what has happened to the African in the new world is not a new or unusual occurrence in the history of mankind. in fact, it is but one of the latest events in a continual cultural convection of domination, desperation, genocide, exploitation and overall human survival.
Conditions and Privations have inexorably lead groups of man in violent opposition and conflict with other groups of hominids. Conditions of necessity, time, place, environmental conditions, culture, tradition, ways of life, and a myriad of other factors have, as stated above, lead groups of man in violent opposition and conflict with other hominids.
What is unusual about Africans, and their experience is essentially the same foundational factors which have dictated the uniqueness of all other similar experiences throughout the course of man.
In this treatise, i will look at several of these factors and take some snapshot looks at them individually and how they contribute overall to the overall theme of this exposition.
Temporal Considerations:
No full explanation of the meaning and condition of the African in today's society, in contrast to their recent history, can be complete without a consideration of the intimacy of this Disaporic experience with the dawn of man. It has been said that if the age of the dinosaur was on a timeline the length of the United States, from Point Reyes to the Empire State Building, from the first dinosaur to the last would be a line stretching from the California coast to deep into the mid west. The age of humans, would start just across the Hudson River in New Jersey and from the time man began to use the first written language to the present would be the space of a block and a half from the Empire State Building.
And so, what we have here in a sense, is that the great age of man, an age I am dubbing, the age of enamorment, is intimately related to the age of the Africans entry into their worldly diaspora.
What to make of this? Certainly the African played a great role in the entire production of the intense agricultural, and then industrial upheaval and cataclysm throughout the world. In sum, regardless of how it is summarized, the inescapable conclusion is that the African was needed, taken and brought to the new world as an essential element in this worldly upheaval. The Age of the African Diaspora, is one and the same with the great dawn of the age of enamorment.
History of the African:
The history of the African, is the longest of all the peoples of the world. It is at once, the cradle of man, where the dawn of man first shone, where man became, noble in reason, and where first the apprehension, thought to be God-like in complex perplexity and resolution. In short, the African carries within his very veins, the dawn of man and civilization itself. This history, which has produced in genesis, all of the world's great human cultures, is embodied as a seed within the African.
In this sense, the visitation, of the group of Africans that went north, became white and returned to take Africans against their will to a new land to reach their current position, were in effect, returning as the prodigal sons is always wont to do.
Culture:
At first glance, from the eyes of an "other" who had been enamored and completely smitten by "thingness" the African indigenous culture in west, mid and south African, may have appeared to have been no culture at all. The Culture of the African had developed in truth, to the highest possible state on Earth. Here, man lived in harmony with their world and their environment. Here, in Africa, a rich, diverse culture of trade and cultivation had taken place. Here, in Africa, man learned to live in a manner which would allow for man to continue in life until the unforeseen end of time.
In truth, now, in America, 500 years later, we see the malleability and yet indelible persistence of a culture which has adapted, morphed, learned, mastered, strove and attained the highest of positions and knowledge's and has also, in the most important remained intact as a culture despite hundreds of years of assimilation. This is what i refer to as "Seeming Malleability in the face of 'Deep' Time." Surely, that which may seem to be indelibly Black and African in culture, was in truth facilitated thorough the process of rejection, discrimination and segregation, which allowed the most important part of the African culture to be inculcated, nurtured and preserved throughout the hardest and most tempting of times.
It is my hope that that which is most important in the African, can become a priority for the modern world, and serve as a primary influence in the final closing of the age of enamorment.
Climate:
Quickly, the African was not in struggle with their climate. They found bountiful food, bountiful game, bountiful plant and animal resources, bountiful earthly resources, such as raw materials, metals, stones, fuels, etc. the Euro was not so well-appointed within their environment, or in the least, not appointed in the same way.
For this reason, one of the central tenets of my overall euro-African distinction, is the psychology and feeling of intimacy borne of these two disparate climes as year by year, age by age an overall relationship with the world is established and made a cultural aspect.
The European, in many ways had a much more intimate, thankful and humble relationship with the world than the African. The African could be thought of as, in a sense, taking their environment for granted, in terms of the seeming plenitude in comparison with a long hard, cold, infertile European winter.
That notwithstanding, having endured and accepted the rhythm of plenitude followed by the forced fallow season and winter, once the European began to gain full mastery of their environment through mastery of precious earthly products such as gold, silver, spices, materials, domestication and the vast intellectual and cultural resources afforded by this bounty, their relationship with the world slowly transitioned from animism, and harvest type religions of paganism to a relationship of "thingness". once again, Christianity played a vital role in this, thorough stamping out all religions and orientations which gave thanks to anything other than god and Christ. In this way, the Earth, the cycle of life, the game, the food, the metals, etc, were man's by birthright. These things became man's because God had given the Earth to man to lord over and do with as they pleased, with the sole caveat that they worship god and do his bidding on earth and accept his son as their one true savior.
Serendipitous Novelism:
And so the stage was in a sense, set when the African came to America. Upon arrival to the present, serendipitous novelism, as it always does, reaches it's own conclusions and new combinations which lead to a whole host of (genetically, culturally, historical) intended as well as unintended consequences.
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