Larry Williamson, a tall black man with flecks of gray in his hair, strides down the main hallway inside the Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center, past the traditional African artifacts displayed alongside black sculptures and paintings in bright reds, yellows and blues.
“At the Hale Center, we encourage all African and African-American students to understand their similarities,” Williamson said, on his way to meet an African student, “to get beyond their differences.”
During a recent phone interview, William E. Nelson, in the department of African-American and African Studies since its inception in 1970, spoke about the cultural separation between Africans and blacks in America.
“I think some of the misunderstandings come from a lack of knowledge,” Nelson said. “I’m not suggesting there’s animosity between students, but the fellowship doesn’t seem to be there.”
Both African and black American students have experienced the lack of fellowship to which Nelson referred. Kisito Kikam, a senior in biology from Cameroon, heads the African campus student organization, African Youth League.
“On a personal level, I interact with African-American students,” Kikam said, sitting in a large conference room inside the Hale Center and resting his hands on the table in front of him. “But for community projects, we rarely come together.”
For last autumn’s “African Night 2006,” AYL’s spring event celebrating African culture, Kikam said, “I reached out to about 20 different black student organizations. I got only one response. I’m interested in working with African-Americans, but I hope African-Americans will work with us.”
Adisa Aarons, a sophomore in construction systems management and vice president of the black student poetry group, Fervent Rhythms Evolving Erratically, said he has observed “disunity between the African and African-American student communities on campus. I went to a campus discussion for Black History Month back in February and the discussion got intense.”
As he speaks, Aarons sits at a metal table in the Hagerty Hall cafe, near the television sets running talk shows and news programs from around the world.
“I don’t know enough about Africans to understand what the similarities are between us, beyond the color of our skin,” Aarons said. “The clear-cut difference is that we’re separate. Both groups use the Hale Center, yet everyone is doing their own thing. But we’re all at the Hale – that’s a start.”
Adison McNeill, a graduating senior in marketing and student chair for the 28th Annual African-American Heritage Festival, said both black American students and African students “face stereotypes we must dismantle.”
Williamson said he believes the lack of cohesion between African-American and African students in part stems from cultural differences.
“To authenticate a culture, you go to the experts,” he said. “We need Africans to authenticate the rich culture they have. Some African-Americans don’t have an understanding or appreciation of their African culture. African immigrants want to learn the guidelines of the culture they’re living in, but don’t want to lose the uniqueness of the culture they came from.”
Cultural misunderstandings can arise from a variety of sources, including differences in language, religion, clothing and body language. Bisharo Gardad, a senior in nutrition, said, “We Somalis shake our finger at our friends. In our culture, it’s not considered rude – we’re saying, ‘How are you doing?’ Somalis always talk from our hands.”
Gabrielle St. Leger, coordinator of African-American Student Services at Ohio State’s Multicultural Center, said, “There are no positive or negative feelings on either side. There’s a mutual respect for differences and liking for similarities. But each group goes to their respective places where they feel comfortable. They migrate to where they feel safe, where they have advocates, where they can celebrate their culture.”
As he has done in the past at the Hale Center, Williamson plans to hold activities and workshops to help the two groups understand their differences and similarities.
“Africans and African-Americans have so many similarities,” Williamson said. “But we don’t talk about them enough.”
As part of the increased dialogue, Williamson said the two cultures should be aware of any invalid assumptions they make about one another.
“There are misconceptions and stereotypes on both sides,” Williamson said. “In Africa, they hear multiple stereotypes about African-Americans, such as ‘they’re aggressive about getting jobs but not as aggressive as they need to be.’ Many African-Americans also have negative perceptions from the media of what an African is. They say, ‘Why would I want to be a part of that culture?'”
Ahmad Sikainga, a Sudanese professor in African-American and African Studies, agreed with Williamson and said that part of the disconnection between the two student communities might be because “African-American students see many negative images of Africa in the media.”
Among the more widely publicized local cultural differences are those that occur in the Linden neighborhood northeast of campus between the Somali and black communities. At times, the tensions have erupted in physical fighting between high school students.
Williamson said he is aware of the Linden conflicts but they don’t spill over onto campus.
Chris Riley, a graduate student in geography who studied the Linden conflicts for his undergraduate honors thesis, said ,”There are similarities between the cultures, but it depends on your frame of reference. What’s important is what differences are keeping the two groups apart. If people assume migrants will assimilate into groups they most look like, this creates tension for those migrants who don’t want to assimilate.”
Williamson pointed out that there may be economic reasons why the two communities in the Linden area haven’t come together as Columbus city officials had originally planned.
“There is a competitive factor between some African-Americans and Africans based on the economy,” Williamson said. “African-Americans might feel immigrants are imposing on jobs, so it becomes a class issue, as well. The economy can put people against each other. If we realize that – and if we have a series of dialogues – we can unify ourselves.”
In 1990, the Center for Research on Immigration Policy in Washington, D.C. conducted the most recent study on economic differences between Africans and black Americans. The report found that, at the time, the median household income of an African immigrant was $30,907 but for blacks it was $19,533. The same study determined that 47 percent of African immigrants have graduated from college compared with only 14 percent of blacks.
Nasir Hassan, a winter 2006 graduate from the college of pharmacy, is a Somali man born in Ethiopia. After moving to the United States, he attended Linden McKinley High School and experienced the tensions firsthand.
“The conflicts resulted from misconceptions on both sides,” Hassan said. “African-American students wrongly assumed Somalis don’t pay taxes; they also thought the government provided us with money, cars and so on. Somali students assumed, based on what we had heard and seen in the media, that African Americans were violent.”
Hassan said teachers at Linden McKinley stepped in and successfully helped resolve the conflicts, enabling his class to come together. In his honors thesis research, Riley found that city officials denied the claims that Somalis are receiving special funding from the government.
Nelson said he believes the misunderstandings partially arise from differing psychological and historical perspectives.
“Many African students are unfamiliar with – they don’t have the history or experience of – the Civil Rights movement,” Nelson said. “So it’s difficult for them to relate to the psychology of being African-American. Many African students come from societies
without racial discrimination, so they don’t understand the implications of racial conflicts in the U.S. In their countries, they’ve experienced class discrimination. Here they may find themselves confronted with racial, economic, social and psychological problems. So Africans tend to veer away from African-American student organizations, and instead prefer to form their own.”
According to “The Story of Africa,” an online BBC World Service documentary, by the early twentieth century, most of Africa lived under colonial oppression instituted by European powers such as England, France and Italy. For generations, colonists used Africa’s rich resources and strategic ports.
Riley said colonialism is complicated. “It involves race and class and a variety of other issues.”
Despite the differing perspectives of black Americans and Africans, members of both groups indicate they want to work together more in the future. After graduation, Kikam said he plans to contact other black organizations throughout the United States to unite the two cultures. Across town, Mahdi Taakilo, founder of Helping Africans in New Directions and Somali Link, a local newspaper, is working on a series of workshops to help black and Somali families communicate.
“It’s part of Somali culture to help other people,” Taakilo said.
On campus, the lack of unity between the two cultures has motivated Aarons to start a new student organization, United Black Men for Development, with the help of African-American Student Services, the Bell Resource Center and the Hale Center. He hopes the organization will be available for students to join in September.
“Let’s sit down at the table – let’s see if we can all come together,” Aarons said, before walking over to the Hale Center, which was hosting a late afternoon barbecue. “It’s good for both communities to learn from each other.”
