Africa Was Born in Me: Black History 24/7, 365

Black History 24/7, 365 @TheAbeng #theabeng

Black history is world history. African history is part of the Black story; after all, Black history didn’t begin with slavery, neither did it end in Africa. Black history reaches from the Rift Valley floor to the various ages of mass-incarceration cages, to repatriation and reclamation of African citizenship. Black people stories rather leap off ships, jump off cliffs, tear their own skin with sparks from munitions than live bowed on knees. Black history (ourstory) is love while gritting teeth, while kissing teeth, while sucking teeth, while grinding teeth down to chalk so as not to have families torn apart. Black history is Black people story.

We now reclaim Black history as Black people’s story–we will tell our own stories, express our own experiences; we will no longer sit down by another fire side and hear someone else tell us who we are, what we should be, who we should dress like, how we should talk. I want talk how-so-ever I feel fah talk to me Nua. And if it pidgin, or creole, or patois–soundin’, is because one time we couldn’t talk unless we talked like how the colonialists talked–speaky, spokey. So, Black history is Kreyol, Black story is Creolese, Black story is Patwa, Black story is Ebonics or Pidgin or Papiamento or Krio. AND, Black history is also Twi, and Yoruba, and Mandinke, and Xhosa, and Ibo, and Hausa, and so many others because African tongues is the root of we ‘tory, our story.

African history is black history because Africa is born within us, and walks with us; right, Nana- Buluku and Olorun? Right, Shango? See me, Nyame? Listen me, Nyambi, nuh man? Africa born in all we Samba, all we Rhumba, all a we Nyabinghi, we Kumfa, we Kumina; in all we Merengueing and we Limboing and we Wining, and we Kumbaying, mi Lord. You overstand? Africa born in all we cassava and yam and ochro gumbo and metemgee/oil down/run down and even when we pop a top a pour a lil libation pon de ground for we bredren wah gone; Africa in deh, it in deh, ayahhh- ohhhh, it in deh.  

“I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me.” ~ Kwame Nkrumah

Washington, D.C.

Cartegena

Georgetown

Poem: Roots - For Women of The African Diaspora

Roots by Caribbean Poet Cicely Rodway 

(from her book of poems Facing The Wind; 2009)

FOR WOMEN OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

Her roots are deep

many bloods cruise through her veins

yet she can trace with certainty

her beginnings.

She comes from a long line

of strong woman

the spirit of goddesses runs through

her

the spirit of earth and

sun goddesses

spirits of the elements

the forces

of life

rest in her.

Spirit of Oya

Yoruba goddess of winds

and tempests

Oya

The Strong Protectress of Women

Yes, she comes from a long line

a long line of strong women.

She springs from survivors

from enslaved women

from women

who struggled to be free.

Now,

made stronger by this history

Bathed in the power of her ancestors

strengthened by the faith

and works of sisters

she shapes the world.

Perceptions In The African Diaspora- Latinos of African Descent (Part II)

copyright 2014 K. Omodele

...like the U.S. and the U.K., people in Latin American countries immigrated from all over the world...And yes, some of these Latin Americans are of African Descent.

"No matter where you come from/ as long as you're a Black man, you are an African."~ Peter Tosh

People of Latin America

Beginning in the late 15th and early 16th centuries (1400s and 1500s), Spaniards and Portuguese sailed to what we now know as the Americas. They promptly conquered the native people (Amerindians such as the Taino Arawaks, Caribs Incas, etc.), decimating whole populations of these people through warfare and disease. These Europeans first set up shop mining gold, forced Amerindians into slavery. After the Amerindian population was close to depletion, Europeans imported Africans to work the fields- mostly sugar cane and tobacco plantations in Brazil, Columbia, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Cuba,et al. By the 19th Century, in Latin America there were three different races/ancestries (Amerindians; Blacks/Africans; Whites/Europeans) and people of mixed race/ancestry (such as Mestizos and mulattos).

Over time, more people immigrated to Latin America- Asians ( Chinese and East Indians), other Europeans (Italians, Germans after WWII), and Middle Easterners (Lebanese and Syrians). But regardless of the diverse ancestry, the common thread that now weaves through Latin culture is language (Spanish and Portuguese).

African (Black) Culture in Latin America

Latinos/Hispanics don't share an exact, uniformed culture because dialects, music and dance, and other customs vary from one region to the next. For instance, some Latin American countries have large populations of Blacks (descendants of Africans) who have heavily influenced culture. Notice how Latin countries in and around the Caribbean , along with Brazil, possess customs steeped in African traditions. African styles permeate music and dance in samba, rhumba, merengue and just check out the strong rhythm of congas in salsa. Notice the spirituality of Yoruba deities and Orishas found in Santeria.

During the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, more Africans were imported into Brazil than any other country. If we include light and brown-skinned people of African descent (the so-called "mixed" or Mulatto), then Brazil's Black population is roughly forty-five percent of its total population of 190 million*, which means that Brazil has the largest population of black people in any country other than Nigeria.

Presently, people of African descent make up around 12 percent of South America's population.(McLeish 1997) Counting these descendants in the whole of Latin America (from A-Z, Argentina to Venezuela), more Blacks speak Spanish/Portuguese than English across the Americas, period. And these Africans have made undeniable and significant contributions to the collective Hispanic heritage.

In sum, it's full time we realize that people only "look Hispanic" (or look Puerto Rican, Cuban, Columbian, Dominican) if we misunderstand the meaning of these terms. Knowing that during slavery Africans were widely scattered throughout the Caribbean; Central, South and North America is crucial in understanding the nuances of ethnicity, nationality and race.

Sources

*The World Almanac 2012 (states that Brazil's population is comprised of 6% Black and 29% Mulatto)

**McLeish, Ewan. South America. Continents. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn Publishers, 1997

Perceptions In The African Diaspora: Latinos of African Descent -Part I