Africa : African

[Queenie]

Hello ngumbi and welcome!

You've asked good questions and they give some of us, once again, another opportunity to express our views on who is African. But let me ask you...should it really matter what indigenous Africans think about what African Americans call themselves?

Don't you think what's more important is what each of us believes we are and why doesn't it make you 'proud' that some of us identify with our mother land and not this foreign land (America)?

Seems to me your concern or criticism is misplaced. I would be more concerned if we thumbed our noses up at Africa and didn't want anything, real or imagined, to do with her.

Many African/Americans are not naive about Africa and her history even though many of us have never had the pleasure of setting foot on her soil. What you might be mistaking as romanticism I think is a genuine sense of pride and devotion to a continent and her people, of which we have something in common. We are well aware of the importance of Africa's role in the history of mankind and many of us want to assist in her rebirth so that she can assume her rightful place as a powerful nation.

Join us in this struggle ngumbi. Fighting side by side with us makes you part of the solution and not part of the problem!

Peace!

 

[Hesaid]

First off Ngumbi
i really like the start of your
post even though not intended it started with my very point,so I will use it as a platform
to air my views on
What is African? I believe the coupling of the word "African" and "American" helped turn it into a cheap whore
(the name)Im sure after jayz finishes degrading African women and glorifying western forms of transgression, he calls himself "African" American (dear, dear),
I have tried to make this point for some time
so that we recognise the destruction the blind use of the title does. But i know that is not what you were implying so (as i flip it orn ya)
If i wernt so darn(YUCK,see what you got
me saying Destee, "darn")comfortable where
im sitting i would stand up and give
XXPANTHAXX a standing ovation.
He said:
"
It is very unfortunate that you dwell in the negativity imposed on our home Africa; it is also ironic that a seemingly intelligent African like yourself would seek to do our oppressors work and bidding, namely by continuing to seek to divide and attempt to cause dis-unity among our People."

Too right bru, one cannot come and tarnish
this beautiful spectacle of a Land (that we have God Given birthright to) as a barren war torn dump. Y'see the problem is:
That is your experience, wherever your living. so might i suggest you travel to the far East,maybe Zanzibar or Tanzania or even waltz further
South and see the gorgeous treasured sights
of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately for you some of us dont just talk it but weve walked it
extensively and have some wonderful
reasons why we should NEVER deny our
Ancestry and heritage, much to the upset of
our slavers and oppressors.

I would really like to believe that you are a
proud African but it seems today that
much of the Garbage (hype)America has fed the rest of the world has led them(like a magnet) to believe that the grass is greener over here, which truly truly saddens me. Whenever you have these
thoughts again just remember those of us
who call ourselves African do not share the
desires of most westerners and only seek
spiritual fullfilment and to stop the madness.

One final thing before you rush out here
seeking the Amerikkkan dream.
Mans Downfall started with the Apple
and will certainly end with the BIG APPLE.
(Note how all hollywood movies point you here, for what, you should ask?)

So
"hurry hurry Step right up."









*

 

[ngumbi]

Africa contains a multitude of different cultural, geographical, religious, linguistic, and even colonial powers and influences that have moulded us into very unique variations!

With that said, I have three questions:

1. So which variation is closest to you?
2. There is no generic! and even if there was, what makes you
think that you would belong to such a category?
3. Why are you not in 'The Motherland'

Ntombi

 

[Hesaid]

1. Black
2. Black again
3. OOOOH good question!

For questions 1 & 2 you really must try to stop
reasoning my reasoning in good old
eurocentric fashion,these are matters
of the Soul and not debatable.

as I said before
ITS MY BIRTHRIGHT!
Fortunately I am a little more secure than other black people, where the thought of your
questioning would have them resort to saying
"I aint African even
Africans dont want us."
In which i reply dont
think you are, know you are.
LISTEN BUDDY YOU ARE NOT THE GATE
KEEPER.
This is the same argument i have with blacks
and Islam they often negate a massive part
of our traditions and disciplines because the
arabs dont recognise them.

I,
HESAID
AM EVERYTHING!
and i get it, even if you or anyone else dont,
I'll still remain attached to anything that lifts my spirit and engraves a potent part of our
History on my Soul regardless of whether a dumb Arab or ignorant other invites me
IM STAYING
Its my covenant with GOD not you.
Question 3. I will be in the Motherland,soon
when my work is done here,lets just say
just before God wrecks the Sh**.
Beware;
Politics and philosophy are two of the evil P's
and they were used to keep people running
round in circles,so as clever as we seem we
will continue talking and doing very little walking. (What ya need to do is call my bluff
and offer a brother to buy some land)









*

 

[Sun Ship]

WHO AND WHAT IS AN AFRIKAN?

Quote (ngumbi):

“As an African, born and bred in Africa, I find it very interesting when individuals, who sometimes don't even know where Afrika is on the globe go on about what it is to be African.”

Peace brother ngumbi,

These questions you pose in this thread are not necessarily invalid, but I have some problems with the intent.

First of all the words “bred” and “variations” are used here as if you were talking about specie of plants and breeds of horses.

Who defines, who and what is an African? Where does Africa end and where does it begin? As you know, Europeans have played with these definitions geographically, ethnically, and racially for the last 400 hundred years.

NOW HERE, WE GO, AGAIN, WITH THIS CONFUSION.

Believe me, I have heard this queried before; fore, I have Yoruba family members and friends, though I am a BLACK MAN (of African descent), born in the United States.

First there was the Egypt/Middle-east designation game, then the Hamitic language/racial identity game, then the sub-Saharan groupings and now Diaspora’s exiled/enslaved African compared to the continental colonized African. We are probably more divided by these types of schisms, than any other group of people in the world.

Paraphrasing, Malcolm X, “If a cat, who’s placed in a oven, has a litter of kittens, do you call the kittens, “biscuits”!

I THINK NOT!

Many Africans from the continent (not all!) have an elitist and arrogant view of their selves, as it relates to Africans who are not. We are not totally ignorant of how you sometimes SEE YOUR SEVLES.

Say brother, there are Africa born Africans who are

“MORE BRITISH THAN THE BRITISH

AND MORE FRENCH THAN THE FRENCH”

Africans in the continent are going through identity crisis, just as much as ALL Africans have worldwide. I have talked to some Africans from the continent about indigenous African religion and they called it, “devil worship”.

Based upon African tradition itself, we are given our ancestral legacy by birthright, no matter how ignorant or smart we are. The Jews are given their right to heritage and land, without question, based upon birthright and they have been exiled supposedly 2000 years (not to give credence or validity to Zionism). They had to even, reinvent and relearn a modern form of the Hebrew language.

But here WE ARE queried about our authenticity.

IS THIS THE INQUISITION AGAIN?

These questionings sound like the bean counting and test Africans, in the southern United States, had to contend with, in order to vote. Remember the old saying,

“WHEN YOU LEARN ALL THE ANSWERS, THEY ALWAYS CHANGE THE QUESTIONS”

(This statement usually referred to the unjust examinations of our viabilities, by racist white people!!)

Being an “African” has always been a worldwide reality. Study the Olmec culture of ancient Mexico and read THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS by Ivan Van Sertima.
African culture is so broad and intrinsic, multi-dimensional and multi-faceted, that It’s more about what’s in your head and heart then identifying European cartographical parameters on a map!

The ancestors are influencing me, to ask YOU a question:

“WHO DIED AND MADE YOU THE SPECULATOR OF AFRICAN IDENITY “

I once went to a discussion pertaining to the EVIDENCE OF AFRICAN ARTIFACTS IN BRAZIL and how, at what level of discovery does it prove the African-ness of Black Brazilians. The speaker was constantly trying to compare these artifacts with pre-colonial indigenous African carvings, symbols and meanings, and using that as the ONLY litmus for the presence of African culture and “true” African people in Brazil. But I asked him, “What came first, the artifact or the African” because I figured anything an African puts his or her hands to with an African-centered conscience and spirit, which can only be induced by our spiritual ancestors, in a context applicable to our surroundings, is an African cultural expression.

But in closing my brother, I respect your right as a free African to openly dialogue with your people. As my Benin friend (a master woodcarver) once said, with tears pouring down his cheeks, invoked by listening to some Afro-Cuban Lucumi chants to the orishas, “surely, blood is thicker than water”. For, all he could do was contemplate the rhythms, that embraced the soul of OUR HOME. AFRIKA.

PEACE, LOVE AND ASHE,

Sun Ship

P.S. – Here’s a page from Sun Ship’s Believe It or Not. “I remember when the 1968 World Book encyclopedia, I believe in the section about the races of Africa, called the West African “Negro” the only “true Negro” based upon his cephalic index and other physical features.” (Unbelievable isn’t it.)