Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from a blog post written by Irish-Nigerian academic, writer, and broadcaster Emma Dabiri. That blog post discusses whether Black people from Ireland are "woke" (meaning "alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice"). Two comments from that post's discussion thread are also included in this post.
The Addendum to this post presents information from Wikipedia about Black people in Ireland.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Emma Dabiri for writing about this subject, Thanks to all others who are quoted in this post.
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FEATURED EXCERPT: On Whether Irish Black People Are Woke...
From https://www.dublininquirer.com/2017/10/25/emma-on-whether-irish-black-people-are-woke-and-on-changing-foreign-names
"Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian academic, writer, and broadcaster. She is currently a teaching fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and is working on her first book.
...“Staying woke” refers to questioning the dominant paradigm, and occupying a state of awareness about structural oppressions.
The phrase “staying woke” has some early references in the 1960s, it was then further popularised in the 2008 song “Master Teacher” by Erykah Badu, but really caught on following the wave of protest after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the subsequent rise of Black Lives Matter. In 2016, “woke” entered into the Oxford Dictionary.
Like so many words and phrases used throughout the Anglosphere and indeed beyond, (“hipster”, “cool”, “uptight”, and “bling”, to name a few), its origins are found in African American Vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE). In AAVE, the state of being awake is often spoken as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke”.
The influence of African American language in Ireland and globally is vast, yet it is either unacknowledged or too often dismissed as “slang”.
For me, true wokeness would also require a basic critique of the neoliberal capitalism, which is part of the infrastructure that both produces and sustains racism.
The word has in a short time travelled far from its original meaning and is increasingly used in popular culture to confer an edgy activisty cool. I recently saw a top 10 list of wokeness, devoid of any black names, topped by someone like Taylor Swift. Appropriation 101.
Now are black Irish people woke? I don’t know. We can’t make assumptions that every person of African descent in Ireland is thinking in the same way; I have met some who are, and some who emphatically are not.
Certainly, I remember surprise as a teenager on occasions meeting other mixed-race people – girls especially – who didn’t want to be friends, often quite the contrary, in fact. I’m guessing they didn’t want to stand out any more than they already did, and my outspokenness made them uncomfortable.
I also think there was sometimes a touch of competition, rather than solidarity, a strange sort of territorialism, a bit like: “I’m the only (insert minority of choice) in the village.” But this was my teenage experience and Ireland is at a really interesting point now, where a black Irish culture and identity is starting to emerge.
I never thought I would have an opportunity to see my blackness expressed in a particularly Irish way, or my Irishness take on a black expression. A few years ago I remember hearing Irish-Nigerian rapper Rejjie Snow referencing Marcus Garvey, Doctor King, and Malcolm X in a Dublin accent, and being happily shocked. I was thinking, wait … this is happening, this is actually happening … there’s gonna be a reference point for us … it’s exciting.
Am I black? Gosh you aren’t shying away from the big questions, now are ye? But yes, I identify as black. The thing is, despite being told I was black (and often not so politely) my whole damn life, and often being reminded that I wasn’t “really Irish”, my claiming of my blackness still elicits occasional cries of “But what about your ma?” or “You’re erasing your Irishness!” Blah blah di blah blah blah.
I think what we really need to look at is why a person with a white parent can identify as black, but why a person with a black parent can rarely, if ever, identify as white. We have to stop acting as though racial constructions are rational or ordered. They are not. I always say that you cannot be “half white”. You are either white or you’re not. And I’m not.
When the imperial European powers started colonizing the world, the white racial category was invented as a function of capitalism to consolidate resources for one group, while extracting resources from others, and justifying it, because according to the racial hierarchy “blacks” were barely human and as such their (our) enslavement by a “civilized” (lol) race was actually an improvement on previous conditions.
It’s key to remember that in the early history of the social category “white”, Irish people were not included, although eventual entry into the category was to prove very beneficial.
Whiteness is sustained and preserved through a myth of purity, exclusivity, and restricted access. Blackness in contrast – in spite of the narrow tropes of blackness that are peddled to us via mass media – remains diverse and dynamic.
No doubt I am mixed, but I’m mixed and black. Blackness can accommodate mixedness, in a way that whiteness, with its myths of purity cannot. In some contexts I am black, in others mixed, sometimes I am Irish, others Nigerian (white is still off limits), but I am always me, always with the potential to identify as any of these things.
A lot of white people seem to assume that being black is all just a bit sh&t* and characterised by banging on about racism. Well, much as various parties have tried to make it thus, it’s about a lot more! I love being Irish, but I also love being black.
There is a diasporic black cultural world formed of West African, black American, Caribbean, and European influences, that is just so innovative and adaptive and creative, and which produces so much culturally. That heritage is a constant source of inspiration and strength to me. It’s really wonderful to be able to call that space home.
Now, what would a centre for ethnic minorities look like? Ethnic minorities are extremely diverse, what with making up the world’s majorities and all that. People tend to come together out of similar needs and shared cultural orientation. The cultures, needs and experiences of different groups cannot be conflated.
A 2015 report, “Afrophobia in Ireland”, published by the Irish branch of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), highlighted the severity of the racism that black and African people, in particular, face.
Moreover, anti-black racism often remains virulent in other ethnic minority groups. So something as general as an “ethnic-minority centre” would not be particularly appealing to me.
However, I certainly agree that spaces for more specific groups can be be powerful indeed. I craved black companionship when I was growing up, that sense of understanding, and reassurance, the space to not always have to justify my existence.
Having that black support network now that I didn’t have growing up, helps me to be a more grounded and secure person, even when I am in entirely white environments as I often am. Could you get something started in your community?
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this sentence.
Selected comments:
AD Powell
21 November at 23:58
"I am as white as Emma is black, more so really. Both my parents are part-black whites. I totally reject Emma’s claim that whiteness equals purity. I have fought for multiracial whiteness for decades. Other whites are not a problem. The fanatical opposition consists of blacks and mixed-race people who THINK they are black.
[http://multiracial.com/index.php/… "")"
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's Note: In case anyone wondered, I'm not "AD Powell".
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Ife
7 May at 17:11
"Well observed and experienced Emma. As a Black American who visits Ireland frequently (yearly since 2006), I have not found one Irish person of African/Caribbean ancestry to be “woke.” I’ve tried to speak with them and it just doesn’t happen. They seem to act as if it’s “guilt by association,” to even be seen having an interest in even acknowledging me. No issue with Irish who are “white.” My “white” Irish friends are always puzzled, when I try and reach out to say “hi” to black folk there and they snub me. I gave up trying to connect years ago. Personally, I think there’s some secret competition for attention going on that I’m not privy to. My last trip was January 2016 and I finally met and spoke with a brother from Dublin (of Nigerian ethnicity; who grew up in London), he was “woke.” The word “woke” makes me laugh, but it’s the current modern pop-culture vernacular. shrugs I try to be “hip.” "
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Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-stay-woke-really-means-definitions.html for a closely related pancocojams post entitled "What "Stay Woke" REALLY Means (definitions, early influences, & uses)".
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ADDENDUM
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_in_Ireland
..."Black people have lived in Ireland in very small numbers since the 18th century.
They are mainly concentrated in the major cities and towns, especially in the Limerick, Cork and Dublin areas. During the 18th century, many worked as servants of wealthy families. Former slaves who visited or toured Ireland included Olaudah Equiano[1] and Frederick Douglass.
Lord Edward FitzGerald was saved in 1781 by Tony Small, a freed slave, after the Battle of Eutaw Springs. Small returned with Lord FitzGerald to Ireland, and in 1786 his portrait was painted by John Roberts.[2]
Enslavement of blacks was rare in Ireland during the 18th century, although the legal position remained unclear until a judgement in England in 1772, the Somersett's Case. Others were tradesmen, soldiers, travelling artists or musicians. They were never very numerous, and most were assimilated into the larger population by the second third of the 19th century. They include the rebel Mulatto Jack (fl. 1736), the singer Rachael Baptist (fl. 1750-1775), who were both Irish. Other such as Osmond Tisani (fl. 1905–1914) were born abroad but settled in Ireland.
[...]
The 2006 Irish census recorded 40,525 people of Black African ethnicity and 3,793 people of any other Black background resident in the Republic of Ireland out of a total population of 4,172,013, meaning that 1.06 percent of the population self-identified as Black.[4] The preliminary results of the 2011 census recorded 58,697 people of Black African ethnicity and 6,381 people of any other Black background resident in the Republic of Ireland out of a total population of 4,525,281, meaning that 1.42 per cent of the population self-identified as Black.[5]
In 2007, Nigerian refugee and politician Rotimi Adebari was elected as mayor of Portlaoise, the first black mayor in Ireland....
[...]
More recently, following the European migrant crisis, refugees from conflict zones in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, the Congo, and Burundi have settled in Ireland.[8]
Northern Ireland
At the time of the 2001 UK Census, of the total population (1,685,267); 255 people described their ethnicity as Black Caribbean, 494 as Black African and 387 as Other Black, meaning that the total Black population was 1,136. These figures do not include individuals who described themselves as being of mixed-race.[9] The next UK census is to be performed in 2011.
As well as help from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, the EU-funded Afro-Community Support Organisation Northern Ireland (ACSONI) was formed in 2003 to represent the views of black people. ACSONI prepared a report in 2011 on other residents' perceptions and general knowledge of Africa and Africans.[10]
[...]
Notable people
Rotimi Adebari, Irish politician (Nigerian born)
Kwame Ampadu, Irish footballer (Ghanaian father)
Christine Buckley, Irish activist (Nigerian father)
Cyrus Christie, Irish footballer (English Born)
Lucia Evans, Irish singer (Zimbabwean born)
Layla Flaherty Irish actress and model (Jamaican father)
Liam George, Irish footballer (St. Lucian father)
Chris Hughton, Irish footballer (Ghanaian father)
Henry Hughton, Irish former footballer (Ghanaian father)
Marsha Hunt, actress, singer, and writer (American born)
Kamal Ibrahim, Irish television presenter and actor
Laura Izibor, Irish R&B singer (Nigerian father)
Ultan Dillane. Irish Rugby player (Ivorian father)
Phil Lynott, Irish rock singer, English born Thin Lizzy (Guyanese father)
Clinton Morrison, Irish footballer (Jamaican father, Trinidadian mother)
Omero Mumba, Irish actor/singer (Zambian father)
Samantha Mumba, Irish pop singer (Zambian father)
Paul McGrath, Irish footballer (Nigerian father)
David McGoldrick, Irish footballer
Ruth Negga, Irish actor (Ethiopian father)
Paul Osam, Irish former athlete (Ghanaian father)
Lanre Oyebanjo, Irish athlete (Nigerian father)
Darren Randolph, Irish footballer (American father)
Kevin Sharkey, Irish artist, television presenter, and actor
Christopher Simpson, Irish actor (Rwandan grandmother)
Rejjie Snow, Irish rapper
Annie Yellowe Palma, Irish author (Nigerian father)
Simon Zebo, Irish rugby union player (French-Martiniquais father)
Kwame Ampadu, Irish former footballer (Ghanaian father)"
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