Code-Switching Within The Black Community
"Our goals in life cannot be aligned with the same systems that enslave, police, and beat black bodies for a check or a promotion."
In one of our History of the African Diaspora to 1900 class lectures, we had a discussion on code-switching. Many students gave their opinion on the topic and for this essay, I’ll give a generally accepted definition of the term and then my own interpretation of it. Jada Vasser from The State News gives the definition and then puts it in a black context. “The act of code-switching – or the practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation – is used by the Black community to eliminate bias and stereotypes towards them, especially in non-Black dominant spaces.” Some examples of this are illustrated well by Jessica Guynn in USA Today from “donning conservative blazers and low-wedge heels and tucking hair into a wig instead of wearing natural hairstyles or braids”. When it comes to codeswitching with our language commonly referred to as “African American Vernacular English (AAVE)”, “we button down our mannerisms and even in casual moments, we constantly monitor how we carry ourselves and chat about the latest episode of “Game of Thrones”, but not “Insecure”. If I were to define code-switching in my own words, I would say that it is the act of culturally removing ourselves from our blackness to cater to whiteness and gain access to capital. We code-switch to get access to jobs, we code-switch to get promotions, and we code-switch to get opportunities that we had to work twice as hard to get in the first place. In the black community, code-switching will always be a relevant topic in the capitalist system that exists in American society and unfortunately, this produces internalized antiblackness and self-policing which leads to code-switching within our own black communities.
When our class was shown a video titled “Free To Be Me: Tabitha Brown Talks Code Switching | Recipe For Change: Amplifying Black Women” it made me think about this even more. As a black queer person who recently just came out this summer, I came to fully understand Angelica Ross’s words when she said “A lot of people are not aware of how black, queer, and LGBTQ people have to code-switch within our black community. We grow up together listening to the same music being informed by the same culture, but we have to switch the code so that you don’t read my queerness, you don’t read my transness, because we then face violence from people in our own communities. If you can make it to the corner store without hearing “OH, HELL NAW!” then you’ve made it, so it’s kind of this thing of to stay safe, we had to learn how to not have our queerness read with our blackness.” This discussion was very illuminating as I realized the intersections that come from being black and queer. We face ostracization from both white and black society, and rather than pointing the finger at individuals I would like to take a radical step in systems thinking and talk about how binary thinking plays a huge role in why we have to code-switch within our black community.
Of course, binary thinking isn’t the only reason as to why this occurs but I still believe that it’s a major factor in the discussion. The definition of the term is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a classification system that only allows for two possibilities and is also known as “black and white thinking”. Some great examples of this are discussions about pronouns to discussions about politics, and within the black community it’s people asking us “are we black or are we queer?” instead of recognizing that we’re black and queer. Our identities are separate from one another and don’t get to come together to make ourselves the people that we truly are, because with binary thinking there is no spectrum, there is no nuance, and these are inherently colonial mindsets. It is a European way of viewing the world and it’s something that stems from colonialism which affects African Americans and the larger African Diaspora when it comes to how we are viewed as black queer people. Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora by Michael A. Gomez illustrates that one of the ripple effects of colonialism resulted in “modernity” through the transatlantic slave trade. This four hundred plus year period was such a catastrophe that it fundamentally altered life on Earth and devastated the African continent and diaspora for European power. Our introduction into the “New World” was a three-year period of adjustment called “seasoning”. To quote the book, “Seasoning involved acclimating to a new environment, new companions, strange languages and food, and new living arrangements. But above all seasoning involved adjusting to life and work under conditions cruel and lethal. As a result of brutal treatment, the shock of the New World, disease, and the longing for home, between 25 and 33 percent of the newly arrived did not survive seasoning (Gomez, 100).” So, we were quite literally beat into becoming subservient to these colonial mindsets to become enslaved workers for the New World. It’s one of the mental and physical effects from generational chattel slavery based on race also referred to as “post-traumatic slave syndrome” which was coined by Dr. Joy DeGruy in 2005. Therefore, regardless of where our boats landed at, this is something that affects all of us in the African Diaspora. As a result, we now live in a white supremacist society that uses the systems of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy to instill binary thinking within black circles which can be seen through the act of black queer code-switching.
One of the reasons why it took me three years to come out the closet was that fear of violence I could experience as a black queer person even within my own community. From a young age, I saw how we were socialized to be homophobic whether it be through school, sports, or the church. We were misinformed, uneducated, and used binary thinking to adhere to white standards of living and denounced anyone who didn’t fit the rigid boxes of the gender that they had been assigned to. I started to recognize this more when I came out and went through mental battles on if I should wear a skirt to the family reunion even though I knew I’d get glaring looks and get asked homophobic questions. Whether I should walk a certain way in the streets of Stone Mountain knowing that I could get clocked and confronted at any moment. Even though these situations are tame compared to other people’s experiences it was that fear of violence that made me consider toning down/code-switch my queerness in the first place. When cishet black people ask black queer people “are you black or are you queer” that is violence, when the intersections of our identities are thrown in the garbage due to binary thinking that is violence, and this violence is not only mental but physical. In early July of this year (2024), Shannon Boswell, a black transgender woman, was shot and ran over in Stone Mountain, Georgia which is my hometown. Black trans women are well known to be the victims of interpersonal violence in our society and it’s something that comes from the code-switching people do in our communities. However, even though we’ve been impacted by generational trauma from the transatlantic slave trade, even though we code-switch in white society and within the black community, we can change course for the better and save all of us in the process.
In order to make the change that we want to see in this world we must go about delearning these colonial mindsets and decolonizing ourselves so that we can realize code-switching has done more harm than help. Adhering to whiteness isn’t going to save the African Diaspora and neither is self-policing the black people within it. Our goals in life cannot be aligned with the same systems that enslave, police, and beat black bodies for a check or a promotion. Through social programs that work to meet the material conditions of our people and remove our minds from the imperial gutter, a new level of class/race consciousness must emerge and as a result, black queer people must be seen as human beings with dignity. The intersections of our identities must be respected and the work that we do has to work to stand for all black people, not just the male cishet ones. I do this through viewing Pan-Africanism through an intersectional lens that focuses on systems instead of individuals because I truly believe in the liberation of all of us in the African Diaspora. However, the only way we can go about this liberation is through removing ourselves from the things that keep us down and that includes code-switching. We must always be our authentic selves in this white supremacist society and appreciate those who do so through their black queer identities. To me, it’s how we can make the change that we want to see in this world and one day abolish code-switching from our ways of life in the near future.
References
Guynn, Jessica. 2024. “What Is Code-Switching? Why Black Americans Say They Can’t Be Themselves at Work | U-M LSA Department of Psychology.” Lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved (https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-news/what-is-code-switching--why-black-americans-say-they-can-t-be-th.html).
Vasser, Jada. 2023. “The Art of Code-Switching: How Black Students Adapt to Predominantly White Spaces.” The State News. Retrieved (https://statenews.com/article/2023/02/the-art-of-codeswitching).
Brown, Tabitha. 2022. “Free to Be Me: Tabitha Brown Talks Code Switching | Recipe for Change: Amplifying Black Women.” Www.youtube.com. Retrieved (
Anon. 2024. “What Is Binary Thinking?” Quillbot Blog. Retrieved October 7, 2024 (https://quillbot.com/blog/frequently-asked-questions/what-is-binary-thinking/).
Gomez, Michael A. 2005. Reversing Sail : A History of the African Diaspora. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, Ny, Usa: Cambridge University Press.
Joy Degruy Leary, and Randall Robinson. 2005. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome : America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. United States: Joy Degruy Publications Inc.
Ring, Trudy. 2024. “Trans Woman Shannon Boswell Fatally Shot in Georgia.” Advocate.com. Retrieved October 7, 2024 (https://www.advocate.com/crime/transgender-woman-shannon-boswell-killed).