INTERNALISED RACISM AS A CONSEQUENCE OF SYSTEMATIC OPPRESSION

"Three Generations to make a Gentleman", by Frederick H. Cumberworth, Aussie, 1923

It seems that the next generation are embracing their heritages, cultures, their melanated skin tones and fullness of features. But I still see many of my beautiful brown and black sisters and brothers trying to fit in to a colonial standards of beauty. Thinness, straightening of hair, Whitening creams, are legacies of Eurocentric psychological trauma. This is just beauty and fashion, but it goes far deeper. If you knew how many people had to go through abuse to have black hair styles such as braids and dreadlocks and natural afros considered in places of work and education, it would shock you. Let us examine the diluted truth of racism extinction and assess how this has moved into a mental space. A psychological analysis of our generational oppression. Fragile Caucasians this isn't for you, but lean in if you will.

Photography by Jahi Chikwendu for Washington Post (2019)

There is a sickness of Aryan idolatry that has infiltrated colonized people and the minds within. It is more than an aesthetic desire, a longing that is stemmed in deep psychological trauma of whiteness being “better”. Remember that those same people who made fun of the fullness of your lips are getting fillers now. "When we are looking at the success of stars like Beyoncé, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj — and the archetype they represent — we see how over-sexualized their bodies are. That focus can bring about real pain in girls of color who don’t look like them. I respect the work of those artists, but I’m sick of the perpetuation of “body first, mind after.” Delphine Diallo (2019) said in her article in Washington Post on the topic of representation as a Black Woman. They copy and try to emulate the native beauty through tanning and surgery, only to be a shadow of what you were born with. Your curly hair is beautiful darling, your mocha, chocolate pigmented skin - they could never!.

“Dirty Knees” is a visual arts exhibition exploring mixed-race identities, featuring artists Nomi Chi, Shannon Elliott, Katie So, Mandy Tsung and Lauren YS

Unconsciously, indigenous descendants have been fed the idea that adhering to whiteness will allow them to fit into society. That walking, talking and looking whiter allows the bestowal of social approval. It is true that adopting colonial ways of being and thinking have given access into spaces of “success” and “achievement”. In reality, if we need to let go of who we are as indigenous people to achieve approval – we are telling people we were not good enough to begin with. This is not about divisiveness, so please stop using it as an excuse to ignore the truth. This is about seeing past the façade that has been pulled over the eyes of so many. Take a good look at how you have have viewed "good vs bad" throughout your lifetime and recognize the points and times where white cultures and their teachings, their looks, were placed above that of indigenous people. Pretending that you don't see color diminishes the experiences of everyone in the margins. Racism exists, and to deny it is something only a person in a life of privilege would express.

Kehinde Wiley studio (2013) / Courtesy Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris and Brussels. (Kehinde Wiley: Frantz Fanon, After Memling’s Portrait of a Man with a Letter (2013)

We can not give into an inferiority complex any longer. “Every colonized people-in other words, every people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality” (Fanon, pp. 18, 1986). The legendary Black Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon describes an array of the ways our internalized colonization is the same as renouncing ourselves. He also asserted that cultural assimilation (colonial cultural enforcement) degrades and negates indigenous cultures and people. Frantz Fanon examines the decimation of colonized people and a need to push back against white supremacy. The psychological internalized oppression we face as indigenous people. That changing our speech to be whiter, changing our appearances to be whiter in order to fit in works against us in the end. Because we have internalized the idea of not being good enough to begin with. Be proud of your roots, your culture, your indigenous body.

Nicki Sanchez (2019) said that “colonization is contingent on historical amnesia”. Because to have a peacefully functioning society, people forget the demons of the past. The genocide, the displacement, the systematic racism. I want to remind you that assimilation – the adoption of oppressive cultures were forced or indigenous nations. That this was performed through war, acts of violence, genocide, introduced diseases, religion and further on down the line in other systematic ways. These means are institutional, oppression through education, schooling, government intervention, children’s services uplifting babies from their Mothers, racist court systems, bigotry in police and other levels of the justice system.

"Invisible No More," a mural painted by Comanche/Kiowa artist J. NiCole Hatfield and located at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Now that we have become more aware of the realities – the micro aggressions, the subtle ways that these ideas have infiltrated our lives. It is time to point them out, acknowledge their existence and make a conscious effort to not perpetuate these psychological traumas to our next generation. If you are a Māori reading this, please look at Linda Tuhiwai Smiths Decolonizing Methodology. It is the perfect start to anyone making an effort to dismantle systems of oppression. Its not just outside of you my Native Brothers and Sisters, it’s inside as well. Let us shine light on the mamae, let us heal