Why Some Black Americans have emotional/spiritual breakdowns visiting the Slave Castles in Ghana? (speak, culture)
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In many cultures, there is much respect for the ancestors and also mourning for those who have passed away. African-Americans, generally-speaking, have a respect for what their ancestors endured so certainly setting foot at the place/in the region where their ancestors left might be emotional for many. Perhaps many mourn out respect. That's beautiful.
For Caribbean people, it's likely a mixture. Many might be more focused on the lasting cultural connections while many might embrace the entire experience - from the slave castle to the culture. My friends who have visited Ghana seem to be in the latter group - feeling emotions tied to place through which their ancestors may have passed and also enjoying the way in which cultural ties remain. I'll likely be the same way.
More than anything, I love that so many in the diaspora have the opportunity to visit their region of origin. I am quite sure our ancestors never imagined that generations down, their descendants would be able to return. Beautiful.
The emotion often has nothing to do with "connecting" with Africans in Ghana or other nations. It has to do with the pain experienced by our direct ancestors.
You mentioned in this thread that West Indian black people do not view themselves the way that African Americans do. I fully agree with you about that. I agree that Africans don't view themselves the way African Americans do either and I personally, as an African American do not feel that I am all that culturally connected to African nations. I honestly view Africans as just as much at "fault" as white Europeans for the trials of all of us of the African Diaspora who were sold to Europeans and enslaved.
However, I know the name of one of my ancestors who was enslaved and shipped from the Senegambia region and enslaved in the northern part of the United States. I am unsure if he first went to the Caribbean, then to the US. But I do know that his journey across the Atlantic, likely began after a horrific "march" to the sea to one of these castles where he was sold and faced a horrendous journey and oppressive life afterwards. So I think of him - not of Africans nor of West Indians, nor anyone else. I think of women shipped who were raped on board. I think of the children crying for their parents or traumatized so much that they could not cry. I humanize them because they were de-humanized.
An emotional response, for me, is not something that I feel compelled to do. However, I do feel compelled to think of and remember my ancestors. I focus much moreso on the journey, it is the same for me when I think of children kidnapped and made into slaves under a new name (apprentices) or when I think of lynching victims and their families. All of these are a part of my heritage. The journey across the sea lead to my actual life being created. And that is a powerful thing to ponder and may create an emotional reaction. Whether it be anger, sadness, or something else, it can happen.
Not sure why you may think we need to know about Afropop or even want to connect with people in an African nation. We don't need to think of them. Our heritage started at those slave castles when our direct ancestors were shipped to the Americas. It is the literal structure/symbol of the break away of our people from the continent of Africa. One can mourn the loss of that sense of "home." I don't view Africa as my "home" at all. I view America as my home. But I would not be here if my ancestors had not been ripped from theirs and made America their home. So I'd pay homage to them for their strength and survival and creation of my heritage and legacy. It started at those castles.
Yes @ the bold and I am positive that scores of people across the Diaspora would agree with those sentiments. Not to discount the rest of your post because I agree with most of that as well, with the exception of the assigning of the same degree of fault to Africans. It's that our ancestors were people, people who suffered greatly at the hands of others. Yet they endured and we are alive today because of them. As a Caribbean person, I share your sentiments.
"I humanize them because they were de-humanized." Such a meaningful statement. IMHO, we owe it to them to do so.
I think that many black people from the Caribbean islands, and I'll just be honest, they seem to have a chip on their shoulder about them being "more" African in some way than African Americans. I don't look at them negatively for this nor do I feel any kind of way about their attitude. However, as someone who is very knowledgeable about African American history and culture, I know that we have just as many connections to Africa in regards to dialect, cuisine, cultural traditions, etc., as other black people of the African Diaspora.
To be honest, the majority of Caribbean people have never given thought to the above, as the majority reside in the Caribbean and other places. People living in the U.S. get into such discussion due to tensions between some AAs and Caribbean people here. Those Caribbean people with that chip should be ignored. Half the time, those types have a collection of chips.
And I agree with you about connections to Africa among African-Americans. The U.S. is so vast and there are so much variation within African-American culture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ADOSwarrior
If we want to be honest... Many Caribbeans outside of Haitians and Afro-Cubans are no more "African influenced" than African-Americans/ADOS especially Anglo speaking Caribbeans.
The English-speaking Caribbean is not a monolith. Speak about particular islands, just as you have done with Haiti and Cuba.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ADOSwarrior
Oh boy this is rich. Like a typical Caribbean you now want to hijack Gullah/Geechee heritage/culture from ADOS to "Caribbeanize" it. I notice saying that the Gullahs and Creoles of Louisiana culture being more "Caribbean" is a common culture vulture talking point from your type.
Both of you are right and wrong about Gullah people. They are a long-standing mixture of African-American and Caribbean cultures. The first time I learned about them was from a Gullah woman, who happen to be my professor. She asked me my background and then told me that she is of Caribbean descent as well, specifically Bajan. After which she explained that she is Gullah and shared their history. Who is anyone to tell her that she is not African-American or Caribbean in heritage?
The Gullah connect with Barbados similar to how the Garifuna connect with St. Vincent. At the same time, they are African-American.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ADOSwarrior
But more importantly your videos are moot because the African cultural influence of Aframs is different from English speaking Caribbean people. Ours which comes from a different part of West Africa i.e the Sahel and not coastal pagan West Africans like Yorubas. I know this maybe a sucker to some and some clowns trying to claim I'm trying to "Islamize" ADOS heritage but facts are facts.
Please do a better job at educating yourself about the African heritages that exist in both regions. Again, the English-speaking Caribbean is not a monolith. Be aware that within the English-speaking Caribbean exists Islamic heritage as well. For example, the first Muslims in Trinidad were African, specifically Mandinka (not Indian). I myself have roots in Senegambia and the only Muslims in my family are on the predominantly African side. To your comment about the Yoruba, Orisha religion AND Islam existed among them.
African-Americans are very diverse in their African heritages, with significant heritage among Islamic African tribes. I agree with you that to acknowledge that is not to "Islamize" them but rather than acknowledgement of history. The influence is definitely there, particularly evident in music as you explained. There is in total, however, more heritage from groups like the Yoruba (religious mix), the Igbo (once almost 70 percent of those in VA), and Bantu groups as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ADOSwarrior
Screw "dialects" lets talk about LANGUAGES. African-American/ADOS ethnic group has THREE surviving creole languages. While the Caribbean only has one(Haitian creole). Maybe you can do better than those Dominican posters who failed at showing me three creole Afro-Latin languages?
This is inaccurate. I realize that you are both Haitian/African-American but, if you aren't very exposed to the rest of the Caribbean, perhaps refrain from making such comments.
1.Haitian Creole is one surviving Creole language.
2. Antillian Creole is another surviving Creole language, which is spoken from Dominica even down to Trinidad. It is very similar to Haitian Creole because, as you obviously are unaware, much of the English-speaking Caribbean was once French or French-influenced. So French Creole/Patois was spoken in Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and Trinidad. It is still prominent in Dominica and St. Lucia and spoken among pockets in the other islands and even in Venezuela. Why do you think French-Creole was the first language of calypso?
3. Papiamento is another Creole among the ABC islands. It has Portuguese, Spanish, West African and Dutch linguistic influences.
(There is also Garifuna, an Amerindian creole originating among the mixed Amerindian/African communities in St. Vincent and spoken in Central America due to their deportation there by Europeans. So the language survives outside of its island of origin but on the Caribbean coasts of Central America).
The same way one should refrain from assumptions regarding African-Americans so do the same when it comes to the Caribbean.
Last edited by ReineDeCoeur; 03-28-2020 at 05:06 PM..
These important locations are gates of no return and hold the energy of the time. The sorrow and pain, the hunger and thirst, the humilation, the horror and terror, the tears and wailing, and death. When one walks into these places (Ghana, Auschwitz, et al) and its residual energy field they feel the anguish of the original time. Visitors' compassionate hearts will feel this strongly.
My friend is an Eritrean. His country neighbors Ethiopia alongside the Red Sea. He explained that indigenous African citizens of present day do not have the same genetic emotional scars inherited by descendants of slaves in America. Yes, genetic. DNA stores experiences too.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5977074/
If you speak to the West Africans, who live in upper Manhattan and in the west Bronx, you will hear that they endure more hostility from segments of the black American community than they do from white Americans (that is other than the cops). So why the emotional reaction to a tie to Africa?
Most black Americans are really too distant from West Africa to care about it. How many can relate to contemporary Africans or to its cultures? They know less about Afropop than do many white youth who live in London, England, and that is inclusive of Prince Harry.
And I don't expect any closeness to Africans because the split happened over 250 years ago.
Now the lynching and the open race based segregation, and even today's police brutality (rooted in the culture of slave patrollers) I can see an emotional reaction. This is a direct part of the heritage of being a black Americans. Seeing the Green Book, and knowing that not having it could have resulted in extreme humiliation or even death, and many have relatives who can directly relate to that. THAT is where I can see honest emotion.
I think that many who react in those castles do so because they think that they have to. Similar reactions to reading the Green Book would be more natural. If there is this visceral connection to Africa so deep that being snatched from it results in raw emotion then surely there will be more interest in those who were left behind.
The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 made it easier for more Black people from Africa (and the Caribbean) to come to the United States. My mother was well into her teens when the Act was passed. I'm 49 years old and I remember hearing my mother and other AAs complain about how they had tried to befriend African immigrants but were rebuffed. And, as I got older, I kept hearing the same thing from AAs younger than my mother but older than me, regarding newer immigrant Africans. I've even experienced it myself. I've had Africans, namely Nigerians, be very hostile towards me out of the gate, for no reason. So, we are not the ones who are rejecting friendships with Africans. They have been rejecting us since they started arriving here in significant numbers after 1965.
How much rejection are we supposed to take before we give up? Now, they want to start crying that we won't be friends with them? As far as I'm concerned, they can keep crying. I tried. We tried. They consistently give us the middle finger, so the hell with them.
The reason why they don't face the same "hostility" from white Americans is because white Americans don't feel any guilt and shame (surrounding slavery and Jim Crow) when they're around Africans. And, in the colonial era, the USA didn't have any colonies in Africa, so in their minds they're not directly or tangentially responsible for any atrocities that occurred during that era. And, if you know anything about how history is taught in American schools, then you know that for white people, our history only started in 1619 and we only have 4 AA heroes: Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Rosa Parks.
This compartmentalization allows them to see AA and Africans as two distinctly different groups with different histories, instead of one group with a shared history and a far-reaching diaspora. They face less hostility for the same reason that Obama was elected twice - they're Black but don't have the "taint" of slavery on them. Restated, they're the "right" kind of Black. The minute they start throwing in with us and showing unity with us, they will lose their favored status. Marcus Garvey was fine until he actually got ships and was ready to repatriate Black people in America back to Africa. He quickly was deported and banned from ever stepping foot in the USA again and his shipping company was dismantled by the US government.
Why the emotional reaction to a tie to Africa? This is a stupid question, but I'm going to answer it. I don't know if you're going to like the answer, but that's not my problem. The reason why many AA have an emotional reaction to having a tie to Africa is simple: We did not CHOOSE to come to America! We were brought to the USA against our wills and we know that had we been left alone we'd still be in Africa, today. We know that the USA was built by white people for white people and that it was never intended for us to be on equal footing in this country. We know that we were always meant to be property and that we were not even considered human!
WE KNOW THAT THE USA IS NOT OUR HOME. We're here because of circumstances out of our control. So, why don't we go back to Africa? Well, many of us have, and many of us are in the planning stages. But, we also know that the US government will never allow us to leave here en masse of our own volition - every time it has been tried, the pursuit has been shut down.
So, when we visit the slave castles, or get some idea about our real identities through DNA tests, we might have strong emotional reactions. And, if we do, so what? Are you saying the same thing about the Ashkenazim who get emotional at the holocaust museums? Probably not. But, there is always a double standard at play when it comes to us.
To be honest, the majority of Caribbean people have never given thought to the above, as the majority reside in the Caribbean and other places. People living in the U.S. get into such discussion due to tensions between some AAs and Caribbean people here. Those Caribbean people with that chip should be ignored. Half the time, those types have a collection of chips.
And I agree with you about connections to Africa among African-Americans. The U.S. is so vast and there are so much variation within African-American culture.
The English-speaking Caribbean is not a monolith. Speak about particular islands, just as you have done with Haiti and Cuba.
Both of you are right and wrong about Gullah people. They are a long-standing mixture of African-American and Caribbean cultures. The first time I learned about them was from a Gullah woman, who happen to be my professor. She asked me my background and then told me that she is of Caribbean descent as well, specifically Bajan. After which she explained that she is Gullah and shared their history. Who is anyone to tell her that she is not African-American or Caribbean in heritage?
The Gullah connect with Barbados similar to how the Garifuna connect with St. Vincent. At the same time, they are African-American.
Please do a better job at educating yourself about the African heritages that exist in both regions. Again, the English-speaking Caribbean is not a monolith. Be aware that within the English-speaking Caribbean exists Islamic heritage as well. For example, the first Muslims in Trinidad were African, specifically Mandinka (not Indian). I myself have roots in Senegambia and the only Muslims in my family are on the predominantly African side. To your comment about the Yoruba, Orisha religion AND Islam existed among them.
African-Americans are very diverse in their African heritages, with significant heritage among Islamic African tribes. I agree with you that to acknowledge that is not to "Islamize" them but rather than acknowledgement of history. The influence is definitely there, particularly evident in music as you explained. There is in total, however, more heritage from groups like the Yoruba (religious mix), the Igbo (once almost 70 percent of those in VA), and Bantu groups as well.
This is inaccurate. I realize that you are both Haitian/African-American but, if you aren't very exposed to the rest of the Caribbean, perhaps refrain from making such comments.
1.Haitian Creole is one surviving Creole language.
2. Antillian Creole is another surviving Creole language, which is spoken from Dominica even down to Trinidad. It is very similar to Haitian Creole because, as you obviously are unaware, much of the English-speaking Caribbean was once French or French-influenced. So French Creole/Patois was spoken in Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and Trinidad. It is still prominent in Dominica and St. Lucia and spoken among pockets in the other islands and even in Venezuela. Why do you think French-Creole was the first language of calypso?
3. Papiamento is another Creole among the ABC islands. It has Portuguese, Spanish, West African and Dutch linguistic influences.
(There is also Garifuna, an Amerindian creole originating among the mixed Amerindian/African communities in St. Vincent and spoken in Central America due to their deportation there by Europeans. So the language survives outside of its island of origin but on the Caribbean coasts of Central America).
The same way one should refrain from assumptions regarding African-Americans so do the same when it comes to the Caribbean.
The sentence that I highlighted above shook me. I'm from South Carolina, but I'm not from the Low Country where the Gullah people are from. But, I promise on everything that I saw a YouTube video about Bajan (Barbados) Creole and was left completely stunned because I perfectly understood everything that was being said. When I was little, I heard that kind of speech from my grandmother's (and older) generation. I'm 49 years old. I know that there are ties between South Carolina and Barbados by way of white plantation owners and probably some import/export of slaves between the two places, as both were part of the British colonies. But, I have no clue how my grandmother wound up speaking Bajan Creole in Greenville, South Carolina.
The sentence that I highlighted above shook me. I'm from South Carolina, but I'm not from the Low Country where the Gullah people are from. But, I promise on everything that I saw a YouTube video about Bajan (Barbados) Creole and was left completely stunned because I perfectly understood everything that was being said. When I was little, I heard that kind of speech from my grandmother's (and older) generation. I'm 49 years old. I know that there are ties between South Carolina and Barbados by way of white plantation owners and probably some import/export of slaves between the two places, as both were part of the British colonies. But, I have no clue how my grandmother wound up speaking Bajan Creole in Greenville, South Carolina.
How amazing. It’s likely as you said - due to owners and slaves from there and perhaps similar African ethnic backgrounds as well. Other islands sometimes joke on Bajan speech and talk about how they are hard to understand. Yet you understand them just fine. Truly something.
By 1670, Barbados’ population was estimated at 60,000 inhabitants, with approximately sixty percent being African slaves. As precious cultivatable land became increasingly scarce, plantation owners began to look to the North American mainland. As a result, Charles Towne was established in 1670 by the eight Lord Proprietors on what came to be called the Ashley River. Over the next three years, well over half of the white settlers and enslaved Africans who arrived in the Carolina colony came from Barbados, bringing with them the successful colonial model that would shape the social and economic future of South Carolina for centuries to come.
The political influence of the Barbadians is evidenced in the political structure as well as the leadership that emerged from the island – seven of the first 21 governors were either Barbadian or had close Barbadian ties. The Barbadians also had an enormous economic influence on the new colony. Their experience and capital, complemented by their entrepreneurial spirit, made the plantation system a reality, although cotton and rice, not sugar, ultimately surfaced as the major cash crops for South Carolina.
As far as your family members being socially rebuffed by Nigerians, Nigerians have a reputation among other Africans also. One
of the first things I was told from my first social encounter with West Africans ever was never to trust a Nigerian.
Some of them are very friendly, but many seem cold and socially distant at least initially,the vibe I got was too serious. I became friends with some, after being introduced by their family members. In my experience, the Eastern guys seemed to be
the most anti-social, not all though. Yorubas were friendly to me. Northern guys were in a world of their own, even though some were friendly.
Not exactly, "Chatty Kathy" types.
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