Most people in modern day agree that all life originates from Africa. More recently, everyone can also agree that the slavery that built most of north and south America and the Caribbean came as a result of Europeans enslaving African peoples.
As time goes on, black people who are no longer in the motherland seem to get further and further away from their African roots and create African subcultures. In the West Indies, there is a distinct island culture that has been developed as well as a subculture among black people in America. We can see that this is true based on the comradery that is seen on our social networks. The fact that consensuses are formed every time a #GrowingUpBlack hashtag is trends speaks to the fact that there is a culture that has been created.
Regardless of the emergence of these subcultures, the fact still remains that the ancestors of most black Americans can be traced back to Africa and the transatlantic slave trade. Although many traditions may have been lost along with the lives of many of those same ancestors, many things can still be traced back.
As traditional African attire and customs continue to trend among both black and white communities, African people who can trace their roots more easily back to the motherland and the specific families they originate from, seem to resent the fact that black Americans are now adopting traditional customs that they look at as “theirs”.
I see it more and more all over social media everyday and in my opinion, African people who suggest that black Americans don’t have the right to connect with their roots is. I can see how offense might be taken by Africans when they see Americans wearing dashikis that they don’t know the historical significance of or seeing “sacred” waist beads being shown out to the world, but I do not think that it is as measurable to the cultural appropriation we face from the white community as they make it seem.
Black and brown people have rights to these traditions because those traditions are at the root of every tradition that exists in the black American subculture today.
I do believe that research should be done in order to get better connected and educated with the roots. That is the only way that black and brown people can realize the power that they have. The only way that they will be able to see the value in the rich culture that they come from.
It is important for everybody to know about their past in order to see success in their future and regain the power that they once had. Regardless, the divide between black Americans and black Africans should not exist just because one group may not be able to trace their family tree as far back as the other.
