My Journey to This Point

I am currently writing my first book that will critically investigate the continued use of the racial label 'Black' for human beings - a label I find to be fundamentally nonsensical. This work is the culmination of a lifelong inquiry that began in my childhood, caught between two confusing realities: the simple, visual dissonance of being told my skin was 'black' when I could see it was brown, and a vague, unspoken shame that seemed to surround anything identified as 'African'. This early, internal conflict grew into a conscious quest during my teenage years, solidified by the socially conscious, African centric perspective of 90s hip-hop artists like X-Clan. It was their music that gave me the language to finally question the label and the courage to challenge the stigma.

Their focus on our African heritage sparked a more profound personal revelation: a quest to uncover my own African heritage, a legacy that had been obscured and was, until that point, largely unknown to me. This dual journey of personal and historical reclamation was later formalized and refined through the academic rigor of my Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Psycho-Social Studies and my Master of Research (MRes) in Social Anthropology.

A System of Deliberate Destruction: The Necropolitics of Cultural Genocide

While the term 'cultural loss' may suit the broader pressures of colonial methods, it is a dangerously inaccurate description of what my ancestors endured under chattel enslavement. This system was not about pressure; it was a deliberate project designed to systematically dismantle the very essence of their identity. What occurred was an active, calculated project of cultural genocide. To understand its logic, I employ philosopher Achille Mbembe's (2003) concept of necropolitics - the power to dictate who may live and who must die. While Mbembe's analysis focuses on contexts like the Nazi death camps and contemporary conflicts, his framework finds its most profound and foundational historical example in the transatlantic chattel slavery system inflicted upon Africans. This regime was the ultimate necropolitical project, enacting the "social death" described by sociologist Orlando Patterson (1982) to systematically dismantle the African person and fabricate the enslaved 'black' subject. It is vital to distinguish this process from the broader, albeit harsh, realities of colonization faced elsewhere. The chattel slavery system was a unique and extreme necropolitical project. It enacted a total dismantling of identity enforced by a regime of relentless and pervasive levels of violence - a level of brutality whose psychological impact is recognized in modern diagnostic frameworks like the ICD-11 and DSM-5 as inducing the complex, intergenerational trauma characteristic of C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

This systematic terror was the essential mechanism. It sought to annihilate the African 'person' to create the enslaved 'black' subject—a fabricated identity designed to sustain a system where human beings were legally designated as property.

The Continued Assault on African Cultures

The legacy of this necropolitical project is a persistent, intergenerational stigma within African-Caribbean populations against Africa, African people, and their cultures, particularly the various systems of African spitituality. This is not a spontaneous prejudice; it is the direct result of colonial laws and religious indoctrination designed to systematically vilify and erase African identity. The most potent evidence of this is the endurance of The Obeah Act (1854 and subsequent amendments) a specific British colonial law imposed because African spirituality was viewed as an immediate threat to their control of African people and their entire system of wealth creation. This law, designed to criminalize these practices, remains on the legal books in countries that have been independent for decades. The law was a direct response to the effectiveness of these spiritual practices in fostering resistance, solidarity, and an independent cultural identity among the enslaved.

It is critical to recognize that these African spiritual systems were highly advanced frameworks for understanding the universe, governing society, and nurturing well-being; their caricature as malevolent was a necessary tactic to justify cultural genocide. This history explains why some within the African-Caribbean popualation, particularly those strongly identified with this religious framework, remain highly susceptible to this stigma and its underlying Afriphobia, perpetuating a deep-seated shame that actively disrupts any thought of reclaiming their own cultural heritage.

The Central Argument

This project confronts what I term as a mass cognitive dissonance across the global African diaspora, a shared psychological conflict born from a specific historical trauma. It is the profound tension, and deeply held sadness, that some of us can experience as descendants of those subjected to the horrors of chattel slavery, and then being identified by an archaic label ('Black') that is semantically, historically, and physically inaccurate to our reality. The book will interrogate why this specific term, deliberately applied during enslavement and colonisation to enforce a doctrine of inferiority, remains in active use today, and consequently, by global societies around the world.

An Interdisciplinary Methodology: A Necessary Framework

The question of why the label 'Black' persists is not a simple one, and therefore cannot be answered by a single discipline. Its roots are simultaneously historical, linguistic, psychological, and social. To unpack this complex history and its modern-day inertia, the book employs an indispensable interdisciplinary lens, drawing from the following fields:

• History & Sociology work in tandem to trace the institutional weaponization of the term. History uncovers how and when the label was deliberately applied as a tool of social stratification during enslavement and colonisation, while Sociology analyzes how this racial construct was then normalized and embedded into the structures of modern institutions (legal, educational, media) to maintain power hierarchies.

• Linguistics is crucial for analyzing the fundamental semantic disconnect at the heart of the label. It deconstructs the language itself, examining the negative connotations of the colour black in the European lexicon and the stark dissonance between this loaded term and the physical reality of brown skin. This reveals the label as a semantic misnomer, exposing the illogical foundation upon which racial identity was constructed.

• Anthropology & Psychology bridge the macro-level analysis with the micro-level human experience. Anthropology, through its emic commitment to insider perspectives, uncovers the lived experience of the label within African-Caribbean communities. Psychology then explains the mechanisms of internalization—how an externally imposed identity can be adopted as a core part of the self, leading to the mass cognitive dissonance and intergenerational trauma that the book identifies.

Only by integrating these distinct yet complementary disciplines can a coherent and comprehensive picture emerge, revealing not just the history of the label 'Black,' but its enduring power over our minds and societies.

The Imperative of Self-Definition: A Public Campaign

The most profound act of decolonization is the act of self-naming. To move beyond the label 'Black' is not an academic exercise; it is a fundamental, public rejection of the necropolitical logic that created it. The term was imposed to strip our ancestors of their identity, reducing complex cultures to a single category defined by subjugation.

Therefore, the conscious reclamation of self-definition is the ultimate form of liberation. It is the process of:

• Rejecting a Tool of Power: Disarming the colonial strategy of defining the dominated.

• Healing Psychological Wounds: Aligning our external identity with our internal reality and history.

• Reclaiming Historical Agency: Connecting with our heritage on our own terms.

• Forging a Sovereign Future: Building an identity based on truth and self-determination, not trauma.

This conversation cannot be confined to academia. Through my book, social media campaign, and public engagements, my mission is to equip people of African descent with the tools for this critical examination. The goal is to spark a global, public dialogue that moves us from a imposed label toward a collective, self-defined identity.