Pan-Africanism : We Are African not Black

In the Spirit of Sankofa and Real Truth!

The term "black" speaks to race which is a European invention. It opens us up to all kinds of confusion and manipulation by the enemy. For instance, brwon skin Africans are played against dark skin Africans and vice versa. That is the enemy's most effective weapon agiants us: divide and conquer. They tell the Arabs and Berbers that black Africans do not like them, blah, blah, blah. Then they tell black Africans that Arabs and Berbers do not like them, blah, blah, blah. The onl;y one to benefit from thsi color games is....yoy guessed right: the white man.

So, from a smart perspective we need to learn to think of ourselves in geo-political terms and not racial terms or skin color. When thast happens, we will not be tripping when an African from Morocco or Algeria marries and African from Mozambique od Zimbabwe. We will correctly see this as building better ties and stronger Unity among Africans. Like Abdel-Nasser and Nkrumah, the offspring from succ marriages will serve African Unity well for generations to come. Consider H.E. Samia Nkrumah, for instance (
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=176856 and http://www.samiankrumah.org/) Her dad is Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah. Her granddad is Gamal Abdel-Nasser (http://images.google.com/images?hl=...esult_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCEQsAQwAw) So, she emans a lot to Egyptian Arabs and to black Ghanaians and the rest of us as well. The same is true of Dr. Gamal Nkrumah who lives and works in Cairo. Both have made and continue to make immense contributions towards African Unity. It simply is not about race or skin color.

This is why I have come to see Islam as such a Unifying force in Africa. Islam is not Christianity in this regards. Christianity has such a racist culture and racist reality. Blacks congregate in one church while whites congrgate in a different church. So, Christians come to think that that is the natural order of things. It is hard for a Christian to visulize people from different skin colors socialing tohgether and sharing the same cultures and every day life. but, Islam is not like that. All Muslims from different cultures and races congregate together. Everybody is simply a Muslim, not a white Muslim or a black Muslim. So, if an Arab marries a Bantu, the kids are mixed and simply Africans Muslims. There is no issue involved. In this sense, Islam promotes Unity, not divide and conquer.

In places like Somalia, for insance, many families have both Arab and Bantu culture and race. This is true in all Muountries in Africa. So, I think the Muslim countries have always done more for African Unity than have Christian countries. This is not being said to put down Christians. But, I think Christians need to come to understand this and sop dissing Muslims for having a different attitude on race and culture.




Thank you brother abdurratln,

All that you have said is duly noted. My point to ocacia was the irony in the logic of establishing that a people can be identified geographically by their native environment and then deny that designation for no apparent reason. In this case, Egypt/Kemet is considered the Black Land, through which the term Black properly identifies the region and its offspring.


 
Black is a construction which articulates a recent social-political reality of people of color (pigmented people). Black is not a racial family, an ethnic group or a super-ethnic group. Political blackness is thus not an identity but moreover a social-political consequence of a world which after colonialism and slavery existed in those color terms.

An identity is generally geographical and ties the people to their native environment or their core doctrine (Jews of Judaism, Muslims of Islam, Chinese of China). African and black are not interchangeable just as Dark continent and Africa are not. Self-determination allows a people to re-examine definitions and sculpt them to their reality. Black, like Negro is facing linguistic extinction, especially in academic circles, due to its poor foundation in speaking about the oldest and most diverse people on the planet.

The word “Black” has no historical or cultural association, it was a name born when Africans were broken down in to transferable labor units and transported as chattel to the Americas. The re-labeling of the Mandika, Fulani, Igbo, Asante, into one bland color label- black, was part of the greater process of absolute removal of African identity; a color epithet that Europe believed to be the lowest color on Earth, thus reflecting the social designation of African people in European psyche.

KEMET DOESNT MEAN BLACK PEOPLE



There is an urban myth that the Ancient Egyptians called themselves Black based upon KMT (Kemet) which in some circles is mistakenly translated as "Black people." Now at the end of the word KMT is an ideogram which can only mean physical place (the cross road sign above). The ideogram indicates the context in which the word applies. An ideogram for humans would always be used 2 represent a word that applied to people. However Kemet can only mean Black Land since the ideogram indicates it is describing a built or non-human environment. But none of this discredits the founders of Kemet as being African people, just like the Fulani or the Amhara. "Black" in the North American context. The "social "construction of race in America does not rely on skin color. "African Americans," as Asante notes, " constitute the most heterogeneous group in the United States biologically, but perhaps one of the most homogeneous socially." The issue is color is used against African interest, for example:
I understand what you are saying but I've come to fully embrace the term 'Black' as a unifying principle and identifier for me and my people across the diaspora, regardless of their color and regardless of if they are actually classified as 'black or negroid' (too many of those 'Asians' look just like negroes to me).

I prefer less the term 'African American' but accept it to denote my kinship with African people, as I am descendant of Africans who is now culturally American.
 
I understand what you are saying but I've come to fully embrace the term 'Black' as a unifying principle and identifier for me and my people across the diaspora, regardless of their color and regardless of if they are actually classified as 'black or negroid' (too many of those 'Asians' look just like negroes to me).

I prefer less the term 'African American' but accept it to denote my kinship with African people, as I am descendant of Africans who is now culturally American.

No. This is my main point. We are in America, true. But, our culture is not American. America's best culture is African and Native American. But the converse is not true.

Look at it this way: you can take an African out of Africa. But, you cannot take Africa out of an African. If a person is an African one day in Africa, he is still an African the next day in America. So, all of his descendants are also Africans.

Cultrually, we still produce African music after all these years of being out of Africa. We still think and talk in African mannerisms, etc. It has nothing to do with color. Some of the best Africans are near-white. They inherit their African-ness from their parents and grand-parents and great-great-grand-parents.

The most important thing is we are citizens of Africa. We have never decided to give up our African citizenship. So, while the USA Constittuion grants us USA citizenship, it cannot remove our African citizenship without our consent. And, we have never given consent. So, we are still citizens of Africa.
 
I deal with this subject, in regards to African-Americans, in my new book The Bakala or North America: The Living Suns of Vitality. In regards to African-American ethnicity, we technically would be the only "Africans" in existence. The problem is the term African means absolutely nothing and is not keeping with "African" tradition. Names have meaning and are mnemonic devices to remind the person of his cultural aspirations.

By saying one is a "color" you validate European methods of taxonomy. It is time we "be" on our own terms. Africans were named Africans by Europeans. By naming yourself African we still validate Europeans and give them power over our essence. I think the people on the continent need to get together and rename it based on its own ideas of identity.

This concept of race has confused everyone and the only way to "be" is to "be" on our own terms.

I encourage everyone to pick up my book so we can see what that looks like.

http://www.***************/index.ph...ion=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1&vmcchk=1&Itemid=1
 
I deal with this subject, in regards to African-Americans, in my new book The Bakala or North America: The Living Suns of Vitality. In regards to African-American ethnicity, we technically would be the only "Africans" in existence. The problem is the term African means absolutely nothing and is not keeping with "African" tradition. Names have meaning and are mnemonic devices to remind the person of his cultural aspirations.

By saying one is a "color" you validate European methods of taxonomy. It is time we "be" on our own terms. Africans were named Africans by Europeans. By naming yourself African we still validate Europeans and give them power over our essence. I think the people on the continent need to get together and rename it based on its own ideas of identity.

This concept of race has confused everyone and the only way to "be" is to "be" on our own terms.

I encourage everyone to pick up my book so we can see what that looks like.

http://www.***************/index.ph...ion=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1&vmcchk=1&Itemid=1

Hmmm. I guess it is true that the root of the word Africa is in a European langugae. But, many African words have European roots. So what. The important thing is Europeans did not name us Africans. We named oursleves Africans.
 

Donate

Support destee.com, the oldest, most respectful, online black community in the world - PayPal or CashApp

Latest profile posts

HODEE wrote on Etophil's profile.
Welcome to Destee
@Etophil
Destee wrote on SleezyBigSlim's profile.
Hi @SleezyBigSlim ... Welcome Welcome Welcome ... :flowers: ... please make yourself at home ... :swings:
Back
Top