Shut Up and Dribble

 

Songs of Freedom -Say it Loud, I'm Black, and I'm Proud -celebrating Black History.

 

Throughout our history of trials and triumphs, our songs have been of freedom as we plowed the fields of justice and planted the seeds of equality; we sang of a brighter day yet to come. That day is today, as we lift up our eyes to the hills. Our faith, resilience, and determination have brought us a new song of freedom.

For far too many, the story and reality of Africa and the African springs from the imagination of the Europeans. It is a story of the initial contact situations in which the Europeans discovered Africa and the Africans. This story is part mythology, part apology, and part ideology, as Europeans emerge as white, superior, and conquerors, and the Africans are defined as black, inferior, and victimized. Much like the father of American psychology, S Samuel Cartwright, argued that enslaved Africans seeking to escape were mentally ill (Drapetomania), the father of American Sociology -Lester Frank Ward is notable in that he advocated Social Darwinism arguing that western civilization, oppression of Africans, was a result of the survival of the fittest.  Thus, from its beginning, sociology was imbued with scientific racism and white supremacy.  For upper-class whites, racism and oppression were hot only justified but encouraged. Following suit from the University of Chicago, Robert Park would argue that the failure of blacks and other lesser groups to assimilate demonstrated that they had not quite developed.  They suffered from ghetto mentalities, and the generational poverty directly resulted from their constant failure.  The counterarguments of W.E.B. Dubois and Mary Church Terrell were ignored as sociology embraced the strange fruit of America. But all of this ignores some basic anthropological, genetic, and even theological evidence -that all of humanity springs from Africa, which means that we are all Africans at the core. As I consider this, I am impressed with some basic truths. This presentation attempts to resituate the African and African, redefining the African American and their history. 

The reorienting of Africa and the African starts by acknowledging the reality that modern humanity originated in Africa. We, as a species, homo sapiens, were discovered in Morocco to be at least 315,000 years old. They, therefore, represent the oldest known skeletal remains and conclusively demonstrate that Africa is the birthplace of all humanity. (Callaway 2017) As I think of this, I suggest that my European family might want to sing that great 1968 song by James Brown, "Say it Loud _ I'm Black, and I'm Proud." Go ahead, get your funk on, make that move, and don't let anybody tell you that you can neither jump, sing, or dance. Repeat after me, "I'm Black, and I'm Proud. And as you do, please note that this song was more than funk; it was a song of protest calling for America to address the racism faced by Black Americans. It is also more than a complaint, as Brown asserted, as Blacks, "we demand a chance to do things for ourselves." Self-empowerment, self-identification, and self-identification originating with and by Black people are not externally rendered but internally endorsed. Time does not allow for a total review of the rich musical genres and messages Africans have produced. But here, let us consider just one of these sites -in the United States of America and its principal proponents, African Americans. 

Black Soul, Gospel, Blues, Jazz, R and B, Hip-hop, and Rap all share one thing: stories of survival, resistance, determination, and empowerment. Perhaps the oldest of these is Gospel.

 

 

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