Over a decade ago, I was introduced to a British sketch comedy show called Little Britain by a white British man who shared a teaching assignment with me in China. One of the sketches is themed around a gay man living in a small village who regularly frequents a neighborhood pub.
In this sketch, the character always laments about how isolated he feels being the only gay man in the village and how he wishes there were more. The comedic bit comes into play when the character is introduced to, or told about, another gay man who lives nearby. Threatened, he denies this, and always responds, “But I’m the only gay in the village.”
It has always stuck with me because it’s truly a brilliant illustration of how some members of marginalized groups can react to one another in situations where their “The Only” title is in jeopardy. Whether this is called tokenism or the so-called “crabs in a barrel” mentality, the basic principle is the same.
Since living abroad for the past four years in a part of the world (the Balkans) where Black people are few and far between, I have observed this phenomenon the most from one diasporan group: Black Americans (used in this piece as reference to Black people hailing from the U.S., as opposed to other Black Americans, such as Black Canadians). Having witnessed this to some degree in my travels all over the world (almost twenty-eight countries so far and to every continent save Australia), I have often wondered why it is that Black Americans abroad seem to be more distant from one another than they are at “home,” and why in-group solidarity is more fractured than with other groups, including other diasporan Black people and especially Continental Africans.
This isn’t just based on personal observation. This is also borne out by the fact that there are often African associations and groups formed in other countries, but they are seldom frequented by Black American expatriates. Nor are there as many groups started by Black American expatriates. On the other hand, meetup groups (organized on meetup.com and similar expat sites) that cater to expats in general (and not just Black expats living in one place) tend to be the ones frequented by Black Americans.
I realized that what usually binds people together in an unfamiliar land is the same thing that Black Americans shed when we travel outside of the U.S.: culture.
Let me get a few things out of the way up front: I am not denying that Black American culture exists (and moreover, that it is global). I am also not denying that we have maintained and shaped our culture around elements from our African roots. I most certainly do not deny that we are bound together by our experiences as Black people generally, or as Black Americans.
What I am asserting is that the most salient glue that binds us in the U.S. is often our displacement and status as oppressed people. Whereas abroad, particularly in countries less overtly hostile to our Blackness, we are finally afforded a freedom that seemingly allows us to be individuals. Thus, being reminded of our “culture” by connecting with those from it feels like being forced back into the oppression we sought to escape, regardless of whether that is actually the case.
I recently met a Black American couple here in Serbia from the Midwest. While they were demonstrably and unapologetically Black in appearance (hair in locs and afros, Afro-centric styling and so on), it became clear to me after a few conversations that they were uncomfortable having conversations pertaining to race relations “back home.” Indeed, their appeal to the local population was that they were such cultural embodiments of Blackness, but they were here to pursue endeavors without the baggage of Blackness that so many of us carry no matter where we are. Their circle consisted of local Serbs rather than other Black American expats or Continental Africans.
This is something I’ve seen time and again, and it’s something that I, too, have felt on occasion—this desire to free yourself of the burden of always representing an image that you yourself did not have a hand in shaping.
When you travel as a Black American (this extends to all Black people, but since I am speaking to this group, I’ll restrict my example to us), you are either pigeonholed into one of two categories: as an extension or caricature of a celebrity (Beyoncé, Michael Jordan, Obama etc,), or the fleshly representation of a pernicious stereotype (“Have you been in a drive-by shooting”? etc). After all, most of the world’s conception of Black Americans is through the media, and we know by now how the media portrays us.
But, depending on the country, it is possible that you fall into the former group and you are treated almost like a celebrity. So, you feel pressure to protect that status, especially since it is such a departure from your treatment as a second-class citizen in the U.S. Any association with someone from your “past” might be shunned—hence the feeling of wanting to be “the only Black in the village.”
If your most salient connection to your experience of Blackness conjures pain, then it makes sense that you seek to find a release from that pain by distancing yourself from reminders of it when you get a chance.
Because I lean towards a more Pan-African world view, I know the benefits of seeking out other Africans wherever I go. But I now have a deeper understanding of why Black Americans tend to be reticent to associate with other Black people from America and do not go out of their way to form expat communities centered just on being Black (this, of course, is not always the case). Understanding this now, my initial reaction of feeling that Black Americans who avoid the company of other Black people abroad are doing so only because of outright or unconscious internalized anti-Blackness has changed to one more nuanced and sympathetic, even if I am still able to be critical.
I still encourage self-reflection in all of us with the privilege to travel abroad. We should check for anti-Black tendencies in both how we behave towards one another, and with respect to the countries we opt to visit, with an emphasis on getting to the root of what motivates that behavior. We can still harbor anti-Blackness even in what we find is a liberating act.
But as someone who was a religious organizer many, many years ago, one thing that I still hold as true is that it is better to paint a vision of the future than it is to commiserate with the problems we presently face. Hope is powerful, but especially when it is backed by a road-map of a “way out.” So in acknowledging how liberating it can feel to be “the only Black in the village” on a small scale in some place abroad, even if we know this is not true liberation, we can become more effective in how we organize our people for something truer.
The reality is that permanent subjugation and state-sanctioned violence is not inevitable (you would be surprised at how many do not know this and are heartened by images on pages like Black and Abroad), and suffering is not our birthright. We would do better to spread the knowledge of what is possible together than judgment of those who seek temporary moments apart because they don’t know this possibility. Then we might be able to actually become a global village by uniting in the spirit of Marcus Garvey and others, and understand that it is possible to live in a place and time where oppression no longer defines us or our experiences on the planet.
Suggested Readings:
Patrice Lumumba, May Our People Triumph, 2015
Steve Biko, I Write What I Like, 1987
Brenda Nasr, “I left the U.S. to escape anti-Blackness, only to learn how unavoidable it is in therapy,” RaceBaitR, 2017.
Brenda Pearson is a writer, photographer, and activist from Northern Virginia. She currently lives with her husband in Belgrade, Serbia, where they co-manage the blog, Nasr Post.
