I don’t remember how old I was when someone asked me where I came from, but I do know that I was at least nine years old because that is when I moved to Florida and encountered dumb ass questions, questions from white people that somehow centered their experiences and voided them all at the same time.
Childhood curiosity is one thing, but even by the time I was fully a teenager, I was still asked that question, and it never stopped in my adulthood. As an adult, a woman in a Target in Minnesota asked me the same question. Before I could answer, she added, with a cringeworthy amount of pride, “I’m married to an African,” as if to affirm her knowledge of my perceived heritage and her expertise on Black people, “uhhh, Florida,” I answered. I am not even sure how that conversation would start in someone’s head.
Are they not aware that the overwhelming majority of Black Americans are descendants of enslaved Africans?
I am just as American as white people, and yet, I am not American to them at all. I am the descendant of slave masters’ cruelty, Irish curiosity, and scared human cargo in reverse order. Even still, every foundation that I lived on was built on top of the rubble of genocide, so as a non-indigenous person, I’m not really from here at all.
In middle school, my best friend was a bright redhead with a personality to match. One of our social studies assignments was to do a project on our lineage. I remember calling my paternal grandmother, who spent far too much of her life as a sharecropper. The conversation did not last long because there was not much to tell me. Her mother died when she was young, and from what I’ve heard, her father was not much of a talker, so she could go about as far as her grandparents. Alyson, my fiery best friend on the other hand, had a project that would make an ancestor proud. She was able to trace her lineage back several hundred years, including in Ireland. Alyson literally knew where she came from; sure, I have a general idea of where my people are from, but I would never be able to truly find myself on a map.
This morning I xweeted, “White people don’t see themselves as the descendants of immigrants,” and what do you know, not only did the racists pop out, but so did the people who were offended by the statement, one xweeter even calling ME racist for making the statement. I guess immigrant is a bad word, after all. To them, seeking asylum in a new land after religious or political persecution is only acceptable for white people, or even more, coming here just because you wanted a new life is only acceptable to the descendants of those whom Ellis Island deemed acceptable.
White people don’t see themselves as the descendants of immigrants.
— Kyla Jenée Lacey (@Kyla_Lacey) October 15, 2024
In the words of Toni Morrison, “In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” I’m African American; white people are American. White people get the ability to celebrate their individual heritages and then get to go back to being part of the default collective. There are two holidays (one semi-defunct) that celebrate white immigration and yet for so many of them, the thought of being an immigrant is repulsive while also celebrating Columbus and Thanksgiving Day. Part of the reason so many white people have a hard time grappling with their status as the descendants of immigrants is because they believe that civilization and culture arrived when they did (including for those they brought here).
The whole point of Thanksgiving is that colonizers did not know how to grow their own food, and yet, somehow, they were the ones who were the most advanced.
White America demands the assimilation of Black people while also denying us the umbrella of Americanism. Black people are the most American we will ever be during the Olympics; when our accomplishments are compared on a global scale as being the product of American work ethic, innovation, and talent, they get to take credit for it. Other than that, we stand alone. Our gratefulness is demanded at any hint that we may voice an opinion about our oppression. Black people are told that they should appreciate not living in huts or mud villages, as if there are not slums all over Europe. Black people are told to go back to where they came from by the descendants of those who kidnapped them and/or immigrated here, or as if our ancestors volunteered to come here.
Descendants, Kyontaé, descendants. https://t.co/de6De3bv9U
— Kyla Jenée Lacey (@Kyla_Lacey) October 15, 2024
The group that will exonerate their ancestors from the benefits of slavery by saying their ancestors came through Ellis Island will also deny the roots of those implanted before them. Asking a Black person with no accent, outside of a regional one, where they come from is not only reductive, but it is a cruel reminder of the imagined and the unfathomable reality being even worse, it is the unfinished project, it is the bloodline cut off from circulation.
“Where are you from?”
Honestly, I don’t even f*cking know.
