Thursday 6 February 2014

Who are the African-Caribbean people and how they came into existence Part 2

Continuing from part 1, some African Caribbean communities still practice variations of these African derived traditions. Now moving on to what was mentioned in part one where it was said that African-Caribbean people can be found in places like the UK and the USA, during the 1960's where most present day African and Caribbean nations were gaining their independence from the European nations that colonized them, the people from these two parts of the world in search of better opportunities and quality of life started migrating to Europe and North America in large numbers. In London most black people are from countries like Ghana, Barbados, Jamaica, Nigeria, others etc all of whom were former British colonies.

So focusing specifically on the UK, where on the census black people are divided into two groups (Black African & Black Caribbean) in the past there were some conflict between these two communities which still exists to this day however not as bad as it used to be. Some ignorant people from both groups often stereotype each other and see each other as superior to each other. The mentality of some Africans are that they feel they are superior to Caribbeans for example because they see themselves as "pure" African and black Caribbeans as impure. On the other hand the mentality of some ignorant  black Caribbeans are that they are superior because  they feel they are more British in the UK, perhaps due to having British names which often leads to discrimination towards Africans when it comes to applying for jobs and is seen as an advantage for black Caribbeans  who have European surnames.

The ignorance continues with both communities making offensive jokes about each other, Africans often using the fact that black Caribbeans don't know their African tribal, country of origin  and that black Caribbeans don't speak and African language as a way of causing offence, having European surnames (slave names/white boy names) and being a lost and culture less people who have no real culture (meaning no African culture) to cling on to. Caribbeans will respond with their ignorance making jokes about how Africans dress (i.e dashiki), the foods they eat and mocking their accents. The main reason why ignorance exists between these two different but very similar communities is because of slavery. Many Africans will say that black Caribbeans accuse their ancestors of selling out their ancestors to the Europeans and branding Africans as "sellouts" which is why they believe some black Caribbeans show some hatred towards them which breeds the argument of "Your forefathers sold our forefathers". It's fair to say that none present of the descendants of these to groups are to blame, how can present day Africans be blamed for slavery if they didn't exists those 400 years ago and it's not present day black Caribbeans fault why they don't know what tribe or African country they come from because that was all taken away from them due to creolization. Black Caribbeans are accused of denying that they are African and being ignorant, but what is not taken into account is that slavery took nearly everything African away from black Caribbeans and that during slavery were told negative things about Africa which promotes self hatred and ignorance.

The term African-Caribbean is inspired by the African-American term which enables one to acknowledge ancestral origins as well as their present day nationality and culture. The difference between the two is that with African-American you have race and nationality but African-Caribbean is race and culture as the Caribbean is more of a cultural thing due to being a region of islands that share similarities with each other. Plus the African-Caribbean term is broader and can be specifically broken down into Afro-Jamaican, Afro Trinidadian etc referring to specific islands but ultimately falls under Afro-Caribbean. Many Caribbeans of the Rastafarian faith show huge pride of descending from Africa and if anything see Africa as their homeland more than the Caribbean, consider themselves African and even drop their European names in exchange for African names because they feel that possessing a European name still makes them the property of a slave master. Within the black communities "Competition" is what causes division because black people love to find any little thing to say they are superior to each other. Whether its African music Afrobeats vs Caribbean music Dancehall, food rice and peas vs jollof rice, countries Jamaica vs Nigeria or sports football vs athletics. It's these little things that doesn't cause much issues among other ethnic minorities but black. Black people like to generalize, some Africans assume all Caribbeans are weed smoking, lazy, not academic, have no dad and want the easy life whereas some Caribbeans assume Africans are all fraudsters, money hungry, only care about education, do voodoo etc. If a black person is well spoken they are instantly accused of acting white or wishing they were white. Lastly skin color is also an issue, light skin black people are more favored than dark skin black people.

To finish off, as time has gone on the relationship between these to communities has improved, many black African and black Caribbean people do get on but some still hold old ignorant views. Many African-Caribbean societies exists in universities as a way to promote both cultures and to bring the two communities together. Also relationships between the two communities are on the rise and it is possible to find who are half and half i.e Ghanaian and Jamaican, the only way these communities can thrive is to unite and drop the ignorance that exists.

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