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Books by Peter Erice Adotley Addo
How the Spider Became Bald: Folktales and Legends
from West Africa /
Talking Drums An Anthology of Poetry
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How a
Black African Views
His American Black Brothers
Cornish Rogers Interviews Peter Eric Adotley Addo
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During the past
decade, thousands of black Americans have become aware
of, and deeply interested in, their ancestral land of
Africa. With great expectations, they have sought out
their separated African "brothers," only to
discover that in some instances the African response was
not one of unrestrained glee. Obviously, the centuries
of separation have had an effect upon the relationship
between American and African blacks, except among the
most sensitive and militant of the "brothers."
Recently (via
letter), Century Associate Editor Cornish Rogers asked
Ghanaian Peter Eric Adotey Addo about this ruptured
relationship and what is needed to restore it. Mr. Addo
has been living in the United States more than ten years
and received much of his higher education here; he
presently is director of religious activities at Bennett
College, Greensboro, North Carolina. the following is
his taped response to questions put to him by Mr.
Rogers. |
Addo: I will not attempt here to speak
for the whole of Africa or, for that matter for all Africans,
for there are as many answers to the questions you have asked as
there are Africans. Yet I believe that what I have to say is in
many ways representative of the views of large numbers of
enlightened Africans. I want to make it clear that I have not
come to these conclusions overnight, but rather from years of
observations and of trying to understand both Africans and their
way of life and Americans and their way of life. But I am also
very much aware that if someone else were to answer these
questions his answers would probably be different.
Rogers: Why do Africans invariably
treat black Americans more as Americans than as brothers?
Addo: This is a very interesting
question indeed. it goes back to the basic differences in the
sociological background and the lifestyle of the African and the
American. Before the African gets to the American continent he
is practically in love with his black American brothers; he
wants to identify with them to the point that he evens calls
them his "overseas cousins."
But I think this question presents a problem.
Let me put it this way. The black American who plans to visit
Africa must first of all have a proper understanding of the
African way of life. Unless he prepares himself, he will come to
Africa thinking that because he looks black he will be
automatically accepted as a brother. What the visiting American
black is not aware of is that all his actions—the way he looks
at things and the way he reacts to Africa and the African
people—are very American.
He cannot help it—it
comes naturally. He has
internalized certain lifestyles which are completely different
from those of the black African. thus you can see why the two
will misunderstand each other; they are two different people
brought up in two different countries, even though they may both
be black. An African may see an American who looks like an
African he knows, or an American may see an African who looks
like a black American back home. But in reality they are total
strangers to each other.
True, they are in sympathy with each other,
but their images of each other are distorted by time, history,
and circumstances.
There is, for instance, the simple problems
of food and language. To the black American, African food will
be unfamiliar and so will African language and behavior. All he
knows is what he has seen on television and what he wants
to see in African people. Usually he will react to an African
dish just as a European will. On his part, the black African
looks at his black American brother and says, "Well, he may
look black, but he is something different: "He is European,"
or "He is American."
Again, the black American generally expects
to find in Africa the same conveniences that he has been
accustomed to at home, and when he does not find them he
complains. His African host does not understand such complaints.
I have seen visiting black Americans going to European barber
shops in Africa, rather than to black shops. Such incidents
served to reinforce his host's distorted image of the
black American. generally, anyone who comes to Africa, whether
he is black or white, should try to understand the culture of
the people whose guest he is.
Most black Americans, being in many respects
typical Americans, speak only one language, while the average
African speaks his own language plus English or French. Nor will
the visiting black American normally want to stay with the the
African in the latter's own habitat but will rather go to the
areas of the city that have been Westernized. the rank-and-file
African will not understand, and you can see how this may become
a problem. Also, the black American, like his white counterpart,
usually sees the U.S.A. as the center of the universe, while the
African is usually more international minded.
For the black Americans to be accepted, they
must understand the people they are visiting. on the other hand,
the host people need to understand them too.
II
Then there is this problem: recently I helped
some 50 black American students to prepare for a summer visit to
Africa. On their return I was shocked to find that most of them
were much more fascinated with what they called "primitive
Africa" than with the big cities and towns, the industrial
part of Africa. This is understandable, but the African does not
really want American blacks to return home full of ideas and
impressions of "primitive people" running around naked
in the rude villages. Not all Africans live in villages and not
all Africans walk around naked or barefoot. What I am saying is
that the black American who goes to Africa tends to find there
the things and places that affirm his own subconscious negative
impression of Africa. Perhaps this is due to brainwashing.
The African is a well mannered person, and
there are certain things he will not do in public. Let us name
just one thing that created a problem for a group of visiting
students. The Africans were shocked to see them holding hands
and even kissing in public may be all right in the United
States, but it is wholly unacceptable in Africa, especially if
students do it. The African student tends to be a little more
secretive about displaying his affections. Education is a great
privilege in Africa, and it is taken seriously.
I could cite many more reasons why the black
American is not embraced as a brother immediately. I do believe,
however, that when the two get to know each other and understand
the problems inherent in each culture, they will finally
appreciate each other and be able to live together.
III
I think it is unfair on the part on the part
of the black American to expect the African to welcome him with
open arms as soon as he sets foot on African soil just because
he is black. The white American whose ancestors came from
England or Ireland does not expect the English or the Irish to
treat him as a fellow tribesman when he arrives among them; even
a John Kennedy is an American visiting the land of his
forbears. So it should be with the black American who goes to
Africa. He is first of all an American. The only difference
between him and white Americans is that his ancestors came from
Africa. Let me say here, however, that I find that, usually,
black Americans are able to explain democracy much more
eloquently than white Americans. Africans usually find this very
interesting.
Until recently most black Americans were not much interested
in Africa because of what they had been told about that
continent—how primitive it is, how poor and undeveloped. Now,
all of a sudden, they want to go to Africa and identify with its
black people. Since this is their initial attempt to get
together with Africans, we must expect problems; it's not going
to be just ice cream and cookies from the beginning.
As time goes by an we get to know each other, maybe both of
us will change and become true friends. The important thing is
for black Americans to learn the truth about Africa so that they
can feel secure when they are there. They still have
reservations—reservations that have been put there by years
of brainwashing—and these show, even when they meet friendly
Africans. So often I hear people ask, "Is it safe to
go?" I have heard many black American women remark that,
when they have the money, they will go to Europe rather than to
Africa.
It seems to me that the more they travel outside the U.S. the
better will black Americans learn to understand not only
themselves but their African brothers. It is only when both of
us are aware of our self-identity that we will be saved—when
we both know who we are and where we stand, without having
anything to hide or any reservations about the ability or the
"primitiveness" of the other.
IV
Rogers: Do Africans feel a sense of
guilt about their ancestors' complicity in the slave trade?
Addo: Emphatically no! I did not
enslave anybody, and slavery was practiced by a very small
minority. The role of slavery in African society was minimal. We
did not have slaves in the Western sense. Our ancient processes
of apprenticeship have often incorrectly been called slavery.
Slavery was an institution was a method of dealing with war
captives and criminals. However, as the trade became profitable
in the 18th century there were Africans who exploited the masses
and, for example, attacked their neighbors for the sole purpose
of capturing persons who could be sold to the Europeans. But no
group was permanently marked as inferior and thus destined to be
slaves.
So you see why I do not personally feel any
sense of guilt about the possibility that somewhere along the
line my ancestors or my friends' ancestors were instrumental in
providing slaves for America. Let me put it this way: in every
society there will be some who exploit the masses. I'm not
saying that they did the right thing. I'm not commending them.
But the system of slavery in Africa was different from that
practiced in the West. For example, when the Ashantis overcame
another people, they would take into Ashanti territory all the
skilled laborers and craftsmen among the vanquished—not as
slaves, but as conquered people.
True, these victims had to live in exile in
the land of the Ashantis and work for the Ashanti empire. But in
this sort of slavery there was no inferiority complex. Being a
slave did not make you an inferior human being, nor did it make
you and your offspring slaves forever. If you were carried off
into another country, you became part of that country.
The only inconvenience was that you lived in a different
country; but you were free, and nobody pointed a finger at you
and said, "There goes a slave." You see, slavery in
the West became something bad, something dehumanizing, and it
marked you for life. It was only in the U.S.A. that this sort of
dehumanizing process developed.
Rogers: What do Africans visiting the
United States think of American blacks and the black power
movement?
Addo: This is indeed the most
difficult of your questions, because, as I said before, I cannot
speak for all Africans. There are as many reactions to the
movement as there are Africans. But we can narrow it down by
stating that their opinions about the black power movement will
depend on their own background and on where they are living in
the United States.
If a black African visitor lives on the West
Coast, or in or near Atlanta or Detroit or Cleveland, he'll
probably be very close to the movement; but if he is in an Ivy
League college he will probably be isolated from it and will
know only what he reads in the papers. If the African is in a
predominantly white university in the South, he will have one
impression; but if he is in a predominantly black university he
will have quite another. Naturally, in the predominantly black
university he can mix easily. He may have his own ideas of what
black power means, but circumstances will force him to go long
with the students on the campus.
On the other hand, if he is in a
predominantly white university, he may be thrown into a
situation where he has to make a choice. Still, when the black
power flag is raised you might find him neutral, because he
doesn't want to jeopardize the nice things he gets from whites.
On the other hand, if he has come face to face with hatred and
discrimination, if he has come close to being molested or
dehumanized, he will definitely support the black power
movement.
Another problem is that there is no one
definition of the black power movement. To the black student on
the predominantly white campus, black power may mean making sure
that he gets his way or that he can stand up like a man among
the whites on campus. To the student in the predominantly black
university, the situation is a little different, though it may
mean essentially the same thing: making sure that his school
stays the way it is. Usually the demands of black power
advocates relate to what is happening in the big cities. So the
African visitor's attitude toward black power depends on where
he is.
If by black power you mean the power of the
nonwhite world—the world that has been exploited, colonized
and dehumanized—to unite in asserting its dignity and
selfhood, then it is linked with the Pan-African struggle for
unity on the African continent.
Source: Christian Century (September 6, 1972)
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"You do not know
what it means to be black in this country," an
American-born son told his African father. He was right.
White America differentiates between Africans and
African Americans, and Africans in the United States
have generally accepted this differentiation. This
differentiation, in turn, creates a divide between
Africans and African Americans, with Africans acting as
a buffer between black and white America.
It is with relief
that some whites meet an African. And it is with equal
relief that some Africans shake the hand proffered in a
patronising friendship. Kofi Annan, the Ghanaian former
UN secretary general, while a student in the United
States, visited the South at the height of the civil
rights movement. He was in need of a haircut, but this
being the Jim Crow era, a white barber told him "I do
not cut nigger hair." To which Kofi Annan promptly
replied "I am not a nigger, I am an African." The
anecdote, as narrated in
Stanley Meisler's Kofi Annan: A Man of Peace in a World
of War, ends with him getting his hair cut.— Guardian
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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Ratification
The People Debate the Constitution,
1787-1788
By Pauline Maier
A notable historian
of the early republic, Maier devoted a
decade to studying the immense
documentation of the ratification of the
Constitution. Scholars might approach
her book’s footnotes first, but history
fans who delve into her narrative will
meet delegates to the state conventions
whom most history books, absorbed with
the Founders, have relegated to
obscurity. Yet, prominent in their local
counties and towns, they influenced a
convention’s decision to accept or
reject the Constitution. Their
biographies and democratic credentials
emerge in Maier’s accounts of their
elections to a convention, the political
attitudes they carried to the conclave,
and their declamations from the floor.
The latter expressed opponents’
objections to provisions of the
Constitution, some of which seem
anachronistic (election regulation
raised hackles) and some of which are
thoroughly contemporary (the power to
tax individuals directly). Ripostes from
proponents, the Federalists, animate the
great detail Maier provides, as does her
recounting how one state convention’s
verdict affected another’s. Displaying
the grudging grassroots blessing the
Constitution originally received, Maier
eruditely yet accessibly revives a
neglected but critical passage in
American history.—Booklist |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated 14 February 2009
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