Abstract
Skin color is broadly accepted as a conspicuous marker of difference and racial belonging. Yet while the body is understood as a given, it is also socially inscribed: heavily sexualized, gendered, and even “colored.” This article is about African bodies that are colored Black. It critically discusses the experiences of black embodiment for African diaspora bodies that are coded “black” and inscribed with blackness in Australia. The article is written from a black African experience perspective to call into question current distorted and problem-centered narratives of African Blackness in Australia. Adopting standpoint theory and critical race theory’s unique voice of color thesis as conceptual framework for making sense of focus group data with black African migrants living in New South Wales and Victoria, the article’s main contention is that black African embodiment is experienced as a (symbolic and material) burden; what we call the “the burden of Blackness.” We discuss four dimensions of this burden: problematic stereotypes and social constructions, the paradox of in/visibility, burden of racial “two-ness,” and burden of minimization.
Highlights
The black body in white space has always been constructed as a problematic difference to whiteness: an inferiority and an “other.” Blackness is not merely about skin color, but rather it is a social construct persistently conceived of as an opposition to whiteness: It is that which defines whiteness but is inferiorized by it
Our analysis of how the participants talked about being black in Australia from their standpoint highlighted several facets of what we have categorized as the burdensome nature of their black embodiment
The focus group discussions highlight the ubiquity of skin color for black African migrants in ways that exposed what we argue is a paradox of the burden of blackness: simultaneous hypervisibility and invisibility, as the excerpts show: V1: It makes a whole lot of difference, this black skin here
Summary
The black body in white space has always been constructed as a problematic difference to whiteness: an inferiority and an “other.” Blackness is not merely about skin color, but rather it is a social construct persistently conceived of as an opposition to whiteness: It is that which defines whiteness but is inferiorized by it. The critical works of black scholars such as Frantz Fanon (2008) and George Yancy (2008a), which explore the signification of blackness in white contexts, have highlighted the objectification of the black body in white spaces (see Austin, 2004; hooks, 1990). This article is written in the same vein as these critical works. More than that, it is about the consequences of multiple layers of racialized meanings inscribed onto African bodies constructed as black in a predominantly white space (Australia) for those “living black.”. By centering discussions of the black African experience in Australia, the article addresses a topic seldom focused on in sociological and migration research in the Australian context where association of black African subjectivities with racial discrimination means that discussions of race, racism, and racialization It is about the consequences of multiple layers of racialized meanings inscribed onto African bodies constructed as black in a predominantly white space (Australia) for those “living black.” By centering discussions of the black African experience in Australia, the article addresses a topic seldom focused on in sociological and migration research in the Australian context where association of black African subjectivities with racial discrimination means that discussions of race, racism, and racialization
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