Unpacking Anti-Blackness in American Samoa

Written by:  Gabrielle Langkilde
​In early June, as Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests were breaking out all over the US mainland and abroad, there seemed to be a disconnect between how the protests that were happening off-island related to us here in American Samoa. General comments I often heard in reference to BLM protests were, “Isn’t it so sad what’s going on off-island?” or “Good thing we don’t have those types of problems [read “racial issues”] here in American Samoa.” Even when a few protests happened here in our very own territory, there seemed to be confusion amongst the general public about why BLM protests were even being held in American Samoa, since it just didn’t seem like “our issue” to be protesting about.
 
In response to this, the American Samoa Alliance against Domestic and Sexual Violence hosted the first ever “Unpacking Anti-Blackness in American Samoa” open workshop event in American Samoa on July 2nd, 2020. As a summer intern at the Alliance, I had approached Director Jennifer Tofaeono with the idea for hosting this workshop in early June. And even though it was not a part of the deliverables in my original contract, Jennifer was not only gracious enough to adjust my contract accordingly, but also she was just as excited at the idea as I was and wholeheartedly prepared to support me in any way possible. With her and the rest of the Alliance team’s support, I was able to design and develop an educational, interactive workshop event to engage participants in thinking critically about anti-Blackness, the ways it manifests in American Samoa, its consequences, and what steps we can take individually and collectively toward combating it in our community.
 
While our main goal was to try to help participants understand the gravity of BLM protests and why issues of anti-Blackness were also extremely relevant to us living here in American Samoa, we also recognized the importance of just being able to provide a brave space for our people here to learn and engage with these concepts in the first place. Having grown up in American Samoa, I don’t remember a time in my primary and secondary schooling where I was empowered to speak about issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, etc. In fact, I was never given the language to express my feelings about those issues. For example, I was not equipped with vocabulary like “white privilege”, “anti-Blackness”, “colorism”, “heteronormativity”, “intersectionality”, etc. before having gone off to college and taken Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies courses or critical race theory classes. And I’m sure that this is the case for most people who’ve been raised here in American Samoa. 
 
At the workshop, I was glad to see participants from different backgrounds, regarding age range and educational background. As I led the workshop, I watched in awe as participants quickly picked up on concepts such as “privilege”, “intersectionality”, and “anti-Blackness”, and already began applying them in our discussions. We discussed what anti-Blackness is and how we ourselves might perpetuate it in the language we use, the beauty standards we hold ourselves too, and the ways in which we appropriate Black culture. Perhaps what I was most proud of was to see participants apply an intersectional lens in our discussions, recognizing the multi-dimensional complexity of their identities and how anti-Blackness affects people differently.
While the workshop was a success and participants walked away feeling prepared to discuss and challenge anti-Blackness in their own communities, the work towards dismantling anti-Blackness in our community is far from done. In fact, this is just the beginning. Before we can even begin to tackle systemic racism and anti-Blackness in institutions, we must first educate ourselves and tackle it within our own families, friend groups, work environments, and other smaller communities. I must also recognize that I too still have so much work to do, but that’s the thing about anti-racist work. It’s a lifelong dedication.