Where should we start? Talking about African Americans as a native of Africa is no different than talking about self, and is not as simple as most of us would imagine, especially in this historical and cultural context.
Let us start this with a simple assumption, and hopefully it will bring the African Experience in America.
Let assume that you, the reader are arrested by Aliens, and forced to go to some unknown lands, such as Mars, or Neptune, with no chances at all to return back on planet Earth. When you leave planet Earth, no chances are given to you to prepare for the trip; you are not allowed to take along with you indispensable things, such as clothing, shoes, food, etc, let alone, to prepare psychologically for a one way trip. All what you have on you are chains, to restrain you from fleeing, and occasionally your underwear.
When you arrive to the Alien World, you have to start from the beginning, from scratch. Nutritionally speaking, this means no more Fufu, a meal made out of cassava roots, that you enjoyed back on Earth; This also means no more condré , a meal made with plantain, and pork meat, no more cocoa yam, no more palm oil etc. Culturally speaking, no more N'dombolo, Djudju,Messu, Kwassa Kwassa, Mutsuashi, Lalé,Apala, Bata, and all the traditional dances you had back on Earth, and that have been invented and transmitted from generation to generation, and that you inherited when you were born? If you are a female, it means you have to forget about the entire collection of elaborated hairdo, play etc. How about all the folk tales and songs? How about your Yoruba language, your Swahili language, your Bamileke language, How about your Twi, Ashanti, Zulu languages, and cultures? How about your entire family, father, mother, uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews, sons and daughters if you have any; how about friends?
You will erase everything from your memory, and, if this is not enough burden already, speak an alien language, a language that is completely different to what you are accustomed to. How about your own name? You lose it too. For instance, from Kasavubu, you become Johnson, From Kivuva, you become Smith, from Bakoua, you become Hilda, from Manewa, you become Mary, and from Kuntakinte, you become Tobie etc. Do you see where we are getting to? Well, when we say "leave everything on Earth", we mean everything, and it is still an understatement.
400 year later, we pay a visit to where you are, coming from the planet Earth, and what do we find? We discover that you have adapted so well and excelled in all the fields a mind can think of, despite the adversity. Despite not being able to benefit from the knowledge developed and empirically transmitted by your ancestors to you, and despite not having in place a blueprint, of some of those creations you have managed to adapt to your new context, you have created, invented, built, shined, and help make the Alien world a better place.
All along, you have been treated as a “sub-something” and with chains, you have done so well that your influence has impacted the whole world. Should we say the whole universe? For instance, not having access to the cassava roots raw product for your favorite Fufu, you have managed to create other type of dishes, called today Soul Food. Without the benefit of the Ndjembe (drum), or the trees you were familiar with, to make it, without the kora (West African harp),you have mastered every other musical instrument, from the alien saxophone to the xylophone, and guitar. Having left without any preparation at all, you have created Soul Music. Blues, Jazz, Hip Hop, Rap Bebop, and help create Rock and most musical style etc.
On another aspect, we found that one of you, called Lewis Latimer invented an important part of the light bulb, the carbon filament. One of you, called Granville T. Woods invented a train-to-station communication system. One of you, called George Washington Carver invented peanut butter and 400 plant products. One of you, called Garrett Morgan invented the gas mask, and the traffic light. One of you, called Otis Boykin invented the electronic control devices for guided missiles, IBM computers, and the pacemaker. One of you, Dr. Patricia E Bath invented amethod of eye surgery that has helped many blind people to see. And the list goes on and on. Should we talk about your preponderance in sports such as Basketball, Football, Boxing, Baseball, Tennis and Golf?
Dear reader as you have already noticed, we are talking about the Africans who were taken from their continent by force and shipped to the American continent over 400 hundred years ago for labor. It's a journey that is unique, and extraordinary. It is an experience that shows the best and the worst of humankind. A true story of betrayal, exploitation, wickedness, tempered by resilience, courage, perseverance, tolerance, and success.
This is the African experience in America, an experience that denotes the genius of the African people, and that confirms their strength and spirit in impacting this world; an experience that does not come as a surprise for those who know history. Indeed as the builders of the great civilization of the Nile Valley they built the great Pyramids of Egypt, the Sphinx, created great cities in the Ancient World, invented philosophy. mathematics, physics, sciences, and live with the concept of Maat, a concept that instrumentalizes the African' peaceful vision of the world and that goes in contradiction to the Civilization of vanguard and clashes inherited and developed by Europeans from what anthropologists call “the clash of the cavemen era” (Neanderthal Vs. Cro-Magnon)due to the scarcity or resources.. The concept of Maat is defined as the ultimate natural law and paves the way to the notion of justice, righteousness, reciprocity, and harmony among humans and nature. For example, harmony with nature means respecting and treating nature, and environment as sacred, not as some kind of enemy that should be mastered, by all means necessary. Had this concept been applied, we will be far from the environmental disaster that is lingering today.
Some people tend to look at African American with condescendence, and like the rap singer Tupac Shakur once said, "focus on the trouble" expressed by some of them, rather than at the struggle that was once theirs, and that can still be felt, in today's society, let alone their exceptional resilience and effort to strive against all odds and build a subculture that influences the contemporary world.
Furthermore, their impact into today's civilization is at time minimized, underestimated, and bluntly ignored by some. This state of things is not only proper to African Americans, but to all Africans, whether they are Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, live in Europe or even in the African continent.
This attitude is proper to Eurocentric views, a system that puts everyone else not part of the Greco-Roman, or Judeo Christian Axle, at the periphery of their world, and creates a notion of superiority of one race. We are not going to elaborate about this notion here, but take two examples to elucidate our point.
First it is almost generally accepted (Encyclopedia Britannica, Mainstream Europeans and Americans…) that classical musics are the music of Mozart, Beethoven etc. Everything else is not classical. How about Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Manu Dibango? The African people consider them classics. But this does not really matter, does it?
Secondly, African history, as mentioned in most history books, is defined a history that only begins with the Europeans in Africa, everything else anterior to that, being "total darkness". For them the great civilizations of Nubia, Ile Ife in Nigeria, the Mwene Mutapa (or Monomatapas ) in ancient Zimbabwe, and Songhay Empire in Eastern Mali are just peanut; And Ancient Egypt belongs to either the Aliens, or to the hypothetical people of the Atlantis, perhaps to some unknown races not yet discovered. We have nothing against nationalism or taking proud of one’s culture, but when it is done to the detriment of another, it is wrong .
Native Africans as well as African American and Afro-Carribeans' history books from the first grade to university are not any different from one another for that matter...
In conclusion, we will say that the African American experience is very much similar and linked to the African journey. A journey that has, for almost a millennium attempted to deny Africans the place they occupied in the human experience. Until this pattern is corrected, our human condition will continue to be stained by injustice, and Africans will be looked at, as the entertainers of this Civilization, rather than the originators, and the active participants and contributors they really are.
On another hand, Africans should unite with their sons and daughters scattered around the Globe, (from the Papua New Guinea to Brazil, from South America to the Carribeans, from Haiti to the United States), know themselves, take proud of their common past and recent ancestors' achievements, share their common victories, as Pr. Molefi Kete Asante brilliantly points out, rewrite their own history based on their experiences and visions, and most importantly function without waiting for a validation from some Eurocentric views.
by A. Tamo
For More informations about African ancient Kingdoms, Click here
For More about Professor Molefi Kete Asante, and Afrocentricity
Coming up next: "Did I sell you": an open letter written by a native of Africa to his brothers and sisters scattered across the American continent due to shameful slave trade.
goes on and on. Should we talk about your preponderance in sports such as Basketball, Football, Boxing, Baseball, Tennis and Golf?
) in ancient Zimbabwe, and Songhay Empire in Eastern Mali are just peanut; And Ancient Egypt belongs to either the Aliens, or to the hypothetical people of the Atlantis, perhaps to some unknown races not yet discovered. We have nothing against nationalism or taking proud of one’s culture, but when it is done to the detriment of another, it is wrong . 