Jet Lag

Growing up, I never realized the differences between people of other races. For example, I would say, “Oh, that’s an African-American, that’s a Hispanic girl, and oh, that’s a white kid.” I would never think about the fact that maybe they came from different countries. Of course, being a Chinese American, I would always endeavor to figure out the specific nationality of any Asians that I met, but when it concerned other races I did not bother. And for some reason, this applied especially to people with African heritage.  Anybody who was black automatically became African-American. Now that I am older, I realize that it is improper to assume like I did when I was younger. Instead of a black person being African-American, they could actually be from Senegal or Liberia. Or from Australia for that matter.   So how are they related? Is it because they all came from Africa? They all started from somewhere and immigrated to somewhere else?

A representation of the black diaspora.

    In “The Practice of Diaspora,” Brent Hayes Edwards describes how black people throughout the world are related. He uses the French word decalage to describe the black diaspora,

“Decalage is one of the many French words that resists translation into English…It can be translated as ‘gap,’ ‘discrepancy,’ ‘time-lag,’ or ‘interval’; it is also the term that French speakers sometimes use to translate “jet lag.” In other words, a decalage is either a difference or gap in time (advancing or delaying a schedule) or in space (shifting or displacing an object)…the verb caler means “to prop up or wedge” something (as when on leg on a table is uneven). So decalage in its etymological sense refers to the removal of such an added prop or wedge. Decalage indicates the reestablishment of a prior unevenness or diversity; it alludes to the taking away of something that was added in the first place, something artificial, a stone or a piece of wood that served to fill some gap or rectify some imbalance.” (Edwards, 13-14)

Some simple examples of decalage.  Gaps inherent in the structure.

     If decalage is a gap, and not only that but also the restoration of a gap or a discrepancy, how can Edwards be using it to describe black diaspora, something that is meant to bring together those with African heritage all over the world into a community?

First, let us examine the wedge that must be removed if Edwards’ theory of decalage is true. Many people assume that black diaspora for all black people is the same (like I did before). They assume that all black people have the same history of forced immigration to the Americas. This is due mainly to the fact that cultures of black internationalism resulting from diaspora can only be viewed in translation (Most people of African descent cannot speak or write in English).   And who translated these stories, these histories of black people? White European or Americans. Thus, our view of the black diaspora has been smoothed out to an artificial sameness because many important stories and experiences of African immigrants have been lost in translation. White historians have overgeneralized the black diaspora, and thus have taken away the differences intrinsically found in black immigrant history. Edwards challenges us to remove the wedge, if you will, and restore the gap. This gap describes how black diaspora truly is.

Edwards explains how diaspora demonstrates dissimilarities,

“….diaspora points to difference not only internally (the ways transnational black groupings are fractured by nation, class, gender, sexuality, and language) but also externally; in appropriating a term so closely associated with Jewish thought, we are forced to think not in terms of some closed or autonomous system of African dispersal but explicitly in terms of a complex past of forced migrations and racialization.” (Edwards, 12)

It is very clear that those with African heritage have been dispersed from Africa in many different situations and through different forms. Take, for example the Africans that were sold as slaves to the Americas versus the Africans that were sold as slaves to Europe. Those people are now very different from each other, not only because of their past, but also because of their present. Those in Europe will speak French, Italian, and German, among other languages. Those in the Americas will speak English, Portuguese, and Spanish, among others. Within the groups of the European blacks and American blacks, there are even more differences. Take the American blacks for example. Some are considered Hispanic while others are considered African-American. Some eat “soul food” while others dine on Caribbean cuisine.

In Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ifemelu returns to her original home in Nigeria after spending many years in the United States:

“When had shopkeepers become so rude? Had buildings in Lagos always had this patina of decay? And when did it become a city of people quick to beg and too enamored of free things? “Americanah!” Ranyinudo teased her often. “You are looking at things with American eyes. But the problem is that you are not even a real Americanah. At least if you had an American accent we would tolerate your complaining!” (Adichie, 475-476)

Even though Ifemelu did not grow up in the United States, living in the US for more than just a few years would change her. She would grow used to the items and attitudes in the United States. How could living in a different place not change a person? That change in Ifemelu is now a part of her, and it should be a part of her because it is natural. The same goes for people who are part of the black diaspora. It is natural for them to have differences from each other.

Yet still some people still say that a community is supposed to thrive on shared characteristics. That a cultural identity, in this case, a black one, is supposed to be based on the fact that all black people came from Africa.

Edwards uses Stuart Hall to contend this belief,

“Hall himself explicitly begins to theorize in the late 1980s as a frame of cultural identity determined not through “return” but through difference: ‘not by essence or purity but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of identity which lives with and through, not despite, difference.’” (Edwards, 12)

Hall is explaining that cultural identity is not defined only by a shared sameness. Instead it is difference that can make a community and an identity richer.

In Americanah, Ifemelu creates a blog, reading the comments from one of her posts:

“The first commenter wrote: Rubbish post. Who cares? The second wrote Thank God somebody is finally talking about this….By the sixth day, the blog had one thousand unique visitors. Ifemelu moderated the comments, deleting anything obscene, reveling in the liveliness of it all, in the sense of herself at the surging forefront of something vibrant.” (Adichie, 520)

In this instance, a community is created out of difference. Although the people reading Ifemelu’s blog have many different opinions, their discussion of opposing views bring them together. This demonstrates a community borne out of disagreements.

Another community that requires difference as an integral part of it is the Democratic political party in the United States. The people in the party are the same because they share the same political beliefs. Yet they are very different. There are democrats in California, there are democrats in Maine, and yes, there are even democrats in Texas. They are white, black, Hispanic and Asian. They speak different languages, grew up in different households. Some of them may not have even grown up in the United States. They ascribe to many different religions, from Christianity to Buddhism. Many of them do not even hold the exact same political beliefs.   Yet without these differences, the Democratic party would not be what it is today. It might not even exist-for if they wanted a homogenous population, the party would not have enough supporters. In the same way, the community formed by the black diaspora is the same because everyone in it has roots in Africa, but it cannot exist without the differences within it.

Edwards clarifies the idea of decalage further, and relates it to the dissimilarities found in the African diaspora,

“If a discourse of diaspora articulates difference, then one must consider the status of that difference-not just linguistic difference but, more broadly, the trace or residue, perhaps of what resists or escapes translation…Such an unevenness or differentiation marks a constitutive decalage in the very weave of the culture, one that cannot be either dismissed or pulled out.” (Edwards 13)

Decalage becomes a very good description of black diaspora.  The differences between the people that are a part of the diaspora and the discrepancies within it – resulting from what eludes translation – are embedded in the African diaspora itself.  The dissimilarities between those involved in the diaspora result from obvious histories but also from subtle and invisible effects.  These invisible effects make up the decalage that is embedded within cultural identity and the African diaspora.  This gap, resulting from these invisible effects, in the structure of black diaspora is hard to explain, just as it is hard to translate decalage from French to English.

The removal of the improper view of black diaspora as uniform allows us to understand black international culture as decalage. A gap, but a gap that is part of the character of black diaspora, and a gap without which black diaspora as we know it would not exist.