Why are we so seemingly disfuntional as a people. Could it be exagerrated or is it real. Judging from where I live, myself included. Yes we are what some would term disfunctional. Hmmm think about that word disfunctional. What it is in my opinion and many will not agree (so what) we are square pegs trying to fit into round holes, or vise versa. I am not saying that we don't need to be civil, but again look at us as a people, identity, identity, identity. Our problem. we lost our Identity we accepted one that was thrust upon us, and breaking out the box is not the easiest thing to do. Trust me I am still trying. What we see to some degree is a symptom of our sickness, what is that sickness lost Identity. Someone told me the other day, and I got to say I believe it. When we were sold into slavery, (much to say about that) those who sold us (our own) marched us around what is termed as the tree of forgetfulness. so that we would remember nothing of our homeland. They also had more to say about that which I will not share at this point because I would offend my African Brothers and Sisters. Think how hard it is to try big word here is try to decolonize our minds. we have been taught to think in such terms that it is nearly impossible to accept ourselves as Africans or any people, hence I call myself a descendant of enslaved Africans. Anyway just my thoughts at this time (doesn't mean they are correct) only means they are my thoughts
Ire
Ifaleye

I guess it would be like taking a fish out of water and expecting it to live. Although we were mostly cut off from our culture, some more than others, there is still a part of us deep down that desires to belong. So we drive ourselves crazy in the process of doing so. Some of us just chalk it up and go to the motherland to heal and get our sanity back.
Here is a pic of the tree of forgetfulness memorial from Ouidah, Benin.

quote:

there is still a part of us deep down that desires to belong

quote:

Originally posted by Ifaleye:

Why are we so seemingly dysfunctional as a people.

In my opinion, African Americans are no more dysfunctional as a people than anyone else. Any disproportionate "dysfunctionality" comes from the disproportionate societal obstacles that exist before us here in America. Remove those obstacles (white supremacy to start) and we'd be the absolute model group of achievement and performance in the world.

BTW - another aspect of this question has to do with perception itself. The vast majority of the perception of black dysfunction comes from the (white) media - that has a profound interest in positioning us as such. Were we to display the exact same "symptoms" but be living in a system of black supremacy, the perception/communication of those behaviors would be completely different.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MBM,

quote:

Originally posted by MBM:

quote:

Originally posted by Ifaleye:

Why are we so seemingly dysfunctional as a people.

In my opinion, African Americans are no more dysfunctional as a people than anyone else. Any disproportionate "dysfunctionality" comes from the disproportionate societal obstacles that exist before us here in America. Remove those obstacles (white supremacy to start) and we'd be the absolute model group of achievement and performance in the world.

BTW - another aspect of this question has to do with perception itself. The vast majority of the perception of black dysfunction comes from the (white) media - that has a profound interest in positioning us as such. Were we to display the exact same "symptoms" but be living in a system of black supremacy, the perception/communication of those behaviors would be completely different.

I agree somewhat in what you say, but the disfunction I speak of is the maliciousness we display toward each other. I agree with what you say about white supremacy. I am also somewhat aware of the deck being stacked against us when it comes to poverty etc. But also we are dysfunctional because we are not made (so to speak in the image of the oyinbo)I speak of the greed the raping a pillaging of the resources in the world. If I am not mistaken (and I am not trying to paint a rosy picture)The word in the west is overpopulation, do you see where I am going with this, the overpopulation is only because the few want the all. We for the most part do not function in this manner. And when we try to emulate these things we are dysfunctional. The materialism etc, these are not our traits. As I said at one time before (maybe not here) we are vertical, oyinbo are linear. I am adding an attachtment. it is 31 pages long and really to some degree speaks to what is a problem for us IMO to get to right thinking. again in my opinion we think wrongly as we have been programmed to do so
Ire
Ifaleye

Particularistic_Studies_Of_African_Philosophies_As_An_Aid_To_Decolonization.rtf (113 Kb, 21 downloads) Studies on Decolonization

quote:

Originally posted by Yemaya:
I guess it would be like taking a fish out of water and expecting it to live. Although we were mostly cut off from our culture, some more than others, there is still a part of us deep down that desires to belong. So we drive ourselves crazy in the process of doing so. Some of us just chalk it up and go to the motherland to heal and get our sanity back.
Here is a pic of the tree of forgetfulness memorial from Ouidah, Benin.

Se Alafia Ni Yemaya
So then this is true. What I have also been told is they marched us around so that we could never remember or come back home. I am told that many on the continent know of this story, hence when they see those of us trying to return to our roots, they are in shock etc. uch more to say but maybe another time
Ire
Ifaleye

Well, not all was lost and not everyone was marched around that tree. The government of Benin made a formal apology to the nation of Haiti some years ago for the enslavement of their people. I haven't read anything else about any partnerships or development plans between the nations in this press. But I doubt if I ever will.
Speaking on the comment about us belonging, we were not brought here to belong. One of the major reasons Africans were chosen to be enslaved in the Western Hemisphere is because whites (whether they be from the Iberian peninsula, mainland Europe or the British isles) were systematically engineered to be the free/masters and us by virtue of our color were to be slaves. We are easy to pick out because of our deeply melanated skin. To this day we are racially profiled based exclusively on the color of our skin. We have been made to feel unwanted and by the system of slavery, then Jim Crow and segregation. White flight is still a phenomenon in our communities. I don't think that these are exactly state secrets. We do need a place where we can be alone and accepted and acceptable to our own people.

I agree we need our own.

quote:

Originally posted by Ifaleye:

quote:

Originally posted by Yemaya:
I guess it would be like taking a fish out of water and expecting it to live. Although we were mostly cut off from our culture, some more than others, there is still a part of us deep down that desires to belong. So we drive ourselves crazy in the process of doing so. Some of us just chalk it up and go to the motherland to heal and get our sanity back.
Here is a pic of the tree of forgetfulness memorial from Ouidah, Benin.

Se Alafia Ni Yemaya
So then this is true. What I have also been told is they marched us around so that we could never remember or come back home. I am told that many on the continent know of this story, hence when they see those of us trying to return to our roots, they are in shock etc. uch more to say but maybe another time
Ire
Ifaleye

~Thank you Ifaleye for such an interesting train of thought. You've got me googling the Tree. I'm reading that the circling of the tree (9 times for men and 7 times for women and children) was so that the SPIRITS (in case they did not make it) of the soon-to-be slaves would be confused/disoriented and thus not able to find their way home to their origins and wreak havoc and revenge upon those who sold them in the first place (their own Kings/authority figures).

At this point, they were like "slaves in training", and had to march directly from that Tree of Forgetfulness, straight to the "dark room" holding cells and kept their for weeks. This was used to "see what they were made of". The darkness was similar to what they would experience in the bowels of the ship, so if they couldn't make it in the "dark rooms" (some died or went crazy right there), then it was deemed that they would not make the journey onboard the ship. Then, the "weak" dead among them were buried, and the "weak" live ones were killed (burned) and then buried because they couldn't be allowed to return to their homes with the true accounts of what all had been done to them and what they'd seen. The black body count at the mass gravesite was over 1 million, if I correctly recall what I read.

THEN the "survivors" were marched around yet another three (Tree of Hope), but 3 times around this one. THIS was so that the "now forgetful and brainwashed" spirits can return "home" one day, hopefully without thoughts of revenge. Dare I say, that " shock " on the faces of some of the natives during "homecomings" is due in part (or whole?) to straight up FEAR? Afterall, like you said, "they know the story". And they know the power of their spiritual belief system.

And I can also appreciate the parallel you're seeing between this particularly (if not singuar) important piece of our black history and the current black state of things. It depends on how spiritual one is, and what they credit to that and what they do not. The way we "function" could very well be a DIRECT REFLECTION of the state of turmoil and chaos and confusion that our ancestor's spirits are experiencing at these very moments, without peaceful rest.

The focus on material things that you mentioned, without thought to "going home" could very well mean that the circling of the Tree of Forgetfulness also worked successfully in a spin-off sort of way on us LIVING descendants. Home? What home? West Africa? You sure? No. We're from right here. Right?

And what if, also depending on how "spiritual one is", one is able to see a parallel between the black-on-black crime of today as the manifestation of ancient vengeance? The Spirits at War, so to speak.~

..... this was the most shocking part of their own history and the part which they found most difficult to confront: "How could a black brother sell their brother or their sister to be a slave?" asked Bishop David Perrin. By apologising publicly to the black American Diaspora President Kerekou lanced a festering boil.

Over four centuries about 12 million African people were forced into slavery. Between 1701 and 1810 around 5.7 million people were taken, 2 million coming from the slave coast where Benin is situated. Many were shipped out of Africa from the Bight of Benin to the port of Ouidah which is situated near Cotonou, the present capital. Not since I visited the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem in Israel have I experienced such harrowing emotions.

At the nearby Auction Place under the Whipping Tree, the slaves were sold to European traders. From here they would walk to the shores of the Atlantic. I followed in their footsteps to a staging post called the Zomai (which means where the light is not allowed to go). From here, according to ritual, the slaves would be taken to the Tree of Forgetfulness. Men would be made to walk around it 9 times, a woman 7 times. It was believed that this would strip them of the memory- that they would lose their identity, forget their origins, their families and their countries.

The slaves would then be taken to the Tree of Return. Here they had to turn three times in the hope that, although their bodies would never stand on these shores again, one day their spirit would return. Then, finally on the road to the Door of No Return, marked today by an archway, through which men, women and children would pass before boarding a boat waiting for the middle passage of this evil triangular trade plied between Europe, Africa and the Americas....

~From I.K.R (I've Known Rivers)...~

Walking through Grand Popo, on the old Slave Coast of Benin, West Africa, we stood on the very ground where, for at least three centuries, millions of African slave captives were made to stand and wait. Wait to be walked counterclockwise around the tree of forgetfulness in a ritual to extinguish memory of their land, tribe, and culture—the women seven times, and the men nine. Wait to be placed in the dank, dark slave baracoons. Wait to be pushed through the Door of No Return and into the forbidding underworld of slave ships to embark upon the most terrifying voyage in human history.

It was January 2000. Almost one year after my return from initiation in South Africa. This sojourn to the Slave Coast of Benin was truly a gift of the Ancestors. Not long before the New Year, a friend called to say she had been invited to Benin to attend the annual January National Vodoun/Ori_á festival, but was unable to make it. Could I go in her stead? Since I would attend as a representative of the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Indigenous Knowledge program, all expenses would be paid. Without a moment’s hesitation, I accepted the invitation and gave thanks!

Grand Popo’s current shrines are ubiquitous and highly visible—some even standing literally in the middle of the road. These shrines to Legba, Hevióso and other deities are often sculpted of earth adorned with shells, feathers, stones and the like. Comlan Diaz, a native of this village and my guide, casually drew my attention to the shrine of the specific vodoun who protected African captives cast overboard from the slave ships from being eaten by sharks.

I was stunned by these words. What? Was I hearing this right? African deities whose special concern was the protection of African slave captives? Yes, Diaz confirmed. And the one in front of us wasn’t the only one. Moved to tears by this extraordinary revelation as we walked along the dusty roads of this old coastal village, I fell to my knees and poured libations in ineffable gratitude.

We then entered the ruins of the ancient palace of a king who rescued ill captives from the clutches of slave owners, healing and nurturing them back to health. In the currently maintained shrine room inside the King’s compound specifically consecrated to those spirits, I paid homage.

We visited another shrine of Fulani slave spirits. The Fulani were nomadic herds people from the North whose relatively recent origins could be traced to Egypt. The guardian of that shrine informed me that two Fulani slaves were actually buried beneath the very hut where we stood. Again, I made prayers and offerings.

We, the descendants of African slaves now in the Diaspora, had not been forgotten! Though we had been taken far, far away, our African ancestors still maintained a spiritual connection with us. From this very spot overlooking the Atlantic, their spirits called ours. For centuries they have kept us close to their hearts, ever asking that we might return. And our spirits are answering; we are returning. So awestruck was I by this discovery, I had to pinch myself—was this real? Then too, it was befuddling. This was my sixth trip to Africa. All these years and I never knew ... How could this be?

We visited the Vodoun Queen. Before entering her compound, protocol required me to remove my shoes and blouse. From a calabash, she poured water to the earth before my feet. Before crossing over the threshold into sacred space, I was cleansed by walking upon the freshly moistened earth. She welcomed me with great warmth, as if she had long been waiting. I felt like the child who had gone far, far away on a long sojourn, as an Afa diviner had put it four years earlier, and had finally returned home. My eyes welled up with tears, so deeply was I moved by the inexpressible tenderness and mystery of her presence. As we departed, she invited me to return to her for initiation, to learn the secrets.

Diaz took me to see Tchabassi, an elder and Chief Vodoun priest of Mamy Wata and Hevióso. I prayed and made offerings at his shrines and sacred trees. I offered sacred tobacco from a Native American friend who’d met him the year before. I also offered a stuffed crocodile, representing one of the vodouns. Tchabassi prayed for my protection and gave blessings for my work.

While living several days with a family in nearby Ouidah, another village on the old Slave Coast into which millions of captives were marched and held to await the slave ships, I discovered that the people of this village conduct ceremonies of atonement and reconciliation for African complicity in the transatlantic slave trade and annually hold a procession along the slave route to the coast. A resident of this village informed me that the local government is even waging a campaign to encourage Africans in the Diaspora to buy land in Ouidah, offering it for relatively small sums. Indeed, Benin had constructed a Beautiful Door of Return on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean at Ouidah as an historical counterpoint to the Door of No Return through which captives the slaves were forced onto slave ships.

In Ouidah I also went to a Bokonó, a diviner in the Fa tradition, who revealed that my mother's ancestors were Fulani, from ancient Dahomey! He also confirmed that my father's ancestors are Ibo—this I had been told by two other diviners since 1996. The Odu Ejiogbe came up in the divination, indicating that the way was wide open and I had Alafia, or total blessings, for the journey I was on. Later, we held a ceremony in my maternal ancestors' honor followed by a feast in the compound in Ouidah where I was staying.

During one of my last days in Benin, we went to a ceremony regularly conducted on Fridays by a chief priestess of the slave spirits, Mme Genyosi Adogbagbe. Immediately we felt a bond of kinship which only intensified when she told me during divination that my ancestors were Fulani, just as hers were. Also a priestess of Mamy Wata, Mme. Adogbagbe added: “No, we have not forgotten the ones who were taken so far away from home on the ships. We have been making prayers and doing ceremonies for you all these centuries. We still make those prayers and ceremonies today.” I could only bow my head and hold my heart in profoundest gratitude.

She made offerings in my name before shrines of Mamy Wata. We drummed and we danced with her initiates. A spirit came to one of her adepts with a message—the priestess was being asked to do a head washing ritual. I dropped to my knees before the shrine as Mme. Adogbage washed my head in a cool, sacred infusion of herbs. She gave me medicines to take home. I told her I would keep her in my thoughts and prayers. She made me promise to return soon to Benin to undergo initiation to Mamy Wata and the slave spirits.

No wonder this land of Benin was so precious to me. Not only was it a place whose people do ceremonies of atonement and still say prayers and conduct rites for Africans of the Diaspora, but it was also my ancestral motherland. Indeed, the journey to Benin turned out to be a poignant and powerful immersion in the healing waters of the Mother, a profound Yemoja/Mamy Wata experience, the most nurturing journey I’d undertaken.

http://www.iveknownrivers.org/read-2.0.php?id=122

“The final historical site we visited was Ouidah, which was where the slaves were bought at the beginning of the four-mile trek that eventually led to the beach from which the Africans were rowed out to ships destined for the Americas. We reached the very spot where slaves were bought by Americans, French, Spanish, etc. The slaves were then walked down to the next stop, a tree called “The Tree of Forgetfulness,” where the men were asked to walk around the tree nine times and the women seven times, symbolizing that they would forget their homeland forever.

Then they were taken farther down the beach and shackled in the dark for weeks, after first being branded with a hot iron to distinguish which country had bought them. Holding captured slaves in these dark quarters served as a sieve to determine who was too weak to make the journey across the sea. If slaves appeared too weak to make it, they were thrown into a pit and buried alive because the purchasers did not want them to return home and inform their brethren of the atrocities that they had experienced, and create an uprising. In one pit, an estimated one million rejected slaves had been buried alive.

As we followed the path that many ancestors of the Africans in the Diaspora walked, statues of animals and symbols depicted the names of the African kings who were central in assisting the Europeans in the capture of slaves.

We finally reached the point I so longed to reach, the “Gate of No Return.” This is a large arch, which was there when our ancestors left the shores of Africa. It is still standing. I separated myself from the group to have a moment of reflection and prayer. As I walked through the gate and stepped onto the beach where millions of African slaves had walked before entering a tearful and suffering history.

Adupe OhBlackButterfly, That was very good. With my hopes of us one day fulfilling who we are as African people
Ire
Ifaleye