The distance between Africa and African Americans
-Rodima-Taylor
Daivi Rodima-Taylor and Zadi Zokou wrote a blog post commenting on the documentary BlacknBlack, and they mentioned that documentary provides information on the relations between African Americans and Africans. The quote above focuses on African Americans, and the problems they have faced with their social and cultural identity. Since African American were displaced by slavery and forced to move into new environments, their cultural identity was lost. As time progresses many now are working to find their identity in the world, and the displacement has caused some distance with the continent of Africa and its people. Nnedi Okorafor uses the post chapter of her 2014 novel, Lagoon, to show the distance and the established that African Americans have. The chapter focuses on a group of African American Pre-med college students in Chicago. The students are preparing for a study group, and they also discuss the event happening in Nigeria. As the characters talk, a description is given about their dress, and most of the students have on popular brand clothing. Okorafor seems to show that the social identity of African Americans in the United States comes from the brands that they wear because it shows their status. After giving insight into their outfits, she moves to focus more on their comments about the events happening in Nigeria. The students have distanced themselves from the continent of Africa because they blame it for slavery. They do not see where Africa had benefited them in anyway. One of the female students, Nature, states that “what’s Africa ever done for me?” (303), and her question is followed by Jordan stating that Africa has only enslaved their ancestors (303). The comments by the students shows how the movement has deteriorate the cultural identities that these individuals have because they do not see how there are still influence from Africa in the African Americans live their lives today. They place the blame of slavery on African without considers the impact of colonization. The students seem to do more victim blaming than trying to be understanding and building a connection with the land where most of their ancestors came from.
Photo Credits: By Nnedi Okorafor on Amazon ; Photo by Mark Kucharski on Unsplash ; Photo by Steven Van on Unsplash
