Isaiah said:Is our culture a thing of importance enough to study and discuss??? I think that this is attributable to having come up in a society and educational environment that devalues and de-emphasizes our myriad contributions to it's culture...
Ironically, I don't believe this an indication of a lack of pride about the culture, as much as an inability to define what it is in the first place... I was kind of hoping this forum would be an entre into that area... Does anyone have any ideas as to why this has failed to happen? How can I or anyone so concerned, bring more excitement to this forum, and excitement that compells African Americans to want to dive into the beauty that is our culture? Can someone help me out with question?
Peace!
Isaiah
Orisons:
Many African Americans are still trapped in their alleged BLACKNESS [whereas I can tell from your post that you very obviously are not], as opposed to the spiritual and intellectual boost you have gained from reconnecting to our African roots.
Obviously due to Slavery’s legacy Africans in the Diaspora can rarely be specific as to which African culture we belonged to which is literally a blessing in disguise because they all need our help.
Just our using the word Black to describe ourselves is a not so subtle form of self-abuse, due to all the doom and gloom attached to it from this cultural perspective [which is currently ours as well].
I’ve asked many posters other forums why they insist on using the word Black when what they are actually describing is our African ethnicity as opposed to culture or nationality.
Black apart from being consistently inaccurate [there are hundreds of millions of brown/black skinned Indians who are not of African ethnicity] is also consistently used within European cultures as a disparaging term, i.e. Black Day, The Black Death, Black Magic, Blackmail, Blackout etc whereas no one says African Day, Africanmail, Africanout, which is why African is preferable to Black on every level.
Language is the operating system for the Brain just like WINDOWS is for computers which is why our African ancestors were strategically separated from their names, language, culture and history so that we would become confused AUTOMATONS, as graphically highlighted by some of the garbage posted by some of the characters I have encountered on the Internet.