You know what… for a people that are sooo proud of their history,ancestry, and culture, I find it strange that many like you are incredibly willing to forget/ignore a large part of it when it suites your view of a certain group of people(just like white people).

It really is like Paul Mooney said,” Africans wrote us off like a bad check.”

How’s that “moving on” from Colonialism going for you btw?

I agree with your comment though. Unique circumstances produce unique needs. Race is a non factor outside of the Americas. People are divided along ethinic groups, religions, and nationalities. So home is where you make it I guess.

For the record, many African Americans do view Africans as kinsman. At least I did. Good to know they don’t feel the same way about us and I appreciate you saying it openly.

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I think part of the problem with American Blacks being alienated from (and being alienating to) other Black ethnic groups is the very term “African American.” I will get flack for this but here goes: it is not accurate. From my perspective, people are co-opting “third world”, post-colonial experiences that they know absolutely nothing about: the Black American reality is *extremely* different from any other Black ethnic group in the world. The term assumes a direct ancestry and almost unbroken cultural heritage — that’s completely false. American culture with its radical individualism is radically different from any other in the world. When you contrast it with African culture, the differences are dramatic. The more appropriate term for the Black population here would be “Africans and African descendants.” That terminology is simply true of all Black people in America.

I also suspect that there is a cultural chauvinism and arrogance that is a mimicry of the general American outlook on the outside world. There’s a weird assumption of superiority and ownership, and Americans tend to erroneously think they have an objective, authoritative understanding of other peoples’ cultures: it’s imperialist.

I cringed as the author described Africa as a “Disneyland,” and the repeated references to “Africa” as though it was a country. Americans abroad tend to treat the rest of the world as existing for their pleasure or enlightenment and tend not to perceive or understand people on their own terms. American Blacks react to ideas about African and other Black nations in the same way White Americans react to ideas about Europe. There’s a lot of paternalism, jingoism, and condescension, without a healthy respect.

I’ve known White Americans who regularly visit India as some sort of spiritual escape, all while claiming Indians seem “happy” in poverty. I’ve known White men who’ve gone to Northeast Asia to have sex with Asian women, as though ordinary rules of decency and ethics didn’t apply. Are American Blacks starting to treat “Africa” as some place over which they can claim ownership, while not even acknowledging or comprehending the lived experiences of Africans, who often do NOT get to speak for themselves about their tribes/nations/people? I hope not.

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Our sister came to our geographical homeland already as a Black American, from what she described in her perspective of, and expectation for what it was going to be like. “Black” just being a color that references a racial classification but does not denote any cultural distinction per say. Those who adopt this label, within the context of simply a racial designation have apparently divorced themselves from the undeniable heritage that our ancestors have bequeathed to us, all be it distorted perhaps, through no fault of our own and whether we acknowledge it or not. It is this cultural heritage that makes us “African” not just “Black”. It is the assimilation into the value system of this hegemonic Western paradigm, particularly the American model, that makes us “Black-American”. This is what I think is the crux of our issues with self-identity. We are confusing a number of constructs, namely Nationality, Ethnicity and Culture. Each of these can be subdivided even further but for the sake of brevity I will just say this; in all of the comments on this particular article I’ve not seen anyone present the argument from the indigenous cultural perspective. Within this context, culture is synonymous with values, which are assembled and devised out of the way human beings of that group perceive themselves and their purpose in regard to the larger environment and their place within the harmony of existence and the Divine world.

Hence, by that definition, culture is fundamentally rooted in a people’s cosmogony – the story of their beginnings and origins. This in turn shapes a people’s paradigm, which defines the limitations of their world view – what is possible or not and what is doable and not. These taboos lead to the development of traditions, etiquette and protocol that become the expression of those people’s identity, by means of various disciplines, arts, crafts, rituals, ceremonies, music etc. Now careful and earnest seeking to find a place called home would have us look for the parallels between African American expressive channels and that of our sisters and brothers on the geographical homeland called Africa today. The similarities are undeniable. This is the first and most apparent link that we have to our right to call ourselves “African” outside of the superficial criteria of sharing the same skin color.

I say, we must look for the “African” in the “African-American” to find the first crumbs on the path that will lead us home, not discard the designation for reasons of not knowing what to look for when you walk into a house that use to be your home. If you walk into a house that used to be your home and don’t remember the items, details and nuances that made it your home, it will just feel like a house to you. It might be nicely decorated with both old and new things but neither will make a difference to you if you have no memory of it. You will find this memory deep within yourself and if your heart is in the right place no matter where you go on this planet, a place where you can walk forever and never reach the end, you will find your home.

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This last paragraph from your blog was unsettling (although honest!):
“My trip to Africa was the sh**. I made friends. I went to great parties. I stood in clouds. I saw breathtaking views. I got a song trapped in my head that I still can’t get out. I had a great time that I shared with a lot of people. I liked Jozi so much I looked at real estate. Oh, and I dropped the “African-“ from the way I identify myself. I’d say that’s a great trip.”

I think you are still generalizing Africa.
WHENEVER someone travels to an African country and still says just “Africa”, I cringe.
I dunno, am I overreacting here?

The honesty that I LOVE is your blatant desire to drop “African” from your identification. I have never seen it illustrated that way and I think that says a lot about the Black American/African relationship. Maybe that is a way to begin clarifying definitions, instead of accusing one another.

I just wish there wasn’t such a divide…

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Africans in the Diaspora have to deal with cultural displacement as well.

And yes, Africa is much to large to have a general experience. I’m sure if I went to South Africa or Eritrea or Tanzania I would have to adjust.

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I love your work, but Africa is not a country. And for American blacks, South Africa is certainly not the motherland.

Most of the slaves were taken from West Africa, a fact still evident today (facial features etc)

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It’s true that at many times I was made to feel foreign and not embraced with the child-like anticipation I had been carrying for so many years! However, I really came to understand on that trip that African people had been colonized, dehumanized, and miseducated in their own countries, just as we had experienced the same outside. I met African people who had NO idea that there was any connection between Black people in the Diaspora and Black people on the continent.

Africans on the continent were not living in some untouched utopia while we were suffering in slavery. To say that Colonialism did some serious damage to the minds and hearts of our people is to be a gross understatement! We have a lot to relearn about eachother and our shared history, in the Americas, in the Caribbean, on the content and all over the world. It is easy to get our feelings hurt (yes sometimes mine were). The bottom line is that even an African on the continent can’t tell me that I’m NOT truly African. I am. They just don’t know. But they will one day. Each one teach one.

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