What Does It Really Take to Be African?
Reading through Demetria Lucas’ ‘Not African Enough for Africa,’ prompted a few questions for me as an African woman. What exactly does being African mean? Is it a cultural thing? A color thing? Why do African Americans believe they would feel at home in Africa despite having no tangible link to the continent?
As I read through the comments it was obvious, that to a lot of African Americans, Africa is a vital piece of the identity puzzle. And I get it.
Think about it for a minute. Many Black Americans have often identified as African first and an American later. So, it makes sense that they would expect acceptance in Africa, especially since their existence in America has been difficult.
African Americans were not willing visitors to America. You were torn away from what you knew to help grow a foreign economy and were never compensated for your labor. Even now, despite your contributions, you are not really welcome, and everyday there is another reminder that you are not the same.
Add to that the fact that Marcus Garvey’s Back to Africa movement made returning to the continent seem like the solution to the problems affecting Blacks in the Diaspora. In Africa, you would never be ‘the other’. You would be fully accepted and embraced for you were once again the majority. And while things did not go quite as planned, many African Americans passed that idea down through generations. Africa became a place where you would not be the other, not a minority. It became a place where nearly everyone looked like you. You would not have to be stopped because you were black, get tagged with the Angry Black woman stereotype because no one would notice….seeing as everyone was just as black as you.
Unfortunately, the reality—as Lucas pointed out—is very different. Skin color is not enough to make you fit in, and when selling the African dream someone forgot to tell you a couple of things.
Culture trumps color. The ability to speak local languages is just one aspect. Honestly, even if you made the effort to learn the language, there are still the social cues and the slang that many would probably miss. Unfortunately, a white African would be seen as more authenticly “African” than an Black American in many instances, because in the space of two generations, the term ‘White African’ has become acceptable. In my grandparents’ days, if you were white, you were either a missionary or a colonizer. You were a stranger, never African.
The fact that African-born Whites can now claim Africa as their home is proof that culture is dynamic. In less than a hundred years, White Africans are a legitimate part of the continent. So, if such a huge change has occurred in that short span of time, how could African Americans–who are separated by hundreds of years of differences–think they will just immediately mesh into one of Africa’s many cultures? It is almost impossible.
As a child, my father had a friend–a former Black Panther–who moved to Tanzania in the late seventies. During that time, Tanzania was practicing African Socialism and he was very excited to live and farm among his people. Over 30 years later, he is still seen as a foreigner, even though he speaks Kiswahili with great fluency and has assimilated as best as he knows how.
I sympathize with wanting to know who you are, with being a child of two worlds who doesn’t quite fit into either one. I know Blacks in the Diaspora want a place where they can just be themselves, but sadly, Africa isn’t it.
Here, you are American; you have been away for five hundred years. We do not have the same experiences to bond us, the same languages to help us bridge the gap, the same memories of how things were.
Please come visit and walk the paths your ancestors walked. But that is all we can give you.
This is a sad article filled with sad comments. Have we learned nothing of the past Pan-Africanist movements which linked us all, in the diaspora and continent as a family? Does kwame Nkrumah and such even ring a bell to anyone anymore on this page? No tangle connection indeed. Its not only within our DNA the connection but within our culture, history and spirit. Have we become so out of touch with our shared blight which has impacted us all? I guess slavery and its effects on both the continental Africans and those within the diasporas has been erased huh? The wool is still took thick and I would suggest the author as well those who comment to do some history as to how welly connected we are, as a people, and not forget ever just as some groups do not forget the effects of their own persecutions.
This article is a bit silly, dismissive, and above all, disappointing.
The author displays complete ignorance not only of American culture, but cultural dynamics altogether. In the States, people have issues with cultural assimilation when they do nothing more than move to a new neighborhood.
Americans, especially Black Americans, understand ‘trying to fit in.’ That is not and has never been the issue. The author completely misses the point by making the advantage of African return sound like a disadvantage.
EVERYONE is judged by their culture. That is no shock or surprise. The difference is that Black Americans in Africa will not be dismissed or blindsided because of the color of their skin.
Finally, it seems quite arrogant to tell complete strangers, from a culture you clearly do not understand, what an entire continent has to offer them. Honestly, this article is a bit of an embarrassment.
I’m honestly sick of Africans trying to tell AA what’s wrong with them. So what’s the problem with visiting Africa? Because I’m a black American? Because if that’s the case, then WHY ARE A LOT OF YOU IN THE UNITED STATES?
Should I get on my high-horse and tell you that you’re not a REAL AMERICAN because you visit this country?
GTFOHWTBS.
Damn-near every African I’ve encountered has this attitude and it’s irritating. You don’t like me because I’m a black American, fine. But stop thinking that we can’t even visit Africa because of some mindset that we’re not ‘real African.
Kill that noise…
Lol. Seriously though. I’m sorry to hear you had such a bad interaction with some Continental Africans but honestly I don’t believe that generally we hate you just because you’re American Black. If anything, I truly believe that AA’s are admired here.There are bad people in every country, that’s just part of life.
I, for one, have had both GOOD and not so wonderful experiences with Blacks of all continents.It usualy comes from ignorance or exposure to misrepresentation of the ‘Other’.So let us not perpetuate this self-hate.
You can come and visit Africa when and if you want to. Don’t worry about some of the negative interractions you had.If you only speak English, I’d start with countries like Ghana, Nigeria,etc. If speak French you can check out Senegal, Cameroon, etc.
Is there ever anything written on this site that doesn’t have the intent to divide people of colour?
For those who are DEFIANTELY black and PAN AFRICAN (identifying as part of the Global African Community) in their outlook -
please don’t be so easily baited.
This is merely the confused opinion of one person, according to whom -
“In less than a hundred years, White Africans are a legitimate part of the continent. So, if such a huge change has occurred in that short span of time, how could African Americans–who are separated by hundreds of years of differences–think they will just immediately mesh into one of Africa’s many cultures? It is almost impossible.”
Uh?
Is it me or does this not make sense?
So if whites can be accepted as African (btw – not my experience in Africa) in less than a hundred a years then why can’t people who are black be accepted in Black Africa in even less time?
The differences between continental Africans and whites is far greater than the so called “hundreds of years of differences” between continental Africans and diasporan Africans.
Explain “the difference” between, APARTHIED in South Africa and Jim Crow in America – that makes African Americans so different to South Africans.
Then explain how whites enslavement of Diasporan Africans is SOOOO different to whites colonial practices against conintnental Africans.
LONG KISS TEET.
But this writer would have us believe that continental Africans have more in common with white imperialists than they have with blacks who are also victims of white oppression, who are in fact also related to them by blood.
Where do they get these loons from?
If you’re black, you’re African and the continent of Africa belongs to you – not whitey.
Travel to Africa respectfully and humbly, embrace the LOCAL CULTURE. You WILL feel that sense of belonging – beleeeve.
No – it aint gonna be no hollywood-ized, Roots style moment of triumphant re-connection, experienced in slow mo – with everyone in the Village (assuming you even bother to go to a Villlage) happily gathered around to celebrate the return of the Lost One.
Hey – people got money to make, they aint got time to indulge your Alex Haley fantasies.
LMAO!
No – just go buy your ivory bangles (preferably fake ivory) and African Carvings and shut the hell up. If you’re comin all high and mighty whitey –
don’t come.
Make connections with progressive blacks where ever you go in the world.
@Socially: Excellent comment and I agree with all your points.
I too read this: “In less than a hundred years, White Africans are a legitimate part of the continent. So, if such a huge change has occurred in that short span of time, how could African Americans–who are separated by hundreds of years of differences–think they will just immediately mesh into one of Africa’s many cultures? It is almost impossible.” and thought this goobley-gook, is really a fine example of the confused internalized racism, nonsense rambling that masquerades as intellectual thinking.
I second all of this. Also, I agree with James Andre that this article is an embarrassment. From my experience, I noticed that most white South Africans on my campus called themselves “Africans,” primarily for the exoticism (makes for interesting cocktail discussions) and to impress their white friends whom they PRIMARILY hung out with.
Look at it this way, if you were switched at birth and then at the age of thirty you found out who your real family was, your reunion would be awkward too. Then include a power differential – your birth family was poor, trying to make it on their own, and in the interim, you were raised as a child of the president or more apropos, you were raised as the well-cared for servant of the presidential family – but well to do nonetheless. Yeah, trying to re-integrate yourself into the poorer birth family may be difficult. And they may say that, yeah, you belong to our family, but may not act like it. At the end of the day, they will see you as belonging to a different world, because, in reality, that was your reality, and not theirs. Now add to this the many layers of complexity brought upon by the trans-Atlantic slave, trade, time, and the power differentials between Africa and America.
I think at the end of the day, we are all of African descent, however, we must understand that nurture trumps nature. If one does not easily recognize your culture or mannerisms, the default is to check off “Foreigner” in their mind’s eye. That’s not an African thing – that’s a human thing. However, for the more introspective, we are able to overcome that nurture and understand those trans-Atlantic bonds, in the comforts of our liberal arts college classrooms. But if you’re expecting your everyday-trying-to-simply-survive Erinma Njoku from Arondizogu or Joe Washington from Atlanta to take time out of their day and set out the red carpet or throw Coming To America flower petals at your Jimmy Choo’s – you are wasting your time. It’s not that either of them – the American nor the African, hate you – it’s just that people have to eat. The desire to reconnect, while respectable, still remains a first-world problem – a luxury, to both the market woman hustling tomatoes at Ariaria and the young black man in the American unemployment line, again.
I’m African and agree with you on that one.
Do you have a passport, ie citizenship, to one of the 56 countries that make up the continent of Africa?
Yes? Then you are African.
No? Then, you aren’t.
Problem solved.
Well said!