Africa : Must Read: On the Complicated Relationship Between Africans and African-Americans

Slavery still haunts Africa, where millions remain captive
October 17, 2013|By Robyn Dixon | This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- African countries dominate a new global index on slavery, with 38 of the 50 nations where the scourge is at its worst found on the continent. The Global Slavery Index, released Thursday, estimated that nearly 30 million people remain enslaved globally, millions of whom are in Africa.

Mauritania has the poorest record, with some 150,000 people in a population of 3.8 million held captive, many of whom inherited their status from their parents.

Other African countries with particularly high prevalence of slavery are located in West Africa: Benin, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Gabon and Senegal.

West Africa has a somber place in the history of transatlantic slavery as the departure gateway for slaves seized in raiding expeditions before they were shipped to the New World. Today children are trafficked around the region and forced into domestic service, farm labor or sexual exploitation.


  1. Slavery still haunts Africa, where millions remain captive - latimes
    http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/17/world/la-fg-wn-slavery-africa-20131017 - 70k - Cached - Similar pages
    Oct 17, 2013 ... West Africa has a somber place

 
Africans aren't taught about the middle passage or about slavery.
Which leaves them believing their ancestry does not include the slave trade.
I was having lunch with a young lady from Ghana. She was on her cell speaking in French. After her call I made a comment about her language. She was proud of her French. Anyhow, somehow, the conversation turned briefly to slavery. My African friend began giggling and laughing. When I asked her what? She said "We, Africans, believe Black Americans don't like Africans because WE did not come to help YA'LL during slavery.
:SuN037:Speechless. No response from me. I had not heard such nonsense.

If anyone has info on this please share.
 
Her pride in speaking a language not native to the land of her birth shows that she's comfortable with forced colonialism. Her second retort although ignorant & insulting can be looked at realistically as I wasn't alive back then so what you want me to do? Or well we sold you to the White man because you were our captives from the war between us or well they just dropped anchor & took as many of you at gunpoint. Through the years I've pretty much heard it all. There was a time I believed that hype & never not once did I ever question the validity of such talk until I met a former Cuban soldier sent to Angola from 1969 to 1974 to do the Soviet Unions dirty work as an excuse to free our African brothers & sisters. The stories he told me shook my faith in GOD. I believed him but I also know about heart rending stories to sooth ones guilt over their own shameful part in the lucrative indulgence in the spoils of war so I needed to know from the horses mouth, I studied & took my FCC amateur radio exam, passed it, bought some radios & other support equipment but couldn't quite make a connection so I went to a local university looking for African exchange students, most dismissed me, some insulted & berated me, a few even thought I was some undercover cop or INS but finally while I was heading to the campus parking lot to leave a student approached me & asked about the antenna on my truck, I told her & she asked to see my radio, right away I thought this is a setup & before I opened the door to let her in I quickly asked who in her house talks on the radio, she quickly replied her cousin, I said what's the first thing he says when he picks up the mic to talk, she quickly said he always says CQ a couple of times & he says his call things, I knew she was genuine, we made a date to meet her cousin & the rest is history. That Cuban soldier was half right for they most of all committed unspeakable crimes themselves & I would have never known "THAT" truth if it wasn't for that student & her cousin, she since graduated & they went back home to Senegal but we engaged in much about our sameness & our differences & not only how we perceive our different worlds but how the collective perceives us as a race unto ourselves vs. assimilation into the prevailing social structure.

I hope this helped.
 
Her pride in speaking a language not native to the land of her birth shows that she's comfortable with forced colonialism. Her second retort although ignorant & insulting can be looked at realistically as I wasn't alive back then so what you want me to do? Or well we sold you to the White man because you were our captives from the war between us or well they just dropped anchor & took as many of you at gunpoint. Through the years I've pretty much heard it all. There was a time I believed that hype & never not once did I ever question the validity of such talk until I met a former Cuban soldier sent to Angola from 1969 to 1974 to do the Soviet Unions dirty work as an excuse to free our African brothers & sisters. The stories he told me shook my faith in GOD. I believed him but I also know about heart rending stories to sooth ones guilt over their own shameful part in the lucrative indulgence in the spoils of war so I needed to know from the horses mouth, I studied & took my FCC amateur radio exam, passed it, bought some radios & other support equipment but couldn't quite make a connection so I went to a local university looking for African exchange students, most dismissed me, some insulted & berated me, a few even thought I was some undercover cop or INS but finally while I was heading to the campus parking lot to leave a student approached me & asked about the antenna on my truck, I told her & she asked to see my radio, right away I thought this is a setup & before I opened the door to let her in I quickly asked who in her house talks on the radio, she quickly replied her cousin, I said what's the first thing he says when he picks up the mic to talk, she quickly said he always says CQ a couple of times & he says his call things, I knew she was genuine, we made a date to meet her cousin & the rest is history. That Cuban soldier was half right for they most of all committed unspeakable crimes themselves & I would have never known "THAT" truth if it wasn't for that student & her cousin, she since graduated & they went back home to Senegal but we engaged in much about our sameness & our differences & not only how we perceive our different worlds but how the collective perceives us as a race unto ourselves vs. assimilation into the prevailing social structure.

I hope this helped.

As far as current Africans believing their ancestors were not part of the slave trade, is education assimilation.
 

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