What Should They Call Us?

Most Blacks know that they are from African descendants, but does that mean we should be called African; We have no real idea of what part of Africa we are from, or the language that our ancestors spoke , but we do know that African heritage traces back centuries before our grandparents were born and before their parents were born. Our heritage even traces back to European descendants. So are we not European also? The argument of whether African Americans or other generations of African descendents should solely consider themselves Africans is an argument based upon the basic knowledge of their heritage. Many people don’t know where their family originated because we have been so displaced. In Kwame Ture’s essay Pan-Africanism, on African Roots, he states that no one but Africans separate themselves or identifies themselves as a different group. He believes that we were divided by the Europeans on purpose. It was so that we would never identify ourselves as a whole. We would “ensure that there would always be differences”. In contrast, why can’t we just be called Americans, we know the language and the culture; we have been here for generations now. Is this not our land, the land we built as slaves? Although the point that Kwame Ture makes is indeed important and factual, we need to understand that America is as much of our heritage as Africa is. We have invested and built so much on American soil. Why would I not want to be called an African American? Gerald Early argued in his essay Never African Again that we don’t necessarily need to be totally indulged in our African heritage because we have no real sense of it because we have been so detached from it. We have built a new heritage and culture in America, why not embrace it and build upon the things we do know and the things we can change. He doesn’t want us to forget about our African heritage because it makes us who we are but we must also accept our American heritage. The argument made by both of these men is accurate depending on your view on heritage and its importance to you. But I feel like in order to embrace your heritage you must know exactly where you came from, that’s where we have our biggest issue. A lot of us have no frame of reference to our families’ original origin. So we are left embracing a culture we only have a limited amount of information about and back seating the fact that we are American as well as African. I feel that we should consider ourselves as Americans with African decent, meaning we embrace every aspect of the culture we built here in America but also know about our African history and make comparisons between the two and note the similarities and differences. Use the information you get to better or make additions to the American culture we have created or are still building upon, but more importantly, passing on the information to other people who don’t understand or know about African American history.