How African Am I?

I always knew I was 100% African.  Always.  Every African I ever met knew it -- from the Nigerians I used to babysit for when I was a kid, to the Senegalese, Kenyan, Moroccan and Egyptian co-eds  I hung out with in college, to the South Africans I befriended when I came to the city, to the tailors from Ghana that made my wedding dress.  I have yet to meet any African that doesn't look at me in genuine astonishment as they recognize themselves or their mothers or sisters in me, and embrace me and all my African ways that never cease to amaze them and freak them all the way out. The food that I cook. The way that I dance. The gap in my teeth. My cheekbones. All of it.

Oh, some of them may want to exclude me because I'm American -- but my African face won't be denied.  And apparently, neither will the blood of my ancestors.  The blood, as Andre Crouch sang, will never lose its power. DNA doesn't lie.  And so it goes. 

As it turns out, according to AncestryDNA, I"m not 100% African. I'm 96% African. (Ha.)  And to think -- all those Five Percenters yelling at me in the street, calling me Nubia. They were right!  (Thanks, Brother-Men.)

Here's the breakdown:

Main Regions: "In order to be considered for this category, a region must have enough evidence that you actually have the region as part of your genetic ethnicity."

Cameroon/Congo =  29%
Senegal =  22%
Benin/Togo = 15%
Ivory Coast/Ghana = `14%
Nigeria =  5%

Trace Regions: "There is only a small amount of evidence supporting these regions as part of your genetic ethnicity. Because both the estimated amount and the range of the estimate are small, it is possible that these regions appear by chance and are not actually part of your genetic ethnicity."

Africa/Southeastern Bantu =  6%
Mali =  3%
Africa/South-Central Hunter-Gatherers = 1%
Africa North = 1%

Are you curious about that other 4%?  I'm not -- because it's so scant, they're probably showing up at random. (See Trace Regions.) 

I love all Africans everywhere -- from the Nigerians who squabble over which tribe I belong to ("Look at her! She's Igbo!") to the Haitians that assume at least one of my parents are from the West Indies (they are not); from the Parisians from the Ivory Coast and Senegal and Morocco and Egypt and the Sudan who call me "Soeur!" like that's my name to the stunning Cameroonian sisters who wave me down on 125th Street, friendly and out of breath and blurting French, asking for help, for directions probably, and genuinely flummoxed when I explain that I'm from America.  We hug each other and somehow I help them anyway.  And they leave me in the street, waving back at me, like we are family. Because we are.



I don't know what happened to us, as a people.  Well. We all know what happened, don't we.  Somewhere in the 80s, we became enthralled with a particular segment within a popular genre of music that was intrinsically divisive, glorified violence, denigrated black women with abandon and pandered to society's lowest common denominator to make a buck.  Eventually, that niche caught on with the white folks, became a garish caricature of itself in order to continue selling itself to the highest bidder and made a lot of white label executives a lot of money.

There. I said it.

When I was a kid, it was an ordinary every day thing that we called each other brother and sister -- and meant it.  Interestingly enough, it's a part of Chinese culture (many Asian and African cultures, actually) to address everyone this way. An older woman is aunt or mother, an older man is uncle or brother, someone your age is sister or brother or cousin. In this way, everyone is family and there is a unity inherent in the way you are spoken to that binds you to each other.   When we lost this simple unifying element, we lost each other.  And when we lost each other, we lost everything.

Well. At least now I know why my face has drawn all of the African diaspora to my heart. 

Happy Black History Month!

For a brief history of Black August, click here.

30 days of birthday - day 4: june is black music month!

i have always believed that we africans of the diaspora have way more in common than we would probably dare to imagine.  music is just one of the many ties that bind us.  when i was in college, i loved juju music because it sounded so much like go-go music.  i met a lot of nigerians who agreed with me. i got to see king sunny ade when i was an undergrad in austin texas at the fabled liberty lunch. that was epic. one churning percussive groove after another, with absolutely no end in sight. he literally wore out the audience.  and so did the dancers. the only shows that i have ever seen that matched such heavy grooves so relentlessly (and that went on for so many hours, the audience left!) was parliament funkadelic.

when i fancied myself a budding journalist, i interviewed chief twins 77 for the campus' black student newspaper the griot. that was kind of a hoot. he was sitting there like a pasha, resplendent in these beautiful flowing robes and surrounded by musicians and dancers, and there were all these white people flipping out over his artwork, which was substantial.  one piece after another drifted past us as we chatted, with gobs of cash money changing hands and a lot of introductions and bowing from the white people and what not.  i didn't throw any cash around. nor did i bow.  at one point, he said that  i was a very pretty african girl. he said it flatly, in this really declarative way. he seemed to be genuinely surprised by this.  i have no idea why.

and then there was that time when that percussionist from chief ebenezer obey's juju band blurted out a marriage proposal instead of hello when he was introduced to me. he was beautiful, with a near perfect smile and deep scars layered across both of his cheeks. when i told him i'd seriously consider it if he gave me his talking drum -- an instrument that women are not allowed to play, under any circumstances -- he looked visibly stricken and scoffed loudly in his native language. later after he spent the evening onstage watching me dance, he reconsidered, joining me and my friends to dance with me.  eventually he returned to the stage and let me have the drumstick in this grand sweet gesture, declaring to the audience that he was going to take me home to his tribe. everyone clapped and screamed except me.

good times.

and no, i'm not a dancer. but when i was in the girl scouts, we had a black troop leader that was all about africa and black power and the soul in everything. i can recall many things we did for the community that involved african dance presentations with live drums and percussion. (one harvest dance in particular comes to mind.) it was a wonderful way to teach us about african culture and, in so doing, relate it to who we are as african-americans.  so when i dance, it's either jazz tea social dances from the 20s (boardwalk empire!), the lindy from the 30s or african dance. that's all i got!

needless to say, i forgot that june is black music month.  and because of chuck brown's untimely demise, juju and go-go have been on my mind and my stereo. for anyone who paused to wonder why the black side of dc grieved collectively last month when chuck brown -- grammy-award nominated guitarist/performer/legend and godfather of go-go -- passed away, the documentary below should set you straight.





...and this is a short informative documentary about juju music that explains it so succinctly, i wish i could use it to wallpaper my virtual world.

the opportunity of a lifetime?

A brother and fellow Southerner sent me this notification the other day. He found it on Craigslist. Needless to say, I couldn't resist the urge to apply. When I responded to this, they sent me a questionnaire. When I sent the questionnaire, they gave me a call. A hearty round of phone tag ensued. I'm not sure, but I could be "it" at this point. Let's see what develops.

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HAVE YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO VISIT AFRICA? THIS CAN BE THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFE TIME.

A diverse group of African Americans (rich, poor, Northern, Southern, College Grad., High School Grad., Suburbia) are united on a trip to Africa to explore the Homeland. From townships and shanties to modern cities and skyscrapers, watch what happens when African Americans come face-to-face with the real Africa. Black to My Roots is a pilgrimage of personal and cultural discovery.

We are searching for a diverse group of applicants (Lawyers, Doctors, writers, hip hop artists, teachers, actors, nutritionists, fashionistas, etc). Please email a paragraph describing yourself and what makes YOU the ideal candidate for this opportunity, essentially what makes you UNIQUE.

Also, attach a photograph and your contact phone number. All entries must be received by 1/30/09. Openfocuscasting@gmail.com

i'm african, part one: it started with the girl scouts...

i have always felt a genuine connectedness with any african i have ever met -- whether it's someone that i greet in passing or friends that i have made along the way. this connection is so real, it's almost tangible. neither the african in question or i know exactly what it is but we know that it's there and sometimes we are literally jumping up and down in the street, because we are so happy about it. when i tell them that i'm not from africa, they look a little disappointed. when i tell them that neither of my parents are from africa, they look somewhat confused.

when i walk down 125th street, i smile and wave like i'm the newly crowned miss black america. i greet all the africans in french -- the senegalese mommies with their babies on their backs, the haitian cab drivers, the angolans selling things in their little shops, the ladies from places like togo and cote d'ivoire and ghana who ask me if i want to get my hair done, the nigerian students -- and when i do, they light up and call me sister. how cool is that?

"you are a real african girl!" an older gentleman from ghana said to me recently. he blurted it out, like he was so overwhelmed with the idea of such a thing, he couldn't keep it to himself. and he so loved the idea of it, he turned it into a question and posed it to his friend, who smiled softly and nodded in agreement.

this has happened to me ever since i can remember.

when i was a kid, i used to babysit for an adorable nigerian couple -- graduate students at georgia state university who had two daughters. they would show me off to their african friends and say, "look at this pretty nigerian girl!" heh. some of them thought i looked yoruba. the rest said ibo. those were lite beer from miller "tastes great -- less filling" moments that still make me laugh. all of them encouraged me to ask them all the stupid questions i wanted. they would show me pictures and little movies and they would feed me fufu and tell me stories and explain all kinds of things. babysitting for them immersed me in their languages, their culture, their music. it was a pretty cool experience.

but as lovely as they were, they weren't my introduction to all things african. that happened with the girl scouts. (yeah, you heard me right. the girl scouts!)

this may come as a shock to all the blacker-than-thou black folk i know in brooklyn and newark, but it's true: more black folk live in the state of georgia than any other state in the nation. it's been that way for a very long time -- and with the new great migration that's been in flux for the past 30 years or so, our numbers there are increasing. also true: juliette gordon low, the founder of the girl scouts, is from savannah, georgia.

the girl scouts faction that you belong to basically yields to the whim of its troop leader. so if that adult leader wants to sell cookies all year, that's the way the deal goes down. it was the 70s, though, and it was atlanta -- and my troop leader was the epitome of afrocentric. she was evelyn ridley, the blackest woman on the planet -- certainly one of the blackest women i'd ever met. when i say black, i don't mean "of the negro persuasion" -- i mean she had that james brown "say it loud, i'm black and i'm proud" kind of black pride that had all this fire and immediacy up in it. she had a short, well groomed natural. she wore dashikis and wooden jewelry. she was married with kids but she had her own business, she was her own woman. she loved herself. she loved her blackness. she was pleased with her african features. she was savvy, smart, and really really cool. all of this radiated out of her essence as genuine self confidence and joy. when i met her, i knew that she was the fist that stuck out on the end of that afro pick i used every day to lift my blowout. and i loved her for it.

by calling her the blackest woman on the planet, i'm not taking anything away from any of the other black women in my life. but this brand of blackness was something new. in my little kid mind, she belonged in a pam grier movie, fighting "the man" and helping "the community" -- not here with us girl scouts. as it turned out, miss ridley was right where she needed to be.

she brought out a map of africa and made us learn about each country and talk about it, and she didn't stop there. we had all kinds of activities going all the time. we made field trips to museums to see exhibits that pertained to anything african, read books and articles, met and conversed with africans and had job fairs that sparked many of us to seriously think about what we wanted to do with our lives for perhaps the first time. at one point, we made outfits out of african fabric and did a harvest dance, with drummers and musicians and art and everything, and presented it in a big assembly at school. the rehearsals for that one performance were dynamic, instructional and fun.

my niece madison is in the girl scouts. she and her three brothers and her parents live in decatur. she also plays the cello, studies german and is a member of a black girl leadership incentive in her school called "the little corettas," in honor of coretta scott king. they also have formal father/daughter dances, and theater and museum outings. that's a pretty well-rounded life for a little black southern girl. every so often, she'll sell me a box of cookies. hm. now that i think about it, i don't think we ever sold any cookies under miss ridley's jurisdiction.

whatever happened to miss ridley, you may ask? she and my mother became close friends -- so close in fact that when my little brother moniah was born, she was chosen to be his godmother. i see her whenever i go home. she's still got that afro, too -- and i must admit, my blowout occasionally makes a reappearance.

this was my introduction to africa. from there, things got really interesting...

heavy construction

my former landlord sold all of the buildings on my side of the street to a particular company that's hell-bent on evicting tenants and renovating their cavernous apartments and filling them with pricey touches until they look like something out of home and garden magazine. and yes, that's exactly what they look like. i know because i've wandered through them while they were being deconstructed, and i've passed by the first floor windows and peered in like every other pedestrian on the sidewalk to see exactly what progress looks like. all year long, the workers kept at it like well organized trained ants -- dumping refuse, using massive cranes to swing in lumber and dry wall and whatever else they couldn't drag up the stairs or fit into the elevator, replacing all the windows in all the buildings, and on and on it went. it was crazy.

it's still crazy, actually. the evictions are still happening and they're still renovating vacant apartments -- like my little old lady mercedes place on the first floor. they worked all the way through the christmas holidays with no overtime or bonuses or anything. then again, i suppose that's typical. the question lingers: when are they going to be finished? or are they playing "flip this building" and making everything pretty enough for someone else to make that point of purchase? or are we going condo eventually?

it's not just the apartments that are getting a massive overhaul. they've fixed the elevator and put in a deluxe model, put up well-lit awnings at each entryway, scrubbed out the building's marble floors, slapped up plaster on the walls and painted the hallways and lobbies in soothing neutral colors.

this is the kind of change that frightens me.

the construction workers -- all of them, africans from all over the entire diaspora, from mali to brooklyn -- would gather up the block and sip coffee and congregate. when i would tromp off to start my day in the wee hours of the morning, they'd be there, like some outdoor secretarial pool, chatting and whatnot. they would always stop talking when i would walk by and resume when i was out of earshot. one day, i said good morning, black men. i said it brightly, like i'd known all of them all my life. and each of them waved at me and said, good morning black woman in the exact same way. after that, whenever i hit my block, i got a million greetings and compliments and salutations. the west indians. the west africans. the southerners up north, like me. the yankees. solidarity is a beautiful thing.

i don't know any of their names. we call each other brother and sister and that's more than enough.

the next thing you know, they were in my apartment -- plastering these cracks that are forever running through my walls, fixing and replacing plumbing pipes and all kinds of stuff. anytime any of them came over, i let them eat cake. when they were down the hall, they let me wander through an apartment they were fixing that had the exact same layout as mine and they told me how much the landlord was going to charge. naturally, i balked. basically, it was a four-figure downtown price for an uptown set-up. no one in the ghetto would pay it. no one in the ghetto could afford it. so who is all of this for, anyway?

with the economy in peril, i'm starting to wonder.

i am the black gold of the sun

i can't even tell you how much happiness flooded my soul when i heard this song. all of a sudden, it was summertime and i was 7 years old again -- surrounded by aunts and uncles and a hoarde of cousins in charleston heights, south carolina.  i remember everything: ripping and running and romping around in the countryside, eating lots of seafood and reading whatever i wanted all the time -- which was mostly encyclopedias and biographies, and of course kid-lit like the little house on the prairie series.  i loved half-pint!

i suppose i could ask "how green was my valley" as i remember my little kidhood but the real question to explore is: how black was my world?  i had my great-grandparents, my grandparents and my parents. get christi love! was on the tv. pam grier was at the drive in. and so was cicely tyson. and abbie lincoln. and blacula. don cornelious was on soul train. all of my aunts and uncles had naturals.  everybody wore dashikis. the first time i ever saw my uncle jackie's then girlfriend/now wife aunt mattie, she had on a beautiful gele, and i thought she was glowingly lovely. lots of their friends were visiting africa and spending time there. and this song flooded the airwaves -- or at least, my uncle tyrone's 8 track stereo system.

no one had to tell me that black was beautiful.  

i watch black music videos nowadays, i look at black pop stars and i wonder -- was it all a fad? was it fashion?  or a dream that we collectively felt would never end?  

i think there was a moment back in the day when we began to truly love ourselves and each other.  it's not that the "n" word didn't exist -- it's just that everybody was so caught up in calling each other "brother" and "sister" that no one ever bothered to use it.  (we were COGIC, too -- i'm pretty sure that had a lot to do with it.) we began to explore our history, we embraced our past and found our way back to africa as best we could. 

and then the 80s happened.

the thing is, all of what i remember is still alive in all of us, right below the surface. i know this is true because when i walk down the street and i call someone sister or brother, they give it right back to me with so much feeling that sometimes, it aches. years ago, i fell back into the habit of saying it all the time -- especially to the africans. instant unity: the glow that is exchanged never goes away. it's just sitting there, waiting to come alive whenever any of us says it to each other again.

we really are the black gold of the sun.