Diversify: A fierce, accessible, empowering guide to why a more open society means a more successful one. June Sarpong
designer clothes, and beautiful women. However, as flamboyant as he was, during one of my visits to America I saw my brother become humble pretty fast. Driving through LA in one such luxury car, Sam was pulled over by the police. This being a regular occurrence for black men in America, Sam had his contrite responses memorized: ‘Yes sir, no sir, sorry officer,’ etc.
Witnessing this exchange and knowing the type of person Sam was, I felt upset and indignant – especially as he had done nothing wrong and there appeared to be no valid reason for the stop. My friend and mentor Baroness Margaret McDonagh – white and well spoken – was also with us in the car. As Sam delivered his usual routine, Margaret and I weren’t so agreeable, as this is not something either of us are accustomed to. We demanded the officer’s badge number and a detailed explanation as to why we were stopped. The police officer seemed taken aback, as he hadn’t expected to be met by two British women, and his tone changed immediately to become less threatening and more like a public servant. We received the badge number but no valid reason for why we were pulled over.
With US police officers being fully armed, black men in the US have to humble themselves to an almost humiliating degree to ensure their survival each time they encounter law enforcement. Regardless of the outcome of these exchanges, they serve as an overt reminder to all young black men that, whatever your achievements, aspirations, or character, you can be brought down to the level of a criminal at any time. Male pride makes this a difficult reality to live with and can generate anger in the most excluded and vulnerable black men. However, anger and resentment at authority are costly emotions that black men can ill afford in Western society. In both the UK and the US, it’s an uncomfortable truth that in spite of claims of equality and calls for fair treatment, young black men continue to be targeted for no other reason than the colour of their skin.
These stories show just how difficult it is for black men – even those of education and affluence – to negotiate life in the UK and US as an ‘other’. Their colour is always the first thing people see. But where did this obsession with race and skin colour come from? And why have we allowed it to become such a divisive and alienating factor in our society? These are fundamental questions that scientists may now be able to answer for us. And perhaps, by answering them, we can tear them down.
The false social construct of race
Anthropologist Nina Jablonski has conducted extensive studies into this issue from her research lab at Pennsylvania State University. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with Jablonski and listen to her speak about the origins of the social construct of race, and her findings are fascinating. In her book, Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color,* Jablonski investigates ‘the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present’ and finds that, biologically, ‘race’ simply does not exist. In a separate article she states, ‘Despite ever more genetic evidence confirming the nonexistence of races, beliefs in the inherent superiority and inferiority of people remain part of the modern world,’† and she goes on to explain that the most influential ideas on the formation of historic racism came from just one man:
The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was the first person to classify people into fixed races according to skin color. To him and his followers, skin color was equated with character. People of darker-colored races were inferior and destined to serve those of lighter-colored races. Kant’s ideas about color, race, and character achieved wide and lasting acceptance because his writings were widely circulated, his reputation good, and his audience naïve. The ‘color meme’ was born. The linking of blackness with otherness and inferiority was one of the most powerful and destructive intellectual constructs of all time. Views on the inherent superiority and inferiority of races were readily embraced by the intelligentsia of Western Europe and eventually by the general populace because they supported existing stereotypes.*
It’s hard to overstate the damage this kind of thinking has done over the centuries.
Geneticist Spencer Wells, founder of The Genographic Project and author of The Journey of Man,† goes even deeper, using the science of DNA to tell a similar story to Jablonski – that ‘we are all one people’.‡ By analysing DNA from people in all corners of the world, Wells and his team discovered that all humans alive today are descended from a single man (Y-chromosomal Adam), who lived in Africa around 60,000–90,000 years ago, and from a single woman (mitochondrial Eve), who lived in Africa approximately 150,000 years ago.§ (It’s a quirk of our genetic evolution that our two most common recent ancestors did not have to live at the same time.)
Due to this common ancestry, the human genetic code, or genome, is 99.9 per cent identical, which suggests that the 0.1 per cent remainder that is responsible for our individual physical differences – skin colour, eye colour, hair colour and texture, etc – has primarily been caused by environmental factors. Like Jablonski, Wells believes our early ancestors embarked on their first epic journey out of Africa in search of food, which led them to gradually scatter across the Earth. Wells explains that the physical appearance of these early travellers changed depending on which part of the world they migrated to. Those who ended up in Europe – in the northern hemisphere – received less sunlight, so their bodies did not need to produce as much melanin (a natural-forming skin pigment that protects from the sun’s ultraviolet rays), and so they developed lighter skin and straighter hair to match their new cold conditions. The same is true for other communities around the world whose appearance adapted to match their new environment. And so our physical differences – once just mutations of survival – became embedded in our DNA, to be passed down through the generations for millennia.
Wells’s deep understanding of human DNA has also influenced his views on humanity and the false social construct of race. In an interview with the UK’s Independent newspaper, he commented: ‘It’s worth getting the message out, that we are related to one another, that we are much more closely related genetically than people may suspect from glancing around and looking at these surface features that distinguish us … Race, in terms of deep-seated biological differences, doesn’t exist scientifically.’
Many of us have instinctively felt and argued for a long time that the concept of ‘race’ is a misleading human construct used to divide us, but it’s reassuring to now have the science to back this up. If more of us understood the epic voyage that our early ancestors embarked upon, which led to the rich diversity we see around us today, perhaps we wouldn’t be so fixated on race. Indeed, we really are all one, and that oneness began in Africa.
The daily reality
Sadly, this understanding hasn’t yet reached everyone. Even when young black men play by the ‘rules’ today, some find that many of the people they come across are still unable to see their academic and career achievements, but have less difficulty seeing their skin colour. Regardless of their personal journey, young black men learn to take the stop-and-searches in their stride (after all, it’s nothing new), as long as it results in their walking away without being too delayed (or physically wounded, as we’ve seen in the US with the rise of police brutality). At work, he is frustrated with his lack of progress in relation to his contribution, although he is careful in office environments to mask his feelings for fear of being viewed as ‘angry’, ‘threatening’, or potentially violent. And he may have qualifications but is unable to get a foothold in the sector he has trained for, or has been given an opportunity and is expected to feel grateful while he remains at entry level and is surpassed by other colleagues, some of whom may be less qualified.
This is the reality for young black men, although it’s fair to say that being prepared for the possibility of rejection on account of your colour from an early age does foster determination and can lead to success, as it forces one to develop astounding levels of resilience. Like diamonds, this pressurized environment can produce spectacular gems, such as Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Colin Powell, Barack Obama, Kofi Annan, Sir David Adjaye, Ozwald Boateng OBE and many of the great men of colour who have helped shape our world for the better. However, it can also cause deep-rooted feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. The sense of never fully being accepted doesn’t go away, especially as it is reinforced daily, which continuously erodes a sense of belonging and self-worth.