#zcabbage

Something continental Africans tend to forget is that African descendants from various Western countries have been completely removed from the ethnic groups they originally hailed from.

The descendants of African slaves (typically) do not have any connection to their ancestral heritage. African Slavery has been a part of America since at least 1706 (the approximate time of the first British colonies) and the emancipation proclamation (which didn’t actually free the slaves) wasn’t issued until 1856. In the years following slavery, the African descendants in America were still sorely terrorized.

During slavery, families were consistently ripped apart and traded; languages aside from the prevailing tongue were tortured and killed from the mouths of slaves; traditions and beliefs from the slaves’ homelands were demonized and punished--and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

What we have left in America is a hodge-pog of the African descendants who survived--largely through assimilation and non-violence. Many African descendants adopted Christianity and learned the common tongue of the country they found themselves in. Through generations of ever-deepening assimilation, the descendants of African slaves do not know even the countries their ancestors hailed from. They don’t know the ethnic groups. They don’t know the tribes. They don’t even have access to their ancestors African names. There is (more often than not) literally no record of them because Africans slaves were given European names in addition to their sale and trade rarely mentioning names because they were legally cattle.

Colonialism and white supremacist ideals and practices stole any knowledge of African descendants’ previous heritage. Ethnic customs, traditions, clothing, languages, names: absolutely usurped from African descendants.

During the 20th century, many African descendants in America began to reclaim their heritage in any way they could: wearing clothing from an African culture, adopting religions still practiced in Africa, learning an African language, etc. It was (and is) an attempt to reconnect with the ancestry they lost centuries before. They (African descendants) don’t belong to the country that profited from their ancestors’ kidnap, rape and slavery. They don’t belong to any of the countries that wielded Christianity as a weapon and demonized their people, native tongues and beliefs. They don’t belong to the countries that hide racism and terrorism behind patriotic, antebellum sentiments. They simply do not belong--however, these are still the countries they must reside due to circumstances completely and entirely beyond their control.

Granted, this reclamation will seem very slovenly to many continental Africans who do know their heritage, were raised in it and have their own culture and ethnicity to lean upon. But from the perspective of an ethnic group stolen from its homeland centuries prior, where generations of forced assimilation wiped any ancestral knowledge away to the brink of near extinction, this reclamation is invaluable.

It’s reclaiming something that had been their inheritance. It’s reclaiming a lineage they had never known. It’s readopting a history, culture and ethnicity usurped even from their familial knowledge.

To people who have an ancestry to claim, it seems fool hardy--however, the black people of the Americas often have only dehuminization, slavery and hardship to look back upon in their respective countries. It’s only natural that they look even more deeply into the past to gain a richer culture and gain a positive context for their existence. Partaking in various African cultures becomes both an act of rebellion toward their abusive histories and a nod to their ancestral origins.