Mr. Ceesay:
Thanks for your input.
However, i have to disagree with some of your notions
about African Americans. I thought it was ironic that
your point about the culture of dependence, is the
regular lament of our president about Gambians. Also,
that foreigners come to Gambia, and make it, while
natives languish in mediocrity?
While i acknowledge obvious cultural differences, I
think the pathology of the African American experience
in America is more complicated than you stated. To
extrapolate that African Americans are not deserving
of reparations, because some/many(?) lack historical
knowledge, is a tad bit unfair. How many Gambians can
tell you when the Euros landed there, and how long our
subjugation lasted? Reparations is a valid issue for
Africans and African Americans, and it ought to be
pursued. If for none of the other wrongs, but the fact
that our African ancestors were enslaved on their own
lands and their brothers and sisters sold into chattel
bondage. And lest we forget, were for successive
generations excised of all dignity and sense of
history and place.
We have become liminal beings: the neo-colonial person
and the post-bondage individual. This is what esteemed
African writer Nuruddin Farah had to say about the
neo-colonial person: "A neocolonial subject is born
into uncertainty, lives in uncertainty, dies in
uncertainty and operates on the frontiers of
uncertainty. A neocolonial subject is a person who is
told, 'You are not who you are.' "
"Neocolonial subjects are like Scheherazade in
"Arabian Nights," spinning tales to survive. There is
a continuous borrowing from the future. You borrow
from the future because today is not certain." You
have to admit the parallels are uncanny.
While I don't think obsession with past conditions is
healthy, it is, however, necessary to affix it in
context, for the healing process. The baggage
immigrants bring to these shores are quite different
than those of African Americans, but, i don't think
one is more important or valid than the other.
What was disheartening to me about the article was
that African Americans were trying to bridge the gap,
but are seemingly being rebuffed by their African
brethren. Thanks again, for your time and input.
Abdou
--- Modou Ceesay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Sidibe:
>
> The fissures are no surprise. The difference
> between the two
> cultures are so great that we might as well be
> talking about
> two different races. The immigrants just want to
> work and
> have good, safe lives. The "Afro-Americans" are
> obsessed
> with finding a common history because they have no
> present or
> future. Instead of a culture of hard work like the
> immigrants
> have, they've developed a culture of dependency
> begging for
> "reparations" even though the majority couldn't tell
> you in
> what centuries slavery took place, or even in what
> century
> the civil war was fought over the issue. (Too much
> crack
> will do that to your brain!)
>
> They are jealous of the Asians and Mexicans who come
> to the
> US and are successful -- dispelling their myth of a
> still-
> racist system in the country. Now the African
> immigrants
> will be the targets of their frustration.
>
> Mod
>
>
> --- "A.B. Sidibe" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Folks,
> >
> > The following article deals with the real and
> > perceived fissures in relations between Africans
> and
> > African Americans. I shudder to think that given
> our
> > collective histories of pain and suffering, the
> chasm
> > could be as wide as the story details.
> >
> > Enjoy.
> >
> > BY MICHELLE BOORSTEIN
> > ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
> > NEW YORK - The poster on the wall at Louise's
> diner
> > says, "Black is Black," but the people and the
> food
> > here tell a more complicated story.
> > Louise's sits in the heart of a neighborhood
> called
> > Little Senegal, in central Harlem. Most of the
> faces
> > you see along Little Senegal's wide boulevards and
> on
> > the stoops of its brownstone homes are black -
> > Africans and Americans both. As in any heavily
> > immigrant neigh-borhood, culture here is a fusion:
> > African-run restaurants offer dishes spiced gently
> for
> > black Americans; groceries sell yam flakes and
> > hamburgers; videos are available in English,
> French
> > and the Senegalese language of Wolof.
> > But members of the two com-munities say they live
> > largely disconnected lives, praying, shopping and
> > socializing among their own, sometimes harboring
> harsh
> > stereotypes of one another.
> > The separation is painful to many black Americans,
> who
> > long for their lost historical roots. They rallied
> > here in 1999 to protest the police killing of a
> West
> > African immigrant, and they increasingly push for
> > slavery reparations. They adopt Africa's
> hairstyles
> > and adapt its music and wear T-shirts like one
> that
> > calls the faraway conti-nent "Home of the Original
> > Black People."
> > "We're not as bonded as we should be," says Butch
> > Williams, a 51-year-old steelworker, over a plate
> of
> > eggs and grits at Louise's. The connection to
> Africa
> > is "one of THE ongoing questions for black
> Americans,"
> > he says. "You look around and you say, 'What tribe
> am
> > I from?' You can't help but wonder."
> > The disconnect has no such meaning to many African
> > immi-grants, who often come to this country to
> make
> > money and then return home. They say don't
> > nec-essarily see life in America as black vs.
> white.
> > "You go on with your life and them with theirs,"
> says
> > Adam Fofana, who came here from the Ivory Coast
> eight
> > years ago and runs a restaurant called Fatou -
> down
> > the street from Louise's.
> > Still, Fatou offers food that Fo-fana hopes will
> bring
> > all blacks in Little Senegal together: West
> African
> > and Caribbean fare and an all-American beer,
> > Budweiser. So far, the clientele is strictly West
> > African.
> > Talk about the inter-group dynamics has grown in
> the
> > past dec-ade with the dramatic swell of African
> > immigrants to New York City neighborhoods,
> including
> > Harlem. (The number of immigrants to New York from
> > Ghana alone increased 220 percent from the mid to
> late
> > 1990s; from Nigeria, 380 percent. Figures for all
> > nation-alities are not available.)
> > A new French film called "Little Senegal" is about
> a
> > Senegalese man who comes to Harlem and the
> profound
> > rift he finds there. And in the next few months,
> > museums in New York and Philadelphia will hold
> > programs exploring the topic.
> > "Africans want to make money (in the United
> States)
> > and go home. African-Americans want them to play
> their
> > citizenship role and have solidarity as black
> people.
> > They have two different agendas," said Manthia
> > Diawara, a Malian filmmaker who heads the Africana
> > Studies Department at New York University and has
> > written extensively about black culture.
> > The divide was highlighted for the world two years
> > ago, when four white New York City police officers
> > shot Amadou Diallo, an un-armed immigrant from
> Guinea,
> > 41 times. Black Americans took to the streets to
> > protest what they saw as a racist attack, and were
> > shocked to find their fervor largely unmatched by
> > their African neighbors.
> > Yet Africans who immigrate here say they don't
> > necessarily feel closer to black Americans than to
> > anyone else. In fact, they often have their own
> set of
> > negative stereotypes.
> > "My father told me not to be friends with black
> people
> > in America," said Cheick Sissoko, a 27-year-old
> dancer
> > and drummer who came from Ivory Coast five years
> ago
> > and now lives in lower Manhattan. "What we see on
> TV
> > is so bad - guns and everything. Then I come and I
> > realize it's true."
> > Fofana, the restaurant owner, says black Americans
> > think they're above the sort of gritty work
> immigrants
> > must do to establish themselves in a new country.
> > For black Americans who ache from that lost
> > connection, such sentiments can sting.
> > At Djoniba, the downtown Man-hattan dance center
> where
> > Sissoko works, dancers of all colors and
> backgrounds
> > take classes ranging from the style of the
> Mandingo
> > tribe, in West Africa, to Congolese, Haitian and
> > hip-hop. The only actual Africans there are the
> > teachers, but students wearing traditional African
> > fabrics and others in Lycra bicycle unitards
> mingle
> > alongside posters advertising vacations in Africa.
> > "Come home!" one says.
> > Some of the black American dancers say they resent
> > that the African teachers don't feel a special
> > connection to them, don't recognize that there is
> a
> > reason they are doing African dance rather than
> > kickboxing or Roller-blading.
> > "There's not a sense of cultural solidarity
> between
> > African-Americans and Africans, and we are always
> > looking for that connection," said Tracy Austin, a
> > 45-year-old black corporate lawyer who lives in
> Harlem
> > and has been in-volved with the Senegalese
> community
>
=== message truncated ===
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