Chapter 14: The Definition of Blackness: Shared History and Experience of Injustice

As a Black person, I have often pondered upon the discourse of internal division that Black people bring amongst ourselves. I wonder why the common origin that we share through our ancestral lineage, our history of oppression, and our presentday struggle to advance as a race, has not been enough to bring us together as one—as a simple guide to focus on self- and group-actualization and elevation; a resource to equip us in dealing with the oppression we face.

In my culture, when friendship lasts beyond one generation, and you have shared so much history, including giving birth and raising your children together, you automatically become family, and your children call each other cousins. Interestingly, this is not so on my father’s side of the family; they are from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, but tend to be more of what others may see as Westernized in their practices. Another example, any elderly person that can be of age to be your aunt, mother, uncle, father, or grandparents are also automatically called “mummy, daddy, aunty, uncle, grandma,” etc. Even cousins that were old enough to be your mom or aunt were called aunty or cousins, but as stated previously, this was not so on my father’s side of the family. On his side of the family, cousins were not to be called by their first names if they were older. Instead, they were identified as “Cousin Renny” or “Cousin Thomas,” for example. There were also more intercultural and interracial marriages on my father’s side of the family.