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AFRICAN SPECTRUM BASH REAFFIRMED BONDS BETWEEN AFRICANS AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS

Kwadwo Kyei

It was an event quite unlike anything that I have seen before as far as social interaction between Africans and African-Americans is concerned: an enthusiastic, colorful, and sophisticated gathering of the sons and daughters of Africa from both sides of the Atlantic to celebrate the birth of a newspaper that will fill a long-neglected void in our community.

The African Spectrum is an entirely African immigrant initiative, but you wouldn’t know it from the line-up of participants in the paper’s first anniversary celebration in April. From the dazzling fashion show to the exciting performance of African traditional dance and music, from the highly articulate panel of speakers to the spontaneous and fashionably dressed general audience, the African-American presence at the celebration was very impressive and nearly overwhelming.

I am still struggling to get over how authentic the show put on by the United African Dance Ensemble was. The group, made up mostly of African-Americans, could easily have embarrassed any indigenous African performers from the motherland. Frankly, watching the American performers gracefully and expertly execute the traditional dance and music of our common ancestors was the high point for me that night.

With groups like the United African Dance Ensemble, do we need any further proof that Africans and African-Americans share a common heritage? As Jon Daye, one of the speakers at the anniversary party very wisely observed, we all - Africans, African-Americans, and West Indians alike - came from the wombs of the same African mothers. This is a statement that is impossible to contradict, just as it is impossible to deny the fact of one’s own existence.

Yet there is a disquieting manifestation of denial on the part of some African-Americans about their true heritage or where they came from. These African-Americans find the very notion of their being associated with Africans or anything African repugnant. They even go as far as rejecting the “African-American” nomenclature, preferring to call themselves blacks or black Americans instead. Needless to say, these black people feel more comfortable with whites than with fellow blacks, especially Africans.

Some in this renegade segment of black America even take things a step or two farther. I watched a TV program recently in which a group of African-Americans were featured along with some whites who didn’t think much of the black race. These black men and women claimed, among other things, that the black color was dirty and ugly. Interestingly, some of these individuals had a skin complexion that was a whole lot darker than any that I have seen back in Africa. But this fact seemed irrelevant as the poor, benighted souls savaged their own race, the black race, so much so that they literally accused God for making them into what they are - blacks instead of whites.

As I watched the show in sheer disbelief and dismay, I couldn’t help dismissing these black “brothers and sisters” as some kind of pathetic, self-loathing, deranged creatures who cannot be taken seriously. But to ignore them would be wrong. They need to be helped to snap out of their juvenile and crazy fantasies. For starters, these black folks who would rather be white ought to be reminded that, short of a miracle of providential proportions, they will always be black and their destiny will always be bound with the destiny of the black race. Their destiny as people of African descent is etched in stone and there is nothing they can do to reverse it.

They may speak, walk, and dance like Caucasians or adopt every mannerism of Caucasians, but these won’t prevent establishments such as Denny’s from snubbing them when they stop by for a snack, nor will such self-deceptive antics or mimicry exclude them from racial profiling by the police when they cruise around in their late model automobiles. They would be subjected to the same prejudices by other races as the black person next door even if they wore tags on their foreheads loudly proclaiming their hostility to their own race.

These hard, cold realities make the African-Americans who try to outdo the most virulent white supremacists to put down their own race look silly in the eyes of the rest of the world. But if looking silly doesn’t faze them, perhaps instilling in them a little sense of racial pride will help change the way they look at themselves. These people should be made to understand that members of our race are capable of reaching the same heights of achievement as members of other races. Our race is represented in every field of human endeavor - from science to literature, from law to medicine, from music to sports, from business to education, etc. And we are not merely represented; we do hold our own against others and even excel when the rules of the game are fair.

After all, didn’t one of our own, General Colin Powell, recently command the most powerful military machine of all time, the U.S. armed forces, and lead the Western allies to victory in the Gulf War? And isn’t the current head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, a black African who has acquitted himself on the job as creditably as any of his illustrious predecessors who came from other racial backgrounds?

I consider it a sickening betrayal that any black person should look down on his own race. However, the one consolation here is that those African-Americans who despise Africa and the black race are a pitifully minuscule segment of the black American population. The vast majority of African-Americans are very proud of their African ancestry, and they have proven this in so many different ways over the years. The motherland is just as proud of them, the clearest indication of this being the warmth and genuineness of the affection routinely showered on our brothers and sisters whenever they return to their ancestral home.

Perhaps there is no stronger evidence of the affinity between those of us who voluntarily migrated from Africa not too long ago and those whose forebears were forcibly and inhumanely uprooted from Africa and transplanted in America centuries ago than the way our African-American brothers and sisters have embraced this publication, which was started by an African immigrant couple. Their overwhelming involvement in the anniversary celebration made the party the smashing success that it was.

We are and always will be one and the same people - Africans, African-Americans, West Indians - who are proud of our common heritage. Let the wretched few among us who think they are anything but Africans dream on. Their rude awakening is only a matter of time.

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