Who gets to be black in today’s world?, By Osmund Agbo

…this is where the spirit of the season offers a subtle lesson. Christmas, at its essence, is not about uniform belief but about the profound possibility that light enters the world through humility, that dignity is restored through recognition, and that divisions may be bridged not by force, but by grace. In a diaspora still bearing the scars of empire and enslavement, choosing understanding over suspicion is neither naïve nor sentimental; it is revolutionary.

In recent weeks, Somali Americans have been subjected to baseless insinuations in the United States. What renders this episode particularly disquieting is not merely the malevolence of the attacks, but the ambivalence of the response. Some Blacks have hesitated to offer unequivocal solidarity, emphasising that some Somalis do not self-identify as Black. The implicit message is unmistakable: if one does not claim Blackness, one cannot reasonably expect Black protection.

This situation recalls my visit to the Dominican Republic two months ago, where I observed a striking phenomenon. A substantial segment of the population of African descent, some possessing skin of darker shades than mine, were reticent to identify explicitly as Black. Instead, many resorted to alternative designations. “Indio,” a term referencing the island’s long-vanished Taíno population. “Mulatto,” emphasising mixed European and African ancestry and distancing themselves from a “pure” Black identity. “Moreno,” simply denoting brown. Anything but Black.

Superficial observation might lead one to ascribe this reticence to self-denial or internalised inferiority. Yet, a deeper examination reveals that Black identity across the African diaspora has never been a monolithic inheritance. It is shaped by geography, power, historical contingency, and survival. To interpret hesitation in embracing Blackness as betrayal, rather than as a survival strategy, is to misconstrue the very mechanisms through which Blackness was constructed, fractured, and, in numerous contexts, rendered perilous.

The African diaspora did not emerge from voluntary migration but from a cataclysmic rupture. Millions were stripped of their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identities and assigned a new one: Black. This designation was far from neutral. It functioned as a juridical and philosophical instrument of enslavement. Yet, the consequences of racialisation manifested unevenly across societies. Communities devised divergent strategies for negotiating the burden of Blackness; some met it with defiance, others with evasion.

The Dominican Republic exemplifies the existential peril of Black identity. Despite a population overwhelmingly descended from Africans, Dominican national identity was meticulously engineered to repudiate Blackness. Under the Spanish colonial legacy and later the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, Blackness was conflated with Haitian identity, and coded as foreign, dangerous, and subversive. To be Black was not merely to possess dark skin; it was to be politically and socially suspect.

Dominicans responded by cultivating a lexicon that permitted Blackness to exist without acknowledgment: indio, moreno, trigueño. These were not casual euphemisms but vital instruments of survival. History rewarded those who distanced themselves from Blackness and punished those who could not. The 1937 Parsley Massacre and the 2013 denationalisation of Dominicans of Haitian descent were not anomalies; they were logical extensions of a system equating Blackness with illegitimacy.

Puerto Rico offers a subtler contrast. There, African ancestry was never wholly repudiated, yet it was carefully curated. Puerto Rican identity crystallised around a tri-racial narrative of Spanish, Taíno, and African heritage, acknowledging Black roots, while ensuring they remained culturally expressive but politically peripheral. Blackness thrived in music, dance, and religion, but it rarely served as the foundation for collective political action. The result was containment, rather than exclusion.

If this essay advocates unity, it is not because the variations within Black identity are trivial, but because they are earned. They were forged under different systems of violence, reward, and survival. To disregard these differences is to misunderstand history. To weaponise them is to perpetuate injustice. Unity, therefore, does not imply uniformity. It implies recognition, a candid acknowledgment of how Blackness evolved through different languages, geographies, and historical exigencies.

Cuba pursued yet another trajectory. Following the 1959 revolution, the state declared racism resolved. Class supplanted race as the primary axis of struggle, and Black political organising was discouraged as divisive. Afro-Cubans gained access to social and educational resources but forfeited the language to articulate persistent racial inequality. Blackness survived culturally but was expected to dissolve politically into revolutionary sameness.

Brazil, home to the largest population of African descendants outside Africa, perfected the art of obfuscation. Under the ideology of racial democracy, Blackness was subdivided into myriad chromatic categories. Whitening, biological, cultural, and social, became the principal avenue to advancement. For generations, identifying as Black entailed penalties, while claiming mixture conferred opportunity. Only recently has a mass Afro-Brazilian consciousness begun to challenge this long-standing fiction.

These historical trajectories reveal a compelling pattern: in numerous societies, reluctance to embrace Black identity was rarely self-loathing; it was survival.

This context illuminates the experience of Somali Americans in the United States. Many arrive with robust ethnic, linguistic, and religious identities cultivated outside the transatlantic slave experience. In East Africa, Black was never the primary social category; clan, language, and culture were paramount. In America, however, they are abruptly racialised as Black and expected to inherit a history, politics, and trauma they did not experience.

Some embrace this designation. Others hesitate. Such hesitation is frequently misinterpreted as arrogance or repudiation, when it is more accurately a collision of disparate diasporic histories. The situation is further complicated by America’s inconsistent racial taxonomy, which classifies North Africans as White on census forms, while simultaneously treating them as socially suspect. In the United States, race is less a matter of ancestry than of the mutable meanings that power assigns to bodies.

The peril lies in converting identity into a litmus test of loyalty. Solidarity enforced by coercion is not solidarity at all. Blackness has never been monolithic, and demanding uniformity from a fractured diaspora merely reproduces the very logic that historically weaponised difference.

In a world that has long profited from Black fragmentation, unity rooted in respect for difference may be the most enduring gift we offer each other. Not a singular way to be Black, but a shared commitment to safeguard one another’s humanity wherever history has placed us.

The pertinent question is not whether Somali Americans, Dominicans, or Brazilians employ the “right” terminology. It is whether we comprehend why Blackness has been proclaimed boldly in some contexts and whispered, obscured, or evaded in others.

Mature Black consciousness does not begin with gatekeeping. It begins with historical literacy. It recognises that communities devised divergent strategies under disparate regimes of punishment and reward. It understands that unity cannot emerge from erasure of complexity, but through honest engagement with it.

If this essay advocates unity, it is not because the variations within Black identity are trivial, but because they are earned. They were forged under different systems of violence, reward, and survival. To disregard these differences is to misunderstand history. To weaponise them is to perpetuate injustice. Unity, therefore, does not imply uniformity. It implies recognition, a candid acknowledgment of how Blackness evolved through different languages, geographies, and historical exigencies.

The error lies in conflating hesitation with hostility, or difference with disloyalty. What some interpret as denial is often the residue of systems that rendered Blackness a potential liability. A mature global Black consciousness does not demand a singular narrative; it demands humility — the willingness to listen before judging, and to understand before condemning.

Perhaps this is where the spirit of the season offers a subtle lesson. Christmas, at its essence, is not about uniform belief but about the profound possibility that light enters the world through humility, that dignity is restored through recognition, and that divisions may be bridged not by force, but by grace. In a diaspora still bearing the scars of empire and enslavement, choosing understanding over suspicion is neither naïve nor sentimental; it is revolutionary.

In a world that has long profited from Black fragmentation, unity rooted in respect for difference may be the most enduring gift we offer each other. Not a singular way to be Black, but a shared commitment to safeguard one another’s humanity wherever history has placed us.

Merry Christmas!

Osmund Agbo is a medical doctor and author. His works include Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and a fiction work titled The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His latest works, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Ma’am, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released. He can be reached through: [email protected]