Shades of Africa

shade

(definition of “shade” from the Free Online Dictionary… slightly modified)

There is a saying that I have been thinking about lately: old sins cast long shadows. Old mistakes, events, crimes… even those not committed by us, have a way of leaving droppings along the way, which we sometimes stumble over later in life. Ill-begotten things, some of them – filled with the stench of past hatreds, gleaming wetly with avarice, or spread out wide, in the comfort of complacency.
None of us is exempt from this. As a society, we bear one another’s sins, and the burdens of our ancestors are on all of us, whether they were the criminal or those who had crimes committed against them. All is not dour, however… we bear one another’s triumphs as well.

All this, and the`accidental poem’ up above, comes from thinking a bit about history. There has been a lot of talk about that here, lately. If we could be born over and over again in the same time period, what would we choose and what history would we change. What history are we allowed to know. Where families were from, and how far you’ve been able to trace them back.

It’s the last that moved me from thinking about something, to writing about it, as a way of talking out an issue that has been at the back of my mind for a long time, in my own scattered way.

For many Black Americans, our history is only as old as the history of America is. The lucky ones can trace their families back at least that far, through census records and the bills of sale people made out to buy and sell human beings.

Others have no real interest in that. For a variety of reasons, no doubt. Sometimes it’s hard enough living the life you’ve got, without seeking out stories of the life you might have had, had you been born 200 years ago. And what’s there, anyway? Rarely stories of individuals, unless they are passed down from family to family. Not stories of who they loved, what songs they sang to their babies at night, what their family rituals were, their favorite colors, or how proud their daddy was of them. No, nothing like that.

But even for those who look, they can only go so far… and then they have to stop, at the water’s edge. Of all of the consequences of the sin of enslaving human beings, I think one of the ones that casts the longest shadow is that the door to the past was clanged shut.

Locked, bolted… erased.

“There was nothing there before we (Westerners) got there” was the most frequent answer given me as a child in school, when I asked about Africa… after I realized that some part of me had origins there. “No culture, no language… just grunts and hoots. And drums. How lucky they were that we came along and brought civilization.”

It’s possible that they too believed this, as pre-colonial history had been thoroughly scrubbed and made non-existent. Eventually, of course, there came those historians and researchers from all over the world, including African countries, who were unwilling to let the disappearance of a people stand, and who wrote of cultures and kingdoms, and universities and councils and so on that existed, pre-colonialism, attempting to correct the record. And now, even though African history is still not widely taught in US public schools, at least the young can usually get a better answer than, “There was nothing there.”

However, even with that, there is another problem with looking back. Where to look?

Africa. Big place. Many countries… many cultures and tribes and families within the countries. Many different traditions and languages and art and historical events. The vast majority of Black Americans couldn’t “go back where you came from’ – as racists suggest from time to time – if they wanted to… because they don’t know where that is.  That, too, was erased… from records, and from memory.

Another crime, another long shadow.    

I am not sure I can explain the feeling of the lack of historical anchoring, and its consequences. I am not even sure I know what they are, although I can look around me and speculate. You’ll have noticed that Americans of African descent in the US sometimes cobble together rituals and traditions from many African countries… harvest festivals and naming ceremonies and words here and there, in an attempt to fill that void that some are not even consciously aware of.

I think probably adopted children may come closest to knowing, because they too often wonder…”Who’s back there? What are they to me?”  Even if the answers are not always good, some just have a need to know.

There are DNA tests now that people can take, which will tell them pretty much which part of Africa their ancestors were from and sometimes even which tribe. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts took one and found he was of the Songhay people in Niger. Oprah took one too and apparently announced, “I am Zulu!” I believe there are some who have been trying to cast a little doubt on Oprah’s new heritage, but in spite of all her millions (or maybe because of them) I dare anyone to successfully take her “I am Zulu!” away from her.

An anchor was discovered… it will not be let go.

The test costs over $300 for one line, maternal or paternal. That sets it right out of the ballpark for many just struggling to pay their monthly bills. Maybe one day.

Me… I’m lucky in that my father was an African national, and so even though he and my mom divorced when I was young, I knew where he was from. I didn’t want to know much more than that, though.

Now that I am older and finally past the “There was nothing there but grunts and drums” slander, I have been looking around various places, from time to time, for the history of what being of African descent actually means. Maybe one day I’ll find out. For now, though it is enough to know…

I am Yoruba.