#thecongo

ALI ~ MUHAMMED ALI ~ “WHEN WE WERE KINGS”

ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES, EVER. IS BACK ON HBO, NOW.

The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you - Anthony Hazard

TW/CW: Antiblackness in the comments section. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Here lies the genesis of antiblackness (In its global form), coupled with the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade this horrifying genocide of millions of different ethnic groups, cultures and peoples has led to the oppression of an entire continent of people that permeates global culture to this day. 

Of the hyper-visibility of African struggles, particularly in the Americas, we fail to acknowledge how little we are educated about the history of this immense continent and fail to grasp how deep racism is against the millions of immensely diverse cultures and peoples that make up the continent. 

The entirety of the contiguous United States can fit within a PORTION of the Sahara Desert. That is only counting North Africa. The entire CONTINENT of Australia can fit neatly within the continental center of the African continent and still have the North, Western Coast, Horn and Southern Africa not accounted for in regards to land area. Africa is ENORMOUS Y’ALL. It is also the origin point of all humanity! Africa has some of the oldest living cultures on this Earth [Only Indigenous Australians can compete with the age of some of Africa’s cultures (Naturally, as it is theorized they were some of the first humans to migrate out of Africa proper)]

With being so enormous and being the continent to house a portion of humanity the longest, Africa is naturally the MOST diverse continent on Earth (Only South America and Asia could even begin to compare.) Not only diverse culturally but also genetically, having the most diverse and unique gene pool of the entire world! 

[Sidenote: This is part of why this blog doesn’t believe or subscribe to the notion of a Neg*oid race, we aren’t using colonizer language here, NOT at all! We can recognize the colonizer racialization of Blackness of African peoples and the subsequent reclamation of that identity but we are not for one second pretending that it has any biological reality or helps to completely understand the functions of antiblackness as not every colonizer used the same tactics or racial structures and African peoples are not the only ones racialized as Black (Indigenous Australians, Papuans and Melanesians also have a history of Blackness.This blog will cover that history and institutional reality more on a later date-If curious, read Kaiya Aboagye’s article “Australian Blackness, the African Diaspora and Afro/Indigenous Connections in the Global South” or read this interview with her here: “Shades of Black: An Interview”.)] 

This blog recognizes all of African peoples as Indigenous. [Sans colonizers of course (i.e Arab, Boers and any Non-Black peoples on the continent that do not have a deep connection (This gets complicated with North Africans as racial identity is contested and not all are united in regards to Blackness, the Amazigh are an example of this complicated reality)] 

HOWEVER, this blog also recognizes that power dynamics and indigeneity on the continent itself is a fairly complicated reality. Not all of Africa became settler colonies like the USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada. Most became primarily resource extraction colonies where living there was and is considered unpalatable to most colonizers. With exceptions being North Africa and South Africa of course (With a kind of settler colonization being conducted by Arab and Boer peoples respectively). This type of colonization naturally has fostered hierarchies within Africa, with some ethnic groups being more dominant over others. (Not to mention the impacts of colonial ventures enacted by various African peoples themselves prior to European and Arabic colonization.) These multi-layered realities are recognized by this blog and thus we recognize why not all African peoples choose to adopt a politic or notion of indigènitude. We invite all who choose to identify with indigeneity to collaborate with us and we support all Black peoples regardless of their personal affiliations with Indigeneity. Black liberation is essential to decolonization. As Black peoples are colonized peoples too!

With all of this being said, we also would like to recognize the importance of including those in Diaspora in conversations regarding indigeneity. 

All African Diasporic Groups are also indigenous peoples but just in diaspora from their homelands due to various reasons. (Mostly due to the genocidal Slave Trades mentioned above.) 

Diasporic African groups include but are not limited to: 

Afro-Diasporic Descendants of Enslaved Peoples:

-Descendants and Cultural Carriers of the Victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: 

African-Americans and African-Canadians (Black Americans/Black Canadians)

Afro-Indigenous Creole Peoples of the Caribbean and in the Americas

Afro-Latine peoples of Latin America

Afro-European Descendants of Enslaved People 

Other Descendants not Included Above

-Descendants and Cultural Carriers of the Victims of the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade: 

Haratin peoples of the Maghreb and Mauritania

Chouachin peoples of Tunisia and Libya

Afro-Arabic peoples of North Africa, the Horn and the Middle East

Afro-Iranians

Siddi peoples of India and Pakistan

Other Descendants not Included Above

Beta Israel and Bal Ej Jewish peoples (Both of the African Diaspora and Jewish Diaspora) 

Contemporary and Modern African Immigrants (Note: This includes the peoples that are NOT primarily descendant of Enslaved peoples, History of Enslavement may play a key role in cultural differences of African peoples in Diaspora.) 

Might migrate out of the continent as a refugee of either climate or war (or both).

Might migrate due to political or economic reasons.

Might migrate due to business or family relations.