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This whole talk of "what is Black American culture?" is nothing more than propaganda designed to not only question but deny us our individuality, our unique experiences, and the right to preserve our heritage.
No, US Blacks are not Africans, but "American" barely scratches the surface of who we are as a group. By default, whites have a monopoly on that term, but it does not define who I am.
I use to date a Congolese guy. He came to the states around his teenage years. His first observation of us Black Americans was how 'African' most of us looked, and that many West and Central African cultural patterns remained. He recognized a lot of things in us from where he was from. Basically, the traits are still in us, and will always be in us.
I use to date a Congolese guy. He came to the states around his teenage years. His first observation of us Black Americans was how 'African' most of us looked, and that many West and Central African cultural patterns remained. He recognized a lot of things in us from where he was from. Basically, the traits are still in us, and will always be in us.
Around the turn of century it was common for black people to reject the word African and it was also believed that the culture of the "Negro” was slave culture. It took the work of Arturo Schomburg (a Cuban) and William Dubois to dispel the myth that black culture began in 1619.
Cultural bonds are very difficult to break. African American culture has served for over 100 years as a frame work for academics and scholars studying this concept. The unique attribute of slavery in America was the isolation of Africans in America. IMO this virtual isolation existed up to about the 1960’s when real desegregation began.
The rejection of mainstream American culture is part of the "Black American" identity and blacks looked to Africa for all their cultural identity. That’s why black people emerged on the American scene doing things so unlike mainstream Americans after the sixties. It would be easier to ask what’s not African about African Americans.
Slightly over 200 years ago the belief that different races had evolved separately in each continent and shared no common ancestor, was advocated in England, Germany,France and prominently in the US by Samuel Morton, Josiah Nott and Louis Agassiz. The idea became popular in the 19th century and provided much of the idealogical basis for natural separation of the races.
Today all scientists reject that belief and feel that the concept of race is a simplistic idea, the mankind has a common ancestry (which was almost certainly dark skinned), and that the white skinned people was a variation developed to combat vitamin D deficiency.
The so called hyphenated-American was a cultural idea that was developed to diminish the Americans from less desirable European cultures. While they are legally Americans, they are Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, etc. The concept was gradually turned into a point of pride by European cultures.
While the attempt to define African Americans was clearly designed to provide the same kind of cultural awareness to the descendants of slaves and take the emphasis away from a physical attribute, it seems to re-enforce the earlier ideas. By glossing over the reality that Africa has no cultural uniformity (like Italian or German or British) it reeks of superficiality.
Slightly over 200 years ago the belief that different races had evolved separately in each continent and shared no common ancestor, was advocated in England, Germany,France and prominently in the US by Samuel Morton, Josiah Nott and Louis Agassiz. The idea became popular in the 19th century and provided much of the idealogical basis for natural separation of the races.
Today all scientists reject that belief and feel that the concept of race is a simplistic idea, the mankind has a common ancestry (which was almost certainly dark skinned), and that the white skinned people was a variation developed to combat vitamin D deficiency.
The so called hyphenated-American was a cultural idea that was developed to diminish the Americans from less desirable European cultures. While they are legally Americans, they are Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, etc. The concept was gradually turned into a point of pride by European cultures.
While the attempt to define African Americans was clearly designed to provide the same kind of cultural awareness to the descendants of slaves and take the emphasis away from a physical attribute, it seems to re-enforce the earlier ideas. By glossing over the reality that Africa has no cultural uniformity (like Italian or German or British) it reeks of superficiality.
On the other hand, the term is due to not having a particular ethnic group in the African continent to specifically insert due to coming from various parts of Western African, but to also unite under a common socio-historical experience here in the US. So, it isn't so much that it is superficial, but that it is a unifying label for people of at least substantial Black African descent that may have various areas or no particular area of Africa that their ancestry comes from.
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