About African-Americans and the "Motherland"
Part One: The following is my opinion of how I have perceived things in the past and now in the present:
It should be noted that this post is not meant to offend anyone or any race -- it is just my perception of how I viewed this subject as I grew up.
Last week I overheard someone on the radio ask why African Americans name their babies such names as: Tyshika, Nakeisha, Deiondre, Tanisha, LaTisha and so on. I was unable to listen long enough to hear a response to that.
Therefore, here is my response, or opinion. Years ago, the Black community accepted the fact that their ancestors are from Africa. I would say that there was probably a time that we were not too proud of that. Whenever there were films shown about the African people, especially in school, they were poorly dressed, the females running around half naked, people living in huts, giving us the impression of an uncivilized place of uncivilized people who wore what looked like large wooden ear-rings in their noses and circular or oval pieces of wood in their lips or they just plain had big lips. The impressions of the African people we saw back in our days were embarrassing. We did not have the privilege of seeing the part of Africa where there are offices, schools, homes and where the country looks like any other part of the world and is beautiful.
At that time, the "negro" or "black" population did not realize that our ancestors were from Africa, thus making us have African blood running through our veins. I can remember when we became aware of the fact, that we were decedents of Africa and became proud of it. Therefore, it became our privilege to learn of that part of our heritage, and this became publicly known around the country. As a part of becoming proud of our ancestry, we became "African-Americans" instead of "negros" and decided it was time to take on names that were similar to African names. This was a part of our pride, again, our acceptance of our heritage; we belonged to a group of people. The African people are beautiful, intellegent,suffocated; a proud people. Actually the names are beautiful; they may be hard to spell and pronounce but those names represent us as a black African race of people. We need to be accepting of those names because they identify us as a people.
Unrelated circumstance: Speaking of senior moments: I generally call my phone at home or at work to remind myself not to forget to do this or that. This past week, I called my phone mail twice to leave a message not to forget something but forgot was I was going to remind myself to do.
It should be noted that this post is not meant to offend anyone or any race -- it is just my perception of how I viewed this subject as I grew up.
Last week I overheard someone on the radio ask why African Americans name their babies such names as: Tyshika, Nakeisha, Deiondre, Tanisha, LaTisha and so on. I was unable to listen long enough to hear a response to that.
Therefore, here is my response, or opinion. Years ago, the Black community accepted the fact that their ancestors are from Africa. I would say that there was probably a time that we were not too proud of that. Whenever there were films shown about the African people, especially in school, they were poorly dressed, the females running around half naked, people living in huts, giving us the impression of an uncivilized place of uncivilized people who wore what looked like large wooden ear-rings in their noses and circular or oval pieces of wood in their lips or they just plain had big lips. The impressions of the African people we saw back in our days were embarrassing. We did not have the privilege of seeing the part of Africa where there are offices, schools, homes and where the country looks like any other part of the world and is beautiful.
At that time, the "negro" or "black" population did not realize that our ancestors were from Africa, thus making us have African blood running through our veins. I can remember when we became aware of the fact, that we were decedents of Africa and became proud of it. Therefore, it became our privilege to learn of that part of our heritage, and this became publicly known around the country. As a part of becoming proud of our ancestry, we became "African-Americans" instead of "negros" and decided it was time to take on names that were similar to African names. This was a part of our pride, again, our acceptance of our heritage; we belonged to a group of people. The African people are beautiful, intellegent,suffocated; a proud people. Actually the names are beautiful; they may be hard to spell and pronounce but those names represent us as a black African race of people. We need to be accepting of those names because they identify us as a people.
Unrelated circumstance: Speaking of senior moments: I generally call my phone at home or at work to remind myself not to forget to do this or that. This past week, I called my phone mail twice to leave a message not to forget something but forgot was I was going to remind myself to do.
posted by The Gig at 6:37 PM
19 comments
