a culture, heritage, history, and understanding that I don't have. I mean, it ain't like I can say I got family and roots in Mississippi and grew up on collard greens and cornbread. I also feel like a lot of people use this term to put ALL people of the African descent under the same umbrella: for instance, I once heard someone refer to Naomi Campbell as an "African-American" model, and I thought "No she ain't!" She is a Black British woman of Jamaican heritage. So, me personally, I just say I am Black, if people want to know more about me, they can just ask. But to answer your question, HELL NAH...I've never had a problem with my Blackness...ever. I loooove being Black. I bask in it. I know a lot negroes that live past the Rio Grande do, and it's a damn shame, but that was not my experience. I'm very aware and proud of my Blackness. In fact, it was much easier, and honestly, more comfortable for me to gravitate toward people who look like me growing up (i.e. Black Americans). Mind you, even though my parents are Hispanics, I did not grow up speaking the language myself, I'd never been to the country until my teens, and of course I'm Black, so I didn't look like most of the Latinos I saw on TV (who all looked Italian to me). To be honest, it was harder to accept that I was Latina because I just didn't fit into what most people think of Latinos. Sometimes I even felt embarrassed of my Hispanic heritage. I mean, I felt Hispanic around my family and inside my own home, but once I left those 4 walls, I did at times feel like an outsider because people didn't understand that Black folks like me existed.

[influencingforjohn]

Black girls deserve to be in love too . Black woman deserve marriage too . Black mothers deserve dedicated fathers to their children too . Black nurses DESERVE roles in leadership too .

[realjaysumlin]

(31) Women and Blacks on TV | Charlotte O'Kelly - Academia.edu

Nothing has changed since the beginning of radio and television which often degrade women and everyone Black. Imaging means a lot and this is something that no one who isn't considered as being a white male should support.

Even in commercials the image of the white male is portrayed as being the ideal male for families and properly fitted above all males on earth. While picturing the Black Indigenous Male as unfit and dangerous.

This type of imagery is disturbing because it has so many negative effects on the Black Indigenous Males in particular when it causes unprovoked violence against them by law enforcement agencies and others.

[deadporg]

I feel like taking the DNA test made me think about how I've always felt detached from my Africaness. And don't get it twisted, not my blackness. Growing up in Atlanta, I've always had a strong understanding of being black, but Africa felt like such a foreign concept. In high school, we had a cultural day, and I decided to wear what I thought were "African clothes." My uncle's grandfather (not my great-grandfather) was a Pan-African and had recently passed. Throughout his life, he collected a lot of African attire to embrace his ethnic heritage. As a follower of Garvey, he came from probably the first mainstream wave of African Americans taking pride in their Africaness. He had clothes from Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe. I feel like there was less an emphasis on ethnic or tribal specificity due to colonization, and partially due to The West's portrayal of Africa being one large, homogenous mass, so he truly did embrace a pan-African aesthetic. Anyway, I was wearing his handed down African attire, along with a kente cloth. Power clashing despite my good intentions. I walked into AP Physics class, where majority of the black population were the children of African immigrants. They asked me the question I became very familiar with when I moved to New York, "What are you?" To which I responded, "Oh, I'm not African." A biracial Indian-Czech girl retorted with genuine confusion, "but you are though." To be honest, I was kinda annoyed by that response, but in a sense she's right. However at the same time she didn't completely understand where I was coming from. I am of African origin, but I'm not African. When I think back on my annoyance with her response, was I more perturbed by her willingness to speak in black people's business or the implication of me being African?

There is no secret that xenophobia is a prominent part of African American life, especially in areas where black immigrants are few and far between. Although I grew up with a strong pride in what it means to be black in America, it was still fair game to mock Africaness. Growing up being called African was an insult, from black children to other black children. I feel like the dissociation we had to our ethnic heritage mixed with the West's infantilization and exotification of Africa led to where most black people could acknowledge that's where we came from, but still viewed Africa as primitive and underdeveloped.

That moment in Physics class was when I realized that the black diaspora is very complex and unique from the diaspora of any other ethnic group. From my experience talking to first/second generation non-black Americans of color, the disconnection they feel with their ethnic or cultural origin is usually based in immigration and assimilation, but they still have a sense of knowing where their origins lie outside of America. They still have a connection to their homeland. For the black diaspora, immigration is still a large factor of the dispersement of black people, however, nearly every black person from the Americas was placed here against their will. Like for me, America is all I've got (which is so fucked up and grimy.) Even if I were to visit Nigeria one day, which I plan on doing eventually, I don't have any family or cultural ties to that region. They were stripped away from me hundreds of years ago. The more I think about it, it truly is so fucking sinister how Europeans did us. Like the next time white people complain about "blackwashing" or black people's "anger/attitude/tone" or general disdain for them, I want a white person to imagine if a family scooped up their family hundreds of years ago in broad daylight, stripped them of their language, culture, religion, and customs and forced them to adopt theirs. Then began treating their family like livestock, enslaving, beating, and assaulting them for hundreds of years. But even after your family is "freed" from slavery, the other family is rich off of the suffering of yours and continues to make life unreasonably difficult, continuing to treat your family as less than for the next hundred or so more years up until the present. Wouldn't it make sense to hold a grudge? Wouldn't it be at least reasonable to feel offended when they tell you "get over it, it was a long time ago?"

That right there is the worst thing about it, because of the evils of colonialism I am completely detached from my African origin and have over a quarter of European blood. Like I'm a person of African origin with a fucking European name. Every time I remember that I get so fucking angry.

[wesleysniperking]

Usopp’s identity

I understand that some people disagree with the idea that Usopp is Black, and everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, I do believe there are those in the fandom who go out of their way to deny Usopp’s Black identity as a way to mask their unconscious bias. We all have biases to some extent—that’s inevitable. But to refer to people who argue for Usopp’s representation as a 'crying minority' is both insensitive and dismissive. It’s baffling how some can be so blunt and careless about race and stereotypes online, yet act differently in public. Now that Usopp’s skin tone seems to be getting lighter, the debate has become even more heated.

[abstractpraxis]

What Does it Mean to be Black?

Here's what I think:

Outside of the physicality of melanated people, it is an abstract definition that we often tend to describe by similarities in mannerisms, lived experiences, and struggles. While these similarities link us in important ways, I don't really believe they speak to who we are on an individual or collective scale.

We are certainly connected culturally, but we often rely so heavily on culture, we do not interrogate ourselves thoroughly enough in order to integrate and create sustainable ways of being - individually or collectively.

We look at what melanated people produce and create, and how we form our personalities and that is what makes up Blackness. The identity of Blackness is a piecing together of sorts. Because of how people migrated, were moved, removed, and deceived, there are constant attempts to name ourselves, assert who we are, and reclaim parts of ourselves.

Much of that gets done through cultural connections rather than knowledge of self and what we value most. I believe our values are who we are because values illustrate what we believe and prioritize. Sharing cultural customs and struggles are thought to collectively align our values, but they do not. It is often a betrayal of our most authentic selves that separates us from our values or makes us comfortable neglecting to form values that accurately reflect who we are and who we should be in this world.

Many have been fighting to change this, but a lot of what makes up Blackness is struggle and a sense of not belonging anywhere or to anyone. That's why a lot of melanated people do not consider themselves Black because the title and identity of Blackness are associated with being disconnected from your heritage.

When I'm filling out paperwork and I get to the race section, I'm checking Black. I don't feel the need to distance myself from Blackness because Blackness is a part of what I walk in, what I exist in, and how I came to be. However, that part of me is still a lot about how other people perceive me.

Just because I am familiar with certain customs and cultural things alongside other melanated people because of our proximity to each other doesn't mean my values align with theirs. And I believe that my identity, individually, ancestrally, and collectively lies in my values. So while I am Black, my identity is not in being a Black person because too many other people get a say in what that is. I get a say, too. And that's how it should be. But it's not organized enough and there's not enough depth for me to place my identity in that just because other people do.

Although Black people have a lot of similarities, Blackness is too vague and too varied to get to the core of who we are beyond where our lineage once existed on a map or where we live now. I believe whoever has spiritual custody of us and how we're interacting with those lineages is what determines our identity, how we show up in the world, what we value, and what we prioritize. It's not about being loyal to a piece of land, it's about loyalty to your people. Black people are not my people because we have too many different systems and values to be considered one people.

Let me say that again: Black people are not a people. That is why Blackness cannot be the center of my identity, no matter how relevant it is to my lived experience. We think we address this by saying Black people are not a monolith, but rarely does this phrase address anything that would help melanated people in the journey to reclaiming sovereignty.

That is because many of us are still under the impression that we as Black people all belong to the same family and we do not. Just because two people are both melanated doesn't mean they are from the same family. Because your identity lies in your values, not just your customs. Not just the fact that you may enjoy the same types of recreation and entertainment. Those things matter, but they do not determine who you are.

This is where centering the Black identity acts as a hindrance; it is not the unifier people want it to be. Unity is not a solution when individuals do not know who they are and where their values truly lie. If the main things we have in common are being oppressed and similar customs, that is not enough to create a relationship that will lead to us successfully building anything and disabling the oppressor.

My theory is that the Black identity mainly functions as a way to describe melanated people in America regardless of their more accurate and relevant identities. Blackness works to reference melanated descendants of enslaved people and wield systemic power over other melanated people of a similar phenotype based on how they look, not who they actually are.

While there is certainly more to Blackness than this, I believe it is crucial for me to have a fundamental understanding of this and how it affects our ability to connect with one another, see ourselves in each other, observe how it affects our habits and language, and be clear on how the politics of this identity functions outside of the personal meaning we give to it.

With this in mind, how does this affect the way we view Black love, Black representation, Black culture, and Black history?

These are the questions I am asking myself lately.

[ghost-37]

[louart1]

Exploring Black Identity with Kerry James Marshall | Art21

[captaingimpy]

Review of United Shades of America: Reflections on Race, Gentrification, and Identity

W. Kamau Bell’s United Shades of America feels like one of those rare shows that doesn’t just scratch the surface of difficult conversations but digs deep into the messiness of what it means to live in the U.S., especially if you’re marginalized. What strikes me about Bell as a host is how he genuinely relates to people. He’s not just another journalist asking questions. You can see he’s putting…