Dr. Imani Strong: There is more to Irishness than whiteness, more to join us than divide
As my six year-old daughter and I approached the gates of her school, a man shouted from his car “Ireland for the F****ng Irish,” told me where I could go, and sped off.
I must thank the fast thinking of the crossing guard who stood at his post to attempt to catch part of the number plate, the school who ensured that my daughter was cared for, the friends and family who checked in on me, and the police who took the matter seriously when it was reported.
However, I cannot help but see the irony that I—an African American emigrating from a fractured and racially divided country—would be told in my country of choice, the one that holds my heart, to go home.
The other Americans I know move freely without being told to go home; but I am black. Though my family’s roots in America are more than two hundred years old, I have been told to ‘go home’ in America as well, where the language of ‘invasion’ is rife.
Who knew what that man saw when he looked at me, or what the people burning Ugandan care workers and Romanian families from their homes saw earlier this week in Belfast.
When he looked at my child, it is clear that he did not see someone who deserves to have her innocence and childhood preserved.
I was reminded of Ruby Bridges, who at 6 years old bravely integrated her school in Louisiana with adults screaming epithets at her and shouting for her to go home. My own parents were born into segregation in the South. In shouting at us, he brought a dark history full circle.
Stephen Ogilvie’s family have called for calm, have begged for their tragedy not to be co-opted by other interests, and have stated themselves that they are ‘disgusted’ by this behaviour.
They should not have to leave his bedside to remind rioters that the people they are targeting are innocent.
Indeed, the people bringing their children to watch cars being set alight and doors kicked in remind me of those pictured bringing their children and a picnic to lynchings in my home state of Georgia years ago. What is it imagined that they would learn?
As an American, I am dismayed by the language I see flowing across the ocean, imported from elsewhere and applied to a place with such beauty and its own rich history. There should be pride in that history and culture—as I have in mine—but that pride is corrosive when it uses racism to assert itself.
On June 19, my family will celebrate Juneteenth, or Freedom Day. For African Americans, it is the true day of our independence, 87 years after July 4. Though my ancestors were kidnapped from Africa to work America’s fields as enslaved people, it was many years before they were recognized as fully human and given full rights under the law.
Many Irish people arrived in my country as refugees and were refused an equal wage and livable accommodations. They were expelled from neighbourhoods, structurally excluded, verbally abused, and threatened with physical violence.
Still today, many Irish immigrants live in my country undocumented. I doubt that those sowing unrest here realise the history and present of its people.
‘Ireland for the Irish.’ There is more to Irishness than whiteness. There is a history of struggle, exclusion, and peace-making. There is more that joins us than that divides us. Racism is a corrosive force to our democracy and civil society at large.
My daughter will grow up knowing the fullness of her history—Irish and African American—not to scare her, but because history repeats itself if we are not watchful.
The Ireland I recognise is not the misguided man in the car. It is the crossing guard, her teachers, the kind officer, and our friends and neighbours. It is those who know that our being here, in all our difference, makes this place stronger.