The Ways in West Indians, Africans, African Americans & Afro Latinos Miss the Fundamental Truths of Our Story in Exchange for Some Momentary Sense of Superiority

i was reading a thread abt how different west indians are from black americans... and i had to laugh because clearly no one has read the history of africans in each new country where they were dragged or conquered....

bec the history of all the countries that are now home to descedants of displaced africans is much more alike than different...in fact, its almost identical in all the ways that matter....

sooo interesting, growing up with my diverse etnicities desping each other for our take on blackness: cubans, gullah, bahamians, african americans, west africans who ran returned slaves out of liberia all have their line of reasoning why their blackness (lack thereof) is better than the others...

all of us come with all the trappings of being conquered in a very systematic way by europeans...

i think most of the argument is an attempt to make ourselves feel less conquered by white folks and somehow better off which if u read each country, island's history, the 1234 is all the same: 

1. conquered
2.  enslaved or forced labor under europeans corporations w/all its hand chopping and pitting african tribes against each other followed by some sort of 
3. supposed liberation, which is quickly followed by the liberated africans enforcing a class/caste system that favors getting as close as possible to whiteness, 4. while these so called 'liberated countries' were left economically destroyed  by world debt and lack of true autonomy  

the gullah, call it slavery, jim crow; bahamians, colonialism while they sip tea; the  cubans 'el blanqueamiento' (an organized system of governmental laws designed to whiten a black country)...pick one, any country where we are actually really in power and are running a government designed to benefit the advancement of its black inhabitants instead of just making the rich, richer and whiter...

growing up i always heard, well west indians dont have the shame that African Americans have while my cuban relatives worshipped jesus in public and shango in private while still hating dark skin...then when i visited zimbambwe where people kept telling me i wasnt black, but colored and somehow not OF them, i thought i am i thought i am a working class intellectual who has to speak a different language to each of my relatives in order to be accepted...

and i thought in that moment that the experiences of blackness are actually the same::but we spend so much time trying to parse it out and raise one above or below another while vigilantly immitating whatever caucasian conquered and left our home economially and dependant to the extent that even liberated countries are still paying their european oppressors slavery reparations...i see that we're wrapped up in the very same tribalism that got us sold off as slaves to begin with...

i am ashamed by the arrogance and disdain we have for each other...i'm ashamed the lengthy arguments we have to justify how one experience is better or worse than the other...
bec here's the thing, while we argue, we are all still conquered people without one country of our own that is a super power...such that if the super powers that conquered us in africa, the caribbean, the gullah, the afro latino americas decided to call in the debts to put us in our place...we'd be slaves again so fast...

we'd still complain how different we are...no country with black people as the predominant race is a super power...

we are all at the mercy in one way or another of the modern western industrial complex which has reframed slavery in all kinds of clever new ways with tricky little loopholes like the prison complex, national debt, no gross natural product or one that is owned by an America or European corporation still tapping rubber trees or building tires while black countries starve...
i think these arguments and the tremendous classism that drives them are proof positive of how deeply we've become a conquered people all over the world with cell phones and pretty cars...all of which could be wiped out with a couple of emails...

i think...we have so missed the boat...and we seem to be reverting back to our tribalism to justify our arguments...

we are exactly where we are supposed to be until we decide to step down from the superficial high horses and smell the coffee...

the western industrial complex is so coming for all of us...and we dont even see it ...
i believe in diasporic africaness in all its forms, languages, culture, music, tenacity to sustain itself and celebrate and feel a kinship with my people which is rarely returned....even when it is not, i honor it...

i honor it bec i see very clearly how it could eventually all go away ...so perhaps i honor it bec the different parts of my heritage have missed the beauty of it and have reduced it to petty squabbles...
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i see it disappearing and becoming painfully diluted until it no longer exists...
i see it so clearly...

#OneBoatStopAway

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