Hello my name is LaMonique and I am an African-American. Throughout the years in America many black people have gotten away from using the term African-American and just defining their race as black. I have had dialogue with others in the black community who stray away from the term African and sometimes with great pride will state "I am not African"! These brothers and sisters feel that they have never been to the continent of Africa, they don't know any African relatives thereby they are not African. In my opinion this separation and denial of culture is perpetuated by stereotypes in the media. Stereotypes that depict all of Africa as poor, starving, dying and living in slums. As blacks in America, I think we want to be completely disassociated with that imagery.
Today I am here to give you another image of Africa: A broader view.
Did you know that this is Africa?
And this is Africa?
And yes this too is Africa
I believe Africa is beautiful and I can't believe that I didn't even notice it until now. As I stated before I have always been black or African-American (whichever terminology is better suited) however I really didn't think about the fact that ultimately I was from Africa until recently. So how did I make this stark realization? Well as life would have it I ended up being slowed way down in my mobility. I was slowed down to the point where other than work I was actually confined at home. This gave me a lot of time on my hands. Thank God for the invention of Wi-Fi and the internet!
A funny thing happens when you are isolated, it generally gives you a lot of time for introspection. I myself am a visual learner so I began watching Independent films, documentaries and movies on Netflix and YouTube. I ran across a movie called Beyond the Lights on Netflix. Which is an awesome movie by the way. But it wasn't the general theme of the movie itself that struck me about Africa, sometimes the revelations are in the little things. The movie Beyond the Lights starts off being set in England. The main character is Noni, a bi-racial black and white young child with a talent for singing. (Here is where it might be helpful to note that I myself am bi-racial, black and white---but not a good singer.) We do after all take notice of things that remind us of ourselves. In the movie Noni is being raised by her English white mother who absolutely doesn't know what to do with her hair. Things become intense when she is due to sing in a talent show the next day and her hair is a complete fright (as the English would say). The mother takes Noni to an African hair shop so they can help her with the child's hair. Now here's where my mind leaves the subject matter and focuses on something that's even more key to me. I thought " wow this black lady in England is African and as a matter of fact every black person I have ever heard refer to their heritage in England referred to themselves as African."
After watching that movie I began to seek out vlogs on black people living in other places. Do you know what I found? Just about every black person from country to country referred to themselves as African--except mainly Americans. Now there are other exceptions like many Haitians and Jamaicans and South Americans, but for the most part, black people living in other places do acknowledge Africa as their home. This awakened a fact in me. Africa is the one place that black people truly come from. Just as Italians all originate from Italy and Polish people originate from Poland, French people from France and so on and so on. Black people have but one place that we originate from and that place is Africa!
"Oh my gosh I am African, how could I have went 40 years without really understanding that?" That began my research of my homeland and my desire for it. Please stay tuned as we uncover more and more of our rich heritage together. Afrika The Motherland!
