AFRICAn-Americans Part 1

Response to Khayav's video.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Africa
• African-Americans
• black
• hypocrisy
• stereotypes

[219790]

call yourself black nigga .......i'm not ashamed of being african shut the fuck up bitch

[spokenlife]

Not being ashamed of myself, I can't imagine that anyone would be ashamed of being whatever they are. I personally am just not interested in labels. I am me. What you are, you are. Be happy. I also will not buy into any of those other labels you just applied to a total stranger. Peace and respect to you always.

[CVNHOUSTON]

You said the magic phrase, "in middle school." You all were kids. At that age, the only Africans we see are the images from the media. Most educated African-Americans know that Africa is a continent with a beautiful array of people. See---growing up we believe all Africans were extremely dark carrying a spear. Sadly, not only Afro-Americans believe this stereotype.

[herrcad]

i love what u side that it is a two-way thing. f**k edgar for being racist (racism is also applicable if u r black that hates other races even whites). baby i feel ur pain. being an african that grew up in a multi-cultural city, i have love for all people, and i am surprised that some of our black folks disgrace themselves on the basis of origin, nationality, etc. we should love personality and shun prejudices. black, white, asian, hispanic all bleed RED blood. i luv u all, please change d world

[misskaneza]

@slipher87 lol i don't care what you think. My mother is full african. i came out of her. i was born in africa and raised there. i speak an african language, african people say I'm african so i don't need you to tell me who i al. yes i have a white father and what? people still see me as black.

[sitabanu]

@Titoscudd It took my breath away when he said this to me! I thought for a moment his intent was political in some way as if too many of the Diaspora were showing up with hands out expecting a return while perhaps not having skills to offer in advancing the nation as a whole. I guess my question is "If we have no right to claim Afrika" then how can can Pan-Afrikanism remain viable? Are we of the Diaspora being naive and romantic about Afrika? I am confused...and a little suspicious...

[sitabanu]

@Titoscudd Exactly. We desperately need more Afrikan film makers to tell the various histories of enslavement. I just found out (unmixed) Afrikans of Madagascar were transported to Capetown, South Africa in 1766 Slave Ship Mutiny" - PBS. This would be an East Afrikan trade to West Afrika which obviously skews the numbers of so-called West Afrikans enslaved in the Trans-Atlantic trade! It never occurred to me that Afrikan-Americans should include Madagascar as possible ancestry!

[Titoscudd]

@sitabanu

The fact that this we have allowed this ignorance and disinformation to persist even in post-colonial years speaks to a failure on our part as Africans to FIGHT HARD to teach our children our own narrative of history. Just as the West goes to superlative lengths to ensure that theirs, even if biased, flawed or out rightly false, is the prevalent narrative. Is it not even a greater tragedy that we, without the lash of the colonial master, still teach our children these distortions?

[Titoscudd]

@sitabanu

In fact, I find it rather strange that a Ghanaian would tell you that because, of all the West African states, Ghana is the most welcoming of diasporans. And this is because of the work of their first Prime Minister, Kwame Nkurumah who made an effort particularly to attract African Americans back to come to Ghana. Thus, Ghana is the "Black Star" state, named after Marcus Garvey's Black Star. In fact, many African Americans have relocated there.

[Titoscudd]

@sitabanu

Even I had little or no knowledge of it or the way Africans in the diaspora had been treated in the West until I visited Western nations. In fact, we are taught such historical distortions as "Mongo Park DISCOVERED the confluence of the Rivers Niger and Benue" whereas, Africans had been fishing those waters LOOOONG before Mongo Park was born in Britain. And this narrative was taught in post-colonial African schools by African teachers and curriculum.

[Titoscudd]

@sitabanu

You've highlighted a salient issue. If you went to MANY African countries today and inquired as to their knowledge of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, you're likely to get a response like this, "Oh! I HEARD that some people were taken from here as slaves, then William Wilberforce fought for their freedom and now they're free." Ask them if they'd ever heard the term "trans-Atlantic Slave Trade" and it's likely that they'll say "No." Talk less of the details and travails of it.

[sitabanu]

@lparmer66 Jewish-American. German-American. Italian-American. Irish-American. Latino-American. Spanish-American. Arab-American, etc., but not Afrikan-American? What the ....?

[sitabanu]

@Titoscudd I met a man from Ghana. He told me that I had no right to call myself African-American since I had no existing family anywhere in Africa! That type of talk does not make me feel the history of the American-Africans-Blacks- 'Negroes' is understood. It almost seems as if the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade has not been taught in many African schools and therefore no knowledge of the American-Africans' past is considered relevant! Isn't this troubling in a Pan-African context?

[sitabanu]

@slipher87 Yeah, I hear you. I mean dag, why is it that before the European Afrika was the "Dark Continent" and suddenly this means not a reference to the people but the unknown nature of the continent? It is all so much word games that the ethnic Afrikan of the Sudan is being told to leave his homeland because the White-Semitic-Arab wants his land! This is ancient Qemt all over again. Pushed further south beyond the Sudan as history books re-write history claiming the Arab was always there.