African Diaspora: The Vines of Blackness
African American slavery is a wicked stain on the history of mankind; the acts committed during that time period torched countless black people, robbed them of their humanity, took their freedom, and separated them from their families. It is a trauma that blacks are left to deal with, having little to no help from the people who committed these morbid deeds; instead, black people have helped themselves through it whilst also helping each other. Despite facing adversities in every time period, they embraced life in whatever form and turned history’s sour lemons into lemonade. Regardless of the horror of slavery separating generations of black people across continents, we have embraced the birth of the African diaspora.
The African diaspora is the term used to describe the mass relocation and dispersion of Africans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, taking them to a variety of different regions across the Americas and the Caribbean. From there, the seed of Afro influence was planted and its vines vastly grew.
Renowned author and scholar Richard Long writes and studies about African American culture. His passion for black cultural knowledge is expressed as he discusses how he expanded his mind on the concept of African diaspora:
“Well, see I have gone beyond even “African American” in my concerns and in my intellectual analysis. I am now interested in diasporas and I think that you look at a cultures and peoples you know where they are, where they have gone and what has happened to them and the processes and I regard all of these diasporic communities as being communities in process but also in interaction, creating new spaces and new communities. And I think that if one wants to really deal with African American cultures, [then] one has to look at the totality of the culture, totality in the anthropological sense. What do people do? You know, what do they eat? What do they wear? What do they think? And so on, all of these things. And then what do they create, you know, what do they spend their time doing? And so on, and using that and looking at the African diaspora we can see how important music has been, how important spirituality has been in defining these communities and in keeping them going and in molding and shaping their contributions to the larger community.”
It is beautiful that so much can be seen when you look beyond the color of someone's skin and beyond the location you see them in. Not every black person is African American - they may originate from across seas - and one would never know if they didn’t look beyond. Jeff Donaldson, famous painter and a prominent figure in the Black Arts Movement, sees this distinguishable beauty in the differences of black people as well,
“There was a oneness…I'm not talking about something being homogeneous. But there was--you know you hear blues in all of Africa. And you know we had been brought up to believe that blues was the consequence of slavery? And you got blues in Ethiopia that make you cry even if you don't know what they're talking about. I mean it's that sad…and it's that joyous. Say, blues: I heard a guy sing the blues that was milking a cow. It was reluctant to give milk and he talked about how pretty she was. And how soft and juicy her udders were. And soon you could hear the, the milk flowing into the pail. Quish, quish! The cow was flattered. But I mean I went to Africa and I see people with a herd of goats. And a guy calling off [to his goat], "John will you get back in line?" I mean this guy doesn't have a stick or nothing! He's herding with his voice. He's talking to these animals and treating them like, you know, a different way…And I mean I'm not saying Africa is better than anything. I'm saying it's different! And that difference is in us.”
Chester Higgins Jr, a phenomenal photojournalist, is a firm believer of this unique difference within each and every black person, but he also sees a similarity in most - a flaw that should be corrected. He expresses,
“We are people who are alienated from ourselves and that manifests itself in so many different ways. Probably the easiest way of understanding it is our self-hate. Because we're alienated, we can now say you know that an abusive word is a kind word. We take abuse and we can't get rid of the abuse and we somehow feel the abuse really belongs to us, so we have to pretty it up by trying to find another way to say it. …And then the other part is that because we're so alienated, we can't relate to our ancestors and the place that we come from. You know one thing I really admire about Jewish people is that in spite of the fact that they suffered…they didn't stop loving themselves and where they came from - which… protects you from the constant onslaught of your enemy and your oppressors. Now…we've done the reverse. Because we feel alienated, because we don't feel that we have a cohesive sense of identification that is, that manifests itself in a Torah or a nation we, because…the way we came over our memories have been severed, it's not unusual for people to say,...“I didn't come from Africa”. So, these alienations, these things have to be addressed. These things have to be healed. People have to be healed past self-hate. They have to be healed past alienation and knowledge of where they come from and they have the embrace that…That's the only way that we will become a powerful force; when we can learn to embrace the continental brothers and sisters and their issues and we marry those issues together…,only then can we become taken seriously because we take ourselves seriously.”
Photo college from Experience Africa where they are celebrating the African Diaspora.
This is one issue that black people have with the African diaspora, for when it is not appreciated or made knowledgeable, it loses its meaning. This is why professors like Fannie Rushing focuses her research on African influence, so that she can inform the youth that there is black life outside of African American culture:
“Well, students are very, very surprised that there are people, black people outside of the United States. But the courses [that I teach], you know, look at the experiences of people of African descent throughout Latin America. And as I was talking to this woman from Colombia…, people have absolutely no idea that anything is going on in Colombia other than drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs. And they don't even understand that in any kind of serious way. It's just, you know, ‘they're all doing drugs down there’. And the other very serious issues, people have no idea what's going on. So, in the course, you know, we try to talk about issues other than drugs. We look very much at the changes in the African experience over time in Latin America and what industrialization has meant, what the coming of the TNCs [transnational corporations] has meant, what this has meant for Afro-American culture in these regions.”
Education of this concept and all the vines it sprouted is a beautiful thing. And many have aspired to continue this spread of knowledge. Phillis Tucker Vinson Jackson dreams of using her career as a broadcast executive to gift children awareness of the various cultures that come from similar looking people:
“I'm hoping maybe somebody [will] take this up--the dream of having a children's programming, probably animated -- that incorporates African and African American and African from diaspora culture, whether it's taking those stories and creating a show that appeals to all the children in the world that takes advantage of many of those cultural stories. That would be my dream…To do that from an African perspective, from something from the diaspora, … I would just feel like I'm done after that.”
Although the vines of African culture have twisted and turned into its own garden of culture and experience, Afro people still have a commonality in its sense of black pride. We must be cautious, however, to not leave that pride within one’s own form of Africanity; pride must extend to those overseas and across mountains. To be black is a gift, and all shades and versions of it should be valued equality. The impact of the African diaspora has given the black community an opportunity to unite in their differences.
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Ambassador Update:
Hello! This week has mainly involved communicating with my participants through reminders and updates on the contest. I have also been able to broadcast the contest flier on the library TV, so advertisements are still pursuing. I look forward to weeks to come!
