    
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1580
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 | | Posted on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 12:09 am: | |
this is an interesting conversations. I would respectfully disagree w/Kola when she says that African Americans do not have a system of standards.
If we look at African Americans as a nation withing a nation, and then look at this nation, and identify several states within this larger nation, and then within these states, we can identify a variety of tribes, and when these tribes we can see variety in class, color, and education, and culture in general. And within all of this you will finds various "systems of standards."
Kwanzaa is a good examine, but a better examine is the church. If you are look for a system of standard that is articulate within an African language this will be difficult, but if you consider we are African Americans, you will look at Christianity and the black church, and within in it you will see standards, practices, rituals, language, etc...that is entirely African-American not european not some pure unmediated version of Christina worship because an European front, with an Africanized soul. It is not African, it is not white, it is African American....like all culture, yes all culture, African American culture is an amalgamation of many, and as you go around the country, you will see differences within African American culture...the blues, jazz, hip hop, etc... are different as you go from state to state...
WHY?
slaves, as we know, came mainly from W. Africa, but especially from the Bight of Biafra and the W. Central Africa, so there was a considerable range of african ethnicities; simiarly, the crops, that is sugar, cotton, etc...determine size of farms or plantations and the organization of labor..., in addition, the ethnicity of white people, class, etc...as well as the diversity within the native American population also played a factor in the character of black diversity, but at the end of the day, these difference were insufficient to exclude them from being racialized as black, and within these differences, the black church because the unifying force, uplift institutions, reading groups, burial societies, etc...even the oft criticized black fraternities and sororities...you can get caught up on the Greek Letters if you want, but stepping aint got nothing to do with the Greeks, the polyrhythmns found in black music, as well as stepping, again point to Africa.....
|