Sissy-Fuss Pan-Africanism vs. Black America

Core Observation

1. Pan-Africanism promotes a kind of “flat Blackness” — an umbrella identity that asks Black Americans to dissolve their specific cultural and historical experience in favor of a transnational “Black” unity.
2. Africa itself is not unified — and in practice, Pan-African ideals aren't reflected in African statecraft, economy, or internal politics.
3. This results in an asymmetrical burden, where diasporic Black people are asked to sacrifice cultural distinction, while no reciprocal structure or solidarity exists from the continent.

It’s a critique that many scholars and cultural critics have made, particularly in the 21st century.

Brief Overview of Pan-Africanism

Pan-Africanism emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a response to colonialism, slavery, and racial oppression, aiming to:

• Unite people of African descent globally
• Reclaim African sovereignty
• Foster cultural pride and mutual development

Key figures included:

• W.E.B. Du Bois (early conferences)
• Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana’s independence)
• Marcus Garvey (Back to Africa movement)

Over time, the ideology split into two streams:

Problems with Pan-Africanism Today

1. No Real African Unity

• African Union exists but is politically toothless
• Tribalism and ethnonationalism are major forces within many African nations (e.g., Tigray conflict in Ethiopia, Biafra in Nigeria, language/tribal identity in Kenya and South Africa)
• Intra-African trade accounts for only ~15% of total African trade — Africa trades more with Europe and China than with itself

2. Pan-Africanism Is Not Actively Practiced in Africa

• African countries do not have common passports, militaries, or foreign policies
• Xenophobia against other Africans is real — South Africa’s repeated violence against Nigerian, Zimbabwean, and Somali immigrants is one example
• Diaspora Black people are not automatically welcomed as kin — many experience cultural distance, exploitation, or are viewed as outsiders

"Flat Blackness" and Ethnocide

“Flat Blackness” mirrors academic concepts like:

• Afro-pessimism’s critique of "Black as position, not identity" (Frank Wilderson)
• Afrocentrism’s homogenization of Blackness (e.g., claiming all African-descended people are culturally African regardless of 400+ years of divergence)
• Ethnocide: the erasure of specific ethnic/cultural identities — in this case, asking Black Americans to shed their unique history, language, music, resistance, and identity (which are American in origin) to adopt a romanticized, pan-ethnic Blackness

Black American Identity Is Not African

• Black Americans are a distinct ethnic group — forged through slavery, Jim Crow, civil rights, and cultural innovation in the U.S.
• They have more in common with each other than with people from Africa, both culturally and politically
• They have been central to global civil rights movements, influencing even anti-colonial leaders in Africa

To flatten that into “just Black” is to deny history, trauma, and creativity — a form of ideological violence, even if well-meaning.

So What’s the Way Forward?

Many modern thinkers propose a more nuanced, mutual framework:

1. Solidarity without erasure: Respect the specificity of Black American, Caribbean, and African identities — they’re not interchangeable.
2. Reciprocity: Pan-Africanism should be bi-directional — not diaspora romanticizing Africa, but mutual learning and support
3. Material cooperation over symbolism: Instead of abstract calls for unity, build trade, tech, and educational ties
4. Interrogate power: Who benefits when we’re all labeled “Black” but only some are asked to sacrifice their identity?

Why does Sissy-Fuss always fail?

• Lack of African Unity: The hilltop never exists. There’s no summit to reach because even African nations do not share a coherent, practiced Black identity across borders.
• No Reciprocal Pan-Africanism: There’s no one “on top” pulling the boulder upward from the other side. Diaspora is always the one doing the work.
• Cultural Resistance: Black Americans — rightly — resist being reduced to “symbolic Africans,” because their identity is American, forged in resistance to America.
• Romanticization vs Reality: Pan-Africanism often sells an imagined, precolonial Africa that has little to do with contemporary, postcolonial Africa.
• Material Asymmetry: The push is ideological, but the rewards are symbolic. There’s no infrastructure, trade agreement, visa, or policy that grants actual citizenship, land, or protection to Black Americans.