The Ebonesian Village

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - I have a dream speech]

Race is, in effect, judging people by the color of their skin.
It is my conclusion that this quote from Dr. King is a declaration of the invalidity of the concept Race.

The Ebonesian Village
An essay which explicates the concept "Ebonesian", defined as a Polyracial person who has dissociated from the racial labeling system. Reasons for this dissociation are discussed; the two primary ones given are: the scientific invalidity of the concept, and, it's use as a fundamental pillar of racial oppresion and it's ideological source, "Racism". Some historical and sociological discussion is included.
About Me
Name: Robert G. Walker
Location: Casselberry, Florida, United States
Professor Emeritus School of Social Work San Francisco State University
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The Ebonesian In The Americas

June 2004


Monday, October 13, 2008
by: Robert G. Walker, Ph.D.


Prologue:

Recovering Slaves

Recovering from Slavery is a matter of unbecoming What They Said The Slaves Were; a Negro. It is a matter of disassembling the elements of what came to be a deliberately constructed identity whose sole purpose was to support the idea of the racial superiority of the “white” slave holding class. Recovering Slaves are those descendants of Slaves who are in the process of Diss ociation from Slavery.

In the period of history which precedes the 13th Amendment to the Federal Constitution of the United States of America, Africans were forced into the category of Bond Servant, or, Slave. As such, the top priority for adaptation w as learning one’s place, getting into it, and, staying in that place. Towards those ends, a primary place was created in the realm of what called “Race”; a discrete variable with categories based on both phenotypical and genotypical characteristics. Th e African Slave was assigned the lowest value category, Negro, While the European Slave Owner was assigned the highest value category, and, were referred to as Caucasian or White. The place of all others was, and still is, more ambiguous.

Over time, profuse Miscegenation between Slave Owner Men and Slave Women gave rise to a significant population of Slaves whose physical appearance put them in a quasi-ambiguous state.

After the end of formal Slavery, the top priority for freed Slaves was to recover from the Slave mentality and to begin to think like a free person. Their first rejection was the racial label. They did not call themselves Negroes. They referred to themselves as Colored or African. In both cases, they were attempting to move away fr om racial labeling. This trend has, silently, continued ever since; that is, whenever a person of Slave descents has the opportunity to shed the negatively laden racial label, they will do so. A new identity is formed and the process continues to evolve. The Ebonesian follows in that tradition. In this regard, Ebonesians may be viewed as Recovering Slaves.

DEFINITION

An Ebonesian is a person who does not claim membership in any racial group, and, who is not claimed by any other Ethnic group. Collec tively, they constitute a nascent Status Group. It’s members are distinguished by the fact that each has, at least, one ancestor who was a bond servant in America.

In the United States of America, this means that most were “Angloized”. They are not Afrocentric in cultural outlook nor social orientations. It is for this reason that Ebonesians do not think of themselves as African Americans.

The fact that Ebonesians do not call themselves black does not mean that they think that they are white. They just do not place themselves into a racial category. Similarly, the fact Ebonesians are not Afrocentric does not mean that they are no pro African. They just do not place themselves in the ideological camp of the Afrocentrics.

The fact of the matter is, through a combination of Status Characteristics; including skin color, hair type, income, residential neighborhood, occupation, etc, they have outgrown the definition and scope of race. They certainly do not accept the limitations which are normativ ely imposed by race. When confronted by what would normally be called a racial situation, they do not response in terms of any etiquettes of race relations. Their response is likely to be no response.

The Ebonesian is, generally, a progeny of parents with divergent family origins; often, Europe and Africa, but, also The Americas as well as Asia and The various Islands of the world. Because Ebonesians are products of divergent groups of people, their families look like the “Rainbow” in their array of physical characteristics.

Some clear examples can be found in Ward Connerly and Eldrick “Tiger” Woods. Although neither have said so, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice are possible candidates for such a group; their past history not withstanding. There are many more like these, whose identity is not publicly known, but who effectively are not constrained by race.

Many are not light in skin color. Their membership in this group rests primarily on their family history and their knowledge of it and t heir identity with it; this includes their economic class.

Race and Personal Identity are so closely related, in the culture of the United States of America, until it is very difficult for most citizens to accept the idea of people being raceless. Neve rtheless, the Census Bureau has agreed classified Latinos as a non-racial group, despite their phenotypical diversity. The darker ones are virtually indistinguishable from Angloized black and African Americans, and, the whiter ones are generally treated as if they were white.


Latinos tend to refer to themselves by their national origin; Cuban, Puerto Rican or Mexican, etc., but, when pressed on their racial identity they say they are “racially mixed”. By contrast, when citizens who are descendants of slaves are racially mixed, there is a tendency to still classify them as black. American Citizens, both black and white, proceed blindly in the face of all sorts of contradiction to follow this custom.

Then came “Tiger” Woods. Apparently in a frustr ated response to the press, and their tendency to always bring up the racial factor, Tiger proclaimed that he was not black. He went on to say that he was part black, part white, part Thai and part Native American. At the time, I heard a lot of flak giv en to Tiger for his comment. For me, his comments drew my attention to the relationship between his claim and some strange behavioral phenomena that I had encountered in studying “Color Prejudice Among African Americans”. Upon closer examination, I concluded that whether or not I or anyone else agreed with Tiger, there are others who in effect make that same claim, daily, in Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, affluence is a virtual requirement for living. This leads to a middle class life style among many young people, who are of diverse family blood lines, and, who did not grow up in a black community, which is race penalty free. Many ‘Traditionalist” would not believe the number of such individuals follow the “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the ir racial identity.

The Non-Racial group phenomenon, especially among Descendants of Slaves, raises the question of whether or not people should be required to claim a racial group membership. If people are required to do so, then the question would be for what purpose? Historically we know that it was for an invidious purpose. That being the case, why would those who received the negative benefit from this distinction want to voluntarily continue to so identify? Tiger’s statement may have been an emotional outburst, but, it made a lot of sense.

As far as the name “Ebonesian” is concerned, it was chosen subjectively for the dark wood of the tropical African and Asian tree. Several other terms were considered and discarded. Melanesian was consi dered and discarded as it already refers to a people in the south pacific islands. A much earlier term used, for non-racial descendants of Africans, was “Melungeons”. The Melungeons were also called “mulattos” and “Mestizos”. There were still other lab els such “Black Dutch”, “Black Irish”, “Portuguese”, and, “Cherokee Princess”.[from: Family Chronicle - September/October 2001].

HETEROSIS

When the Racial system of Angloized America is looked at as a Caste System, one finds that the highest caste is reserved for those of European descent by way of both parents. This being the case, Colonial Americans of European heritage sought to limit their kinship system to others of European descent. Added to this endogamous like practice was the practice of N epotism in both the government and the private sector. Combined with the many restrictions which were placed upon the African Bond Servants, the net effect was what is now called “white supremacy”. Christian Biblical scriptures were invoked to justify the entire system.

By contrast, the lowest caste is reserved for those of African descent by means of either parent. This often gives rise to progenies who are just as “white” as many who are classified as upper caste “white”; yet the “whites” who is a descendant of a Bond Servant in the United States will be assigned to the lowest caste.

The salient physical characteristic of the European Colonizers is pale skin, referred to as white. The salient physical characteristic of the African is dark skin, referred to as black. A similar contrasting physical characteristic can be seen with hair. The Europeans tend to have straight hair while the Africans tend to have Coiled hair. There are also contrasting differences in nose shapes and lip sizes. These differences have, historically, been the basis of racial distinctions. Nowadays, these contrast are not so useful but still not useless.

Over the centuries, the wide spread practice of upper caste men having sexual intercourse with lower caste women pr oduced an abundance or hybrids while significantly modifying the original lower caste types. Some of these Hybrids interbred with the darker Bond Servants and continued the intermixture. Those that may have escaped the direct upper caste encroachment were hybridized through sexual intercourse between African and Native Americans; another group of Nations who were assigned to the lower castes. These hybrids, in turn, mixed with African Europeans hybrids to form still more hybrid types. As a consequence, there are virtually no families, which are descendants of bondage, that are not hybrids. In the intra-lower caste case, lower caste Males contributed to the hybridization process.


OTHER AMERICAS

In non-Angloized parts of the Americas, the hybridiz ation process led to intermediate groups between the Europeans and others. They may be called “Mulattos”, “Mestizos”, “Creoles” and so forth. In any case, they are set apart from both the “white” caste and from the “black” caste. In all of these cases, and in the United States, when the opportunity presents itself, members of the “black” caste opt for membership is a higher group. This approximates the means by which the Ebonesian group emerged in Angloized America.

OTHER FACTORS

In addition to physical characteristics, economic wealth also contributed to the tendency away from the lower caste racial identity. It is a well known saying in Brazil that “money whitens” a person. As people become more affluent, they tend to be able to disassociate themselves from the poor. In so doing, they escape many of the daily penalties of the lower caste imposed in association with skin color and residential presence.

The transition is made easier by the increasing presence, in North America, of people wh o are neither White nor Black. The Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Japanese, the Cambodians, the Laotians, the Filipinos, the Mexicans, the Puerto Ricans, the Cubans, the Indians and many others.

Summary and Conclusion

Despite two and a half centuries of conditioning, the term race is losing it’s meaning for many descendants of bondage; throughout the Americas. As more of more people of either mixed race or no race background enter the population, more and more descendants of bondage will be a part of this group. It is the inevitable outcome of increasing interactions between diverse people over a long period of time.

One major implication of this trend is a movement away from the “Racial Equality” model towards the direction of the “Deracialization” of Society. The “Racial Equality” model presumes the existence of Race and it’s discrete categories as valid social constructs. The “Deracialization” model does not.

Addendum


EBONESIAN

Ebonesian is a term which I have coined to reflect my true identity as a descendant of Slaves in America. This decision was derived from an extended process of Self Directed Rehabilitation with the intent of my becoming being a “Recovered Slave”.

This process began in a very unstructured and unconscious way; when I left home as a teenager. My first act was to dissociate from the Church. Fo the next half century, I remained stuck at this stage. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that I moved to the next stage of dissociation from Race.

By this time, I had gone through the stages of being: (1) a very naive Colored boy (2) a Negro (3) Black (4) Afro-American, and, (5) African-American. The latter three phases were intertwined and alternated between compatibility and conflict.

I understood Black to mean, essentially, the same as Negro. By the time the term was introduced, my knowledge of Latin and Latin based languages was sufficient to know this. Similarly, Afro-American was easy to digest because the hair style of Sidney Poiter, at some point, had been described as “au natureal” which was the precursor to the “natural hairdo” which was later called an “Afro”. So, Afro-American was easy to adapt to. Subsequently, African-American replaced Afro-American and was explained, within the context of “Africaneity” or Afro-Centric; which meant an identity with our history as an African people.

As timed passed, I gradually came to realize that I was not Afro-Centric and that it was a misrepresentation to claim that I was. I spoke no African language; adhered to no African religion; identified with no African nation, Tribe nor Clan; and, did not feel African in my heart. So I reverted to the use of Black to describe what was really my Ethnicity.

Throughout this period, between 1975 and 2000, I traveled to Mexico, Cuba, Brazil and Ecuador in search of an understanding of the Black experience in other parts of the Americas. The one thing that I learned was that not everyone who looks Black is considered Black, nor, considers him or herself Black. Understanding this became almost an obsession with me. I interviewed, observed, pestered, gawked and, sometimes, made a fool of myself trying to understand how this could be.

While all of this was going on, I had read and heard discussion on Ashley Montagu’s book regarding Race as man’s greatest myth. In later years, this thesis was bolstered by scientific finds that Race had no basis in Genetics. In act that it was a creation of people and was put to certain specific uses, and, the claims which were made about members of various so called racial groups were fabricated. Nevertheless, I continued to buy into the concept, albeit with increasing reluctance.

One of the main reasons for my reluctance had to do with the wide variations in physical types which I had seen among so called Black people. This experience began when I was a child in Northeast Texas and grew exponentially after I left home. First, in the Negro colleges that I attended. Next in the military. In Oklahoma, Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, Florida, California, Ilinois and, most of all, on Television and in Movies. There was no way all of these different looking people could be classified in one group. The moment of truth came when I was pestering a young woman from Brazil about her claiming not to be Black. After several encounters, she was obviously exasperated when she told me: “if you accept who they say you are, then you become who they say you are”. It took a while for that to sink in. Finally, I relocated from California to Florida and that is when it all came to together for me. Florida is a labaratory of diversity where people with an African connection is involved. It was here in Florida where I recalled what the Brazilian lady had said. I had just finished reading a synopsis of Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals: Who's a Redneck? In that moment, it all came together.

That is when I returned to my thinking on the Ebonesian conceptualization and decided to advance this notion: If I, as a descendant of African Slaves in the Americas, was ever going to escape the legacy of slavery and the associated mentality which had been bequeathed to me, I had to change my identity from Race. The only options, which I saw was Ethnicity; a group identity which has nothing to do with physical appearance not geneaology but has everything to do with a share historical experience and contemporary challenges. A social identity rooted in political realities. This led me to the term EBONESIAN.


The term EBONESIAN is derived from a contraction of the words EBONY AND NESIA, with the letter “N” added to connote a people of this type.

The term EBONESIAN is a portmanteau word (fusing two different words together into one) which combines EBONY AND NESIA. It is converted into a demonym by adding the letter “N”.


EBONY is: a hard heavy blackish wood noted for its heavy black, fine-grained heartwood.

NESIA is: a noun which refers to an archipelago

ARCHIPELAGO: something resembling an archipelago ; especially : a group or scattering of similar things

An entity surrounded by other entities that are very different from itself.