Do any African American posters out there take an active interest in Africa or have travelled there whith a view to learning about the place? I ask this because I have spent a fair amount of time in several African countries and never met or heard of any. Not that this is a criticism, i just wonder whether the term African American is just paying lip service to an ancestral culture or whether it has any current relevance.
In other words, you’re asking whether any black Dopers who call themselves “African-Americans” have ever actually been to Africa, or actually know anything about Africa, or if they’re just paying lip service to supposed ancestral cultures, the way some Americans named “Kelly” or “O’Flaherty” call themselves “Irish-Americans” and talk about their “Celtic heritage” a lot but don’t have a clue who the Black and Tans were and can’t pronounce “Baile Átha Cliath”?
How do you pronounce that?
“Dublin”.
Ha! Every Irish-American knows that the term Black and Tan isn’t referring to a who, but a what - a delicious concoction of Guiness and Harp.
But, DDG, the African-Americans are black. The Irish-Americans are white.
Don’t tell me you can’t see the difference?!
Sua
And a Black-and-Tan at Harry’s in Westport, Missouri? The best ever, boy-o! 
I dunno what kinda testimonials our OP was expecting in response to his - uh - less than optimally phrased thread. But I don’t believe the question was necessarily racist.
I believe it is a fair question to ask what interest a member of any group might be expected to have in their group’s heritage. Or, does being a hyphenated-American mean something different than the heritage of the culture/nation preceding the hyphen.
So ought an Irish-American have certain familiarity with certain aspects of a foreign country - Ireland in that case, or is it sufficient that they know what is involved in being an “Irish-American” if any such creature can be defined.
Moreover, I think it is relevant to question different cultural groups’ ties to their ancestral lands. Not that one approach or the other is better or worse, more or less “valid.”
I probably know more people of Irish heritage than I do blacks, so I have a poor sample - but I know of far more I-As who have travelled to Ireland, than A-As who have visited Africa. I also understand that the circumstances under which their ancestors came here are vastly different, but it is very common for I-As to know the specific county their ancestors come from. I also realize that the majority of A-As undoubtedly do not have family remaining in their ancestral lands.
Moreover, distinctions must be made for recency of immigration. For example, the Mexican-American community contains many very recent immigrants. That community seems to retain strong ties to Mexico, and celebrate “Mexican” traditions in their new home.
So, I guess I have nothing really in response to the OP. I just think it could inspire a worthwhile discussion, and need not be dismissed out of hand.
Yah, I know, I was trying to give the OP the benefit of the doubt.
My apologies, DDG. Given the tone of some of the subsequent posts, and what I viewed as at least a mild veiled accusation of racism by Sua, I was mistaken in my assumptions. Sorry to you as well, Sua, if I misinterpreted.
I do find the issue of “hyphenation” interesting. If I consider myself an Irish-American, does that mean I really give a darn about either presentday or historic Ireland, or does that simply say something about a subculture existing within America?
Moreover, the fact that I might view Irish-Americanism one way, does not mean African-Americans necessarily consider their designation the same.
Of course, it would not be unprecedented for someone to respond to another’s identification of themselves as African-American or Jewish-American, as an excuse to express their intolerance and say, “If you love it so much …”
Disclosure: I use Irish-American only as an example. I believe I have a minute amount of Irish “blood”, as well as some English, but am predominantly or German and Polish extraction and my name ends in “ski.” But all of my ancestors have been born in the US for well over the past 100 years, and I am not aware of any relatives in Europe. I certainly do not consider myself anything other than just American. So I have no firsthand experience as a member of any such group.
My mother, for one, has been to Kenya and South Africa. I don’t know about too many others who have traveled there (except for a few that went to Egypt), but several friends of mine have voiced the desire to visit the continent once they get some money. Personally I would love to go to Kenya. The pictures my mom brought back were cool as hell.
by DDG
Do you really see this as an “either or” thing? “Either the blacks who call themselves AA’s do so because they are African experts or they do so because they want to play make-believe like those pseudo Irish-Americans.” There’s a whole of lot ground you’re missing if you are.
First of all, you get yourself in hot water by comparing blacks with European immigrants. Surely you realize there is a dilemma that American blacks face that Irish descendants don’t, which means that I don’t have to explain in depth how slavery (there goes that S-word again) stripped slaves from their nations and tribes, and left their descendants with an identity based off a stigmatized skin color rather than strong cultural ties to the Old Countries they left. So while it is conceivable that Irish descendants actually can point to their brogue-speaking, kilt-wearing, haggis-eating grandparents as “proof” of their roots, not too many black folks have the luxury of knowing the tribes of their ancestors like that. But most of us can point to our physical appearance and say “Ah ha! I come from Africa!” It’s not like that idea is being pulled out of a hat.
So it is an assumption that the term Afican-American denotes any specific relationship to culture. I don’t think it does.
Personally, I think African Americans who relate themselves to American culture have a stronger self-identity than those who try to adopt any and every African culture for the sake of being “authentic”. Africa is chockfull of many cultures, so when people say “African culture”, as if it is a homogenous mass, it make as much sense as saying “European culture.”
Bit of a hijack, but just to display my total ignorance of any number of matters:
Were slaves taken from all parts of Africa and all tribes equally, at various stages in the slave trade, and for various markets?
For example, if someone can trace their roots back to - say - a plantation in Virginia in 1700, can they make any statistical guesses as to where their ancestors may have been more or less likely from?
Moreover, how “stable” are today’s African tribes, cultures, and languages? To what extent are they the same today as they were during the slave trade?
I do not know a lot of West Indean blacks. Can any generalizations be made as to whether an American whose ancestors came from - say - Haiti tends to consider themselves Haitian-Americans, or African-Americans?
Thanks for any info you can provide to dispel my ignorance.
by Dinsdale
Most slave labor was extracted from West Africa, especially from Ghana and the Ivory Coast. So, statistically speaking, most American blacks have a predominance of West African ancestors. That’s not exactly pinpointing anything regards to tribes, though, which have more cultural meaning than nations do.
This is a good question. I don’t have a factual answer for it.
I have in-laws from Haiti and they probably consider themselves Haitian-American first and foremost. But I can’t see them rejecting the designation African-American as if to say “No, I’m not African-American, I’m *Haitian-*American.” Really and truly, they are not mutually exclusive things. Most black folks don’t put too much thought in it anyway. In my experience, blacks are more likely to call themselves black then anything else.
My sister’s in-laws are from Haiti and I’m sure if you pressed them, they would identify their “roots” as Haitian, not “African American”. “African American” is generally used when referring to black people who’s descendents were American-born slaves. Sometimes people use the term in reference to black people in general, but then you lump dark-skinned Americans from the Caribbean with dark-skinned Americans from the Americas (hehehe) with dark-skinned Americans from Africa. The only important things these groups have in common is that they have relatively recent origins on the continent of Africa and they may be subjected to anti-black racism (and thus have some shared political aims–hence the political usefulness of the term “black”).
I don’t call myself an African American. I’m black. Do I feel connected to Africa? Not really, although I would like to visit some places there (a lot of people do…that doesn’t make them “African American” though). Perhaps I would feel differently if I knew where my homeland was. One of my ancestors hailed from Nigeria, but from where? What language did he speak? What ethnic group did he belong to? What about the others in my family tree? To me, you need to know these things to be truly connected to a place and a time in history.
The pan-Africa movement of the 60s was an attempt to establish a yearning for the motherland, in part to provide self-esteem to a group of people who had had that taken away from them. Because it’s not really possible for black people to locate our specific times and place in Africa, we’ve co-opted pieces of Africa that we DO feel connected to and we’ve weaved them into our American selves. Our names may reflect this, as well as the holidays we may celebrate, the clothing we wear, and the religions we practice.
(There are some elements in black culture that we did inherit from our African ancestors. The dialects we speak, our styles of cooking, and the features of our music and dance certaintly express African ancestry.)
Does this annexation of African culture then qualify us as “African Americans”? No, but the term wasn’t coined because of our culture. Rather, it was to give us a name that references a geographical area rather than a negatively-connotated color.
From my experience, the referencing of things and people as “African American” comes out of the mouths of white people rather than black. Most of the black people I know call themselves “black”. Jesse Jackson didn’t consult black people when he introduced that term to the media. So maybe you should ask him what “African American” means.
Of what?
Just wanna point out that it’s not my frickin’ OP, that it’s not me who may or may not see it as a either/or thing, that any assumptions you may detect sure as hell aren’t my assumptions, and if anybody is potentially in hot water, it’s Rider.
This is what I get for trying to clarify an OP. :rolleyes:
<< takes herself off to a thread where people have more reading comprehension skills >>
Thanks for the thoughtful responses to my questions.
Just wanted to add that the language/ethnic uncertainty thing ain’t all that unique to folk of African ethnicity.
Like I said, my name ends in ski. So everyone assumes I’m “Polish.” I guess the “official” pie would be cut 1/2 German, and 1/4 Polish. But even the Polish part was from East Danzig - Kashubia (sp), which was controlled by various invaders apparently depending on the month in question! (Slight exaggeration for attempted humor.)
Gets even more attenuated for my kids. My wife is predominantly Czech. So my kids are at most 1/8 Polish, yet they bear this ski name.
And Czech, or Yugoslavian, has its own issues - “tribes” as it were, changing even recently. Check out some historic atlases of Europe, and it’s pretty clear that borders were somewhat fluid. Even recently. Some people may be content to refer to their ancestors as “Yugoslavian.” While it is VERY important to others whether they are Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, etc.
And how bout modern, non-aboriginal Austrailians? How much interest do they put in their ancestry, and how they got where they are?
Maybe it would be easier if at least those who accept the “out-of Africa” theory of human evolution all referred to ourselves as of African ethnicity!
by DDG
Well, I wasn’t sure what your POV was, and that’s why I asked the question “do you really see this thing as an either or thing” because I wasn’t sure if you did or not.
Everything in the rest of my post was directed either towards a general “you” or to Rider. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
ywtf: …slavery (there goes that S-word again) stripped slaves from their nations and tribes, and left their descendants with an identity based off a stigmatized skin color rather than strong cultural ties to the Old Countries they left.
Not to mention that the separation of most African-Americans from their “old country” has lasted a lot longer than that of most Irish-Americans from theirs. Even among, say, Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans or German-Americans who do know definitely who their immigrant ancestors were and where they came from, the ones who go overseas and visit are more likely to be the ones whose families immigrated within the last few generations. Even if the descendants of slaves did know where their people originally came from, after two or three hundred years, no-one back home would be likely to remember them.
(Say, I just realized that I have both these deracinating effects going on simultaneously; on the Protestant side of my family we’ve been in N. America for centuries, so I don’t go back to England because it’s been too long, and on the Jewish side the Nazis killed everybody who didn’t emigrate, so I don’t go back to Poland because I’m culture-stripped. Since most African-Americans are deracinated from Africa in both ways on both sides at once, it doesn’t surprise me if not many of them are interested in going back.)
Sorry if my OP, or its wording caused offence. It wasn’t comparing one group to another. It was just a question about African Americans. Thanks for your input.
Here’s something I’ve always wondered about…I had a friend in college who was whiter than white, blonde hair, blue eyes, the whole deal. Her very white parents had met each other and married while working in Africa, which is where she was born. Then they moved here.
So technically, is she African-American?