The African Diaspora War; residual effects of Colonialism

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

I am not sure exactly how to state how I feel about what I am going to talk about, so I think I am just going to say it and see how it lands. I was once one of those West-Indians who was ignorant to my ancestry and had the nerve to say, “I’m Jamaican, and I’m not African!” This ignorant statement rings of trans-generational trauma; every time I uttered those words, I feel like I slapped my ancestors in their faces, completely ignoring the fact that they had been brought over to Jamaica in ships and had to suffer through so much just so that I could be here.

I didn’t realize my ignorance because this was what I heard in my home for years; how I was not African, I was a Jamaican. It was only when I began to learn more about who I was, and how my family had ended up in Jamaica did I start to actually claim to be an African woman. Being an African Descendent is such a source of pride for me; Africa is number two on ranking lists when it comes to size and population, and let’s not even talk about the fact that we are so diverse in culture, language, style, customs, and the list goes on.

What I found interesting once I started working within the African immigrant community, I found that there seems to be an undiscussed hierarchy that exists amongst Africans, Caribbeans, and African-Americans, something that has been loosely coined, “The Diaspora War.” The African Diaspora is a term used to describe the mass dispersion of peoples from Africa during the Transatlantic Slave Trades, which occurred from the 1500’s to the 1800’s. This slave trade (which was not exactly a trade) took millions of people from Western and Central Africa to different regions throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, now better known as the African Diaspora Cultures (African Diaspora Culture https://oldwayspt.org).

I must confess that when I am around certain African cultures, I am made to feel like I am not African enough. It is almost like because my ancestors were stolen, or sold to colonizers, we as descendants are tainted and not good enough. Now, I realize that this had become a very subjective experience for me, so I spoke with other West-Indians who had spent time with African immigrants, and their responses surprised me.  I think the one that stood out the most was when an esteemed colleague of mine was told that, “Caribbean’s are just the sons and daughters of slaves.” I asked the individual if this could have been taken the wrong way, but the receiver of the message was very clear with how the statement was intended.

Staying on the side of objectivity, I decided to look into the idea of a diaspora war and found an article in The Philidelphia Inquirer called, “Who is black in America? Ethnic tensions flare between black Americans and black immigrants,” and I thought, so I am not going crazy; what I felt has been felt, but in different ways by different people. The article was about the social media fury that erupted when British Nigerian actress Cynthia Erivo was picked as the lead for the Harriet Tubman biopic Harriet. There have been threats to boycott the film because African Americans feel strongly about casting an actual black American actress to play the part. Why the backlash you ask? Well apparently, an old tweet was unearthed where Erivo had mocked a “Ghetto American Accent.” It is understandable as to why certain people would get upset, but then I ask, what about when comedians mock African accents? Do they have an equal right to be upset?

I also have recalled times when I looked at Americans and thought, “These people do not have a culture; they don’t even know where they come from.” Like I said, I lived in a state of ignorance, and I am not afraid to speak about it. So the hierarchy looks like this: Africans first being pure blooded and home-grown, Caribbean’s are second because we have a better sense of our culture, and African-Americans third, and so on, and so on.

When really looking at this topic, we can see again how media and colonialism has tried to divide us. I want us to remember that we all originate from the same land. Let’s stop sweating the small stuff and realize that at the end of the day, regardless of where you originate from, we are all African, and this point cannot be argued.