African Americans: A Pan-African people
The north western slave port at Goree Island, Senegal was only one of several points of departure for Africans being taken to the United States. There were other points as well, stretching as far southward as the present state of Angola. These ports of departure were used for transporting Africans from the African interior - a vast interior; this was the standard method of European colonialism to move African resources from the interior to the ports, where roads and rail routes were built expressly for this purpose.
The ethnic origin of African Americans includes, but is not limited to, the following African peoples:
Sub-saharan west Africa to the Gulf of Guinea;
Mossi, Senufo, Mande, Fulani, Toubou, Fulbe, Sara, Moussei, Massa, Wolof, Akan, Ewe, Mandinga, Hausa, Yoruba, Ibo, Kanuri, Ibibio, Tiv, Ijaw , Urhobo , Gwari , Bambara ...
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Angola South;
Ovimbundu, Kimbundu, Mongo, Luba, Kongo, Mangbetu-Azande, Fang, Punu, Nzeiby, Mbede ...
In everything, there is both positive as well as negative elements. One of the positive elements of the African slave trade to the United States, was that it created the first contemporary Pan-African ethnic group; a group with a common language and culture and separated only by class distinctions.
To their credit, African Americans, despite the insidious European labeling of some African Americans as 'mulattoes,' 'quadroons,' etc., clearly rejected the caste system that was adopted in Haiti or Jamaica (or South Africa) for example. Marcus Garvey, when he first brought his movement from Jamaica, found this out the hard way, when he tried to use this caste distinction from Jamaica in the USA vis-a-vis WEB DuBois.To Garvey's credit, he quickly adjusted his thinking to this African American ideology of a caste-free community.
African Americans have the unique distinction of being historically-genetically related to a vast majority of African ethnic-linguistic groups. In this sense, the African American identification to all African cultures is not merely a philosophical one, as in the case of a European Swede identifying with a European ancient Greece; The African Americans' identification with all African cultures, including and especially, the ancient Nile valley cultures, is both historically and genetically authentic and valid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups... African American Culture :
African-American culture in the United States refers to the cultural contributions of Americans of African descent to the culture of the United States, either as part of or distinct from American culture. The distinct identity of African American culture is rooted in the historical experience of the African American people, including the Middle Passage, and thus the culture retains a distinct identity while at the same time it is enormously influential to American culture as a whole.
African American culture is rooted in Africa. It is a blend of chiefly sub-Saharan African and Sahelean cultures. Although slavery greatly restricted the ability of Americans of African descent to practice their cultural traditions, many practices, values, and beliefs survived and over time have modified or blended with European American culture. There are some facets of African American culture that were accentuated by the slavery period. The result is a unique and dynamic culture that has had and continues to have a profound impact on mainstream American culture, as well as the culture of the broader world.
After emancipation, unique African American traditions continued to flourish, as distinctive traditions or radical innovations in music, art, literature, religion, cuisine, and other fields. While for some time sociologists, such as Gunnar Myrdal and Patrick Moynihan, believed that African Americans had lost most cultural ties with Africa, anthropological field research by Melville Herskovits and others demonstrated that there is a continuum of African traditions among Africans of the Diaspora. The greatest influence of African cultural practices on European culture is found below the Mason-Dixon in the American South.
For many years African American culture developed separately from mainstream American culture because of the persistence of racial discrimination in America, as well as African American slave descendants' desire to maintain their own traditions. Today, African American culture has become a significant part of American culture and yet, at the same time, remains a distinct cultural body
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Ameri...
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Tuesday, December 24th 2013 at 9:35AM
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