Pan-Africanism : Is Smokey Robinson African?

[pocotouro]

sorry i havn't responded sooner.

nnqueen: you ask what makes America great? i say opportunity, diversity, education, technology, democracy, free trade, capitalism, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of expression.

you ask how have we been duped?
America does continue to struggle with racial relations. However, this will always exist to some extent in a competetive society. Those who can not, or simply will not, compete, often use race as a scapegoat. I also believe that America's social policy has hoodwinked many of our brothers and sisters into a state of oppression. Instead of looking out for ourselves we have become more dependent on masta, expecting him to make things right for us. do you not see the cold irony in this? In my eyes welfare and quotas etc are tools that liberal minded racists use to subordinate minorities. i would much rather be stabed in the heart, than the back.

Furthermore, some of us have bought into the rationale that we should "go back to africa". this is little more than the man's attempt to deny us who we are. irrespective of how we came to this country, we are americans. all americans crossed the water at some time or another. now that the man has used us up he wants us to "get out". i say no way. who am i you ask. i am a black american. what am i? i am an african descendant.

As far as smokey, i agreed heavily with his poem. my interpretation was that we are americans. born and raised. we have assimilated the religion the culture the god. we have lived america. we have experienced america. in denying this to ourselves we are denying who we are. africa is foreign to us. we are decendants of africans. we are american.

panthaxx says "i am a victim of amerikka" words are powerful. if we chose to see ourselves as victims then that is all we are. i feel i am the descendent of conquerers, victors, brave and noble warriors.

if you "ain't no american" then what are you? why do you deny america? surely you don't believe that africa is without social ills? countless africans have died in the multitude of civil wars which have existed with in that continent. oppression, genocide and miseducation do these things not exist with in africa, and to a greater extent than in america?

is your mother the lady that gave you birth, or the woman who fed you, clothed you, gave you shelter from the storm, nurtured you and held you when you were afraid?

 

[Queenie]

He's been banned so is it too late to deal with his comments since he won't have the opportunity to respond? Hmmmm....but anyway I have several questions of him that I may never know the answer to...

On the surface, what pocotouro wrote may seem plausible to some here. If I had a 'house slave' mentality, I might even agree. It's unfortunate that he won't have the opportunity to see why I think he is, in fact, the one that has been duped. Why he even believes that we are foot shuffling lazy people. But it appears that he is the one who has been desensitized to his own identity to the degree that he fervently rejects his ancestors and who he really is.

Pocotouro might go far in American society. He sounds like the one being described when white racists argue that they know somebody who's Black. He's probably been told time and time again how different he is and that's why they like him. I wonder what he thinks assimilation means.

He mentions advantages that we have in America that he assumes are greater than what we could possibly have living in Africa. How sad. He looks at internal wars among African people as though there is no possible logical reason to explain their struggle and their fight. Jews and Palestinians have been fighting for centuries. Catholics and Prostestants have been fighting for centuries, but when Africans fight, somehow their causes are less important or understandable? He probably thinks they're just a bunch of heathens that fight for no reason at all.

Does pocotouro believe that because African Americans aren't fighting the same type of war in America that we are somehow more civilized than our brethren on the continent?

For every advantage that he named, there's also a disadvantage attached. Pocotouro has been duped because he believes there is such a concept as 'equal opportunity' and a 'level playing field' for Blacks in America.

 

[panafrica]

He's probably telling his white masters about these evil black radical websites called Destee.com and the TalkingDrum.com as we speak. No let me stop, I'm letting my prejudice show........LOL!

 

[Pintobean]

Smokey is Brainwashed!

Smokey is really gone! I guess all the money he has made over the years can't buy Political Education. And it most definately didn't buy a ticket to the Mother Land!

I saw this episode of Def Poetry Jam at a friends house (I don't believe in paying for Television) and I found myself storming out of their house! I was dissappointed in Smokeys remarks but, unfortunately, many of my people feel this same way about Africa!

We are African period!!!! We have been stolen from our land and forced to live in various places all over the globe! The many names we've received over the years GIVEN to us! We never chose Colored, Negro, or Black! Negro is nothing but the Spanish version of Black anyway, they are one in the same!

And we aren't African American either:

If we are African American, what America are we referring too? There is North America, Central America, and South America! So, does that make us North African-American? According to Smokey and others, that wouldn't be accurate either. Since we are "mixed" with other ethnicities,(because of rapes and other situations) we would have to call ourselves: African European North American Native American!!!!

Now doesn't that sound crazy? We live the lives of oppressed African people! There are a small minority of Entertainers who have some wealth but, they still sufffer from the same indignities as any other African on this planet! We live in a Capitalistic society with limited options. Our struggle is a common one and by saying that we aren't African, we dismiss the struggle of our ancestors and spit in their faces! We are connected by land....therefore we are not American! How can we proclaim someones land that was never ours in the first place? Who does that sound like?

And, on the issue of where our struggle takes place....
Africa is our homeland and where we need to base our struggle. I saw some posters who disagreed with this but, it is the truth! We have to begin with the roots of a tree and not the leaves! If the tree is sick, spray painting the leaves will not cure the entire tree!!! North America (or anywhere else where we now reside, other than Africa) is not our home!!!! We may live here and have a Citizen ship, but, Africa is Home.

What we call ourselves....
Now that I have made it clear that calling ourselves African-American is incorrect, you may now wonder, what do we call ourselves? We are African Period. I am an African who lives in the U.S.A. A person in Brazil is an African in Brazil, a person in Jamaica is an African in Jamaica, etc.

If anyone doesn't understand this ideology, here is a site that may prove useful:

http://www.umsl.edu/~libweb/blackstudies/aaprp1.htm

Forward to a United Africa!!!!

 

[kallie1385]

I don't know if anyone will get to this page, b/c it is so far down the ladder, but I do hope that my intended audience read it.

My interpretation of Smokey Robinson's poem:

I don't believe he is trying to disown Africa or make it seem as if we are completely disconnected from that continent, but I do believe that he's tryng to make it understood that it's okay for African-Americans to embrace their culture and not be ashamed to call it their own. I think, however, that people are missing the greater point of Smokey's poem which is the labeling system that America has built to identify a person's class and social standings. If many of you didn't not know this before, race is an invented thing. It came about during the end of slavery. Hmmm, I wonder why? Well the answer folks, is that THEY (whoever "they" might be inn your mind) had to find another way to keep the balance of class structure; b/c before, as we all know, there were slaves-- who were at the very bottom of social hierarchy--and then there were the white folks, and then there were the rich white folks. That is only one of the many long and drawn out reasons. People also don't know that America is the only country, out of all the countries in the world, that place such an importance (for reasons that I mentioned before) on this thing they invented called RACE.

I personally am from a country in South America that is considered a part of the West Indian nation called Guyana. When I came here at the tender age of four (I'm 18 now) I tried to blend in with all the kids here. I lost my accent and upbraided my parents for their accents, or for the way they worded certain things. Now that I'm older and infinitely wiser, I love my West Indian culture. I've always loved the food--I like certain American foods too-- and the music, but now I'm truly learning to appreciate the people and their history. My point is, the "black" man's situation is unique to anyone else's. Any other "race" in the world, if they relocated, has done so mostly b/c of their own free will. We, on the other hand, were forced to go where the slave masters settled us. Thusly, we are the only one's who had to make their own culture after everyone else in the world already had theirs. Leading into my point where I absolutely agree with the Brazilian girl who identifies herself as Brazilian and not Afro-Brazilian. I identify myself first as a Guyanese and second as a "black" female. When I have to fill out forms that have only African-American as a choice for what THEY want to call us brown skin people, I--in annoyance--check "other" and then fill in, most of the times "black". Or when I'm really irate about this whole race labeling thing, I write in South American Guyanese for I am neither African nor am I American.

In conclusion to what I'm trying to say, the mere fact that we're here arguing about whether we should be labeled African-American, black, etc., is just a result of what we are missing from the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that there is dissention in the ranks. There is confusion in self identity. There is no unity. So you see ladies and gentleman, divide and conquer (ex: what race do YOU belong to--which by the way is totally an irrelevant question but is being asked to prove my point) is a much better and less gruesome system than slavery. It's just as, if not more, effective than the aforementioned. The misconseption of this thing called race keeps us as blacks, or hispanis, or asians, in our places. This notion that I speak of is clearly exemplified by the fact that although I see myself as a Guyanese person, America identifies me as a black woman.