IDENTITIES IN MOTION: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN'S JOURNEY TO BURKINA FASO, BENIN, AND GHANA
Renata Harden
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
August 2007
Committee:
John Warren, Advisor
Opportune Zongo Graduate Faculty Representative
Lynda Dixon
Radhika Gajjala
ii
ABSTRACT
John Warren, Advisor
This study examines African American identity within the context of Burkina Faso,
Benin, and Ghana. Because African American identity has largely been studied in terms of racial identity within the United States, traveling outside the United States creates a different experience for African Americans and as such, their identity is influenced by the ideological constructions and narratives produced within other countries and communities. Through the theoretical lenses of postcolonial theory, I use autoethnography to demonstrate my own experiences with identity transformation as experienced in Burkina Faso, Benin, and Ghana.
The study suggests that African American identity is best understood as identities in motion, adapting and changing in different environments and within various contexts. The study also furthers the discussion on African American identity by refusing to limit it to essentialist categories. Rather, this study shows the transformative nature of African American identity and follows the understanding that African American identity is fluid, multifaceted, and heterogeneous. iii
To My Unborn Daughter
I call you
Free.
Free so that you’ll never know my burdens. The war wombs I carry on my back. The heavy sigh I breathe from a tiresome journey.
Free so that you’ll never have to choose between life or love, between holding back or letting go.
Free so that when you look in the mirror, you see a person that is not confined by race, color, class, gender, ethnicity, or nationality. A person who is humble and peaceful. A person who is guided by passion and not by obligation.
Free so you’ll never have to live up to other people’s dreams, or goals, or aspirations. So that you’ll stand on your own and hold to your own beliefs. Your own identity.
Free so that your feet will never know what it feels like to be bound, to be captured, to be imprisoned, to be chained.
Free so that your mind will not be fooled by family friends media education.
Free so that when you’re tired, you won’t be ashamed to rest to let your body unwind iv
to let your soul be at ease to let go.
Free so that your mistakes won’t break you, but will give you strength and courage so that you can enjoy simple pleasures without the constraints of time.
Free so that you’ll have a zest for life, to chase it and grab it but hold on to it baby, for life will get rough. Disappoints will be many. But remember to stretch your hands toward the sky And keep on moving.
I felt this freedom once before
When I heard the beating of your heart
The gushing feelings of that moment
Life mattered. You mattered.
So these became my wishes
And I’ve decided to let you go
For you belong to the world
And I wouldn’t want to stunt your growth.
But of all the things I wish for you
And of all the ways I would want you to be,
Of all the names you’ll probably call yourself,
I hope you answer to Free. v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to my committee members: John Warren, Ph.D., my advisor, for his lasting support and belief in me and my research; Opportune Zongo, Ph.D., committee member, for encouraging me to find my voice; Radhika Gajjala, Ph.D., committee member, for teaching me to be critical of myself and of my surroundings; and Lynda Dixon, Ph.D., committee member, for helping me to begin this project and for her enthusiasm and support of my creative writing techniques.
I also wish to thank family and friends who have supported me throughout my academic tenure, especially my brother, Jason P. Harden. This project was assisted by the hope, love, and encouragement of four special friends: Kenyatta Phelps, Dellareese Higgs, Julita Edwards, and
Dakysha Moore.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER I. READY FOR TAKE OFF: ENCOUNTERING U.S. NATIONALITY AND
AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY...... 1
A Traveling Fool ...... 6
Growing Up With Shaka Zulu ...... 7
Back to the Future...... 9
CHAPTER II. LAYOVER OF ILLUMINATION: THE PATH OF MY JOURNEY...... 14
Colonial Crossings...... 18
Roaming Intersections: Identities, Diasporas, and Postcolonial Theories...... 25
Identity Excursions...... 30
Diaspora Odyssey...... 35
Postcolonial Trek...... 41
Touring Imagined Communities: Importing Cultural and Collective Memories ...... 46
Autoethnographic Detour...... 54
CHAPTER III. TURBULENT WINDS: BECOMING “KUMBA” IN BURKINA FASO.. 57
Home-Coming…………………………………………………………………….... 58
Ventures Through the Body………………………………………………………... 72
Rites of Passage ...... 79
CHAPTER IV. THE LONG ROAD HOME: THE CHAINS OF MEMORY IN BENIN AND
GHANA…………… ...... 87
The Road to Ouidah...... 89
Dangerous Curves: Maneuvering Through Elmina and Cape Coast...... 95 vii
CHAPTER V. BY BOAT ALONE: IDENTITY REFLECTIONS AND THE PROCESS OF
DECONSTRUCTION ...... 120
Revisiting the Moment...... 121
Walking the Path Toward Deconstruction...... 127
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………… ...... 131
1
CHAPTER I.
READY FOR TAKE OFF: ENCOUNTERING U.S. NATIONALITY AND
AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY
Nobody really knows us. So institutionalized is the ignorance of our history, our culture, our everyday existence that, often, we do not even know ourselves—Itabari Njeri (1990)
African American identity remains a popular yet controversial topic of research. Many researchers have focused on issues related to racial identity (Asante, 1980; Baldwin & Bell,
1985; Sellers, Rowley, Chavous, Shelton & Smith, 1998; Thompson Sanders, 1991, 1995, 1999) while others have focused on the properties of group identity that affect all racial groups
(Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992; Phinney, 1992). At the same time, some researchers have addressed specific variables that influence racial identity (Broman, Neighbors & Jackson, 1988; Demo &
Hughes, 1990; Ellison, 1991), such as educational level, income status, neighborhood composition, etc. Though these works are beneficial, oftentimes they limit understanding of
African American identity because they do not promote the multidimensionality or flexibility of
Black identity; thus, in most of the research, racial identity is essentialized. My research is in agreement with those scholars whose work continues to challenge essentialist discourses that place limitations on African American identity and those who position African American identity as fluid, multifaceted, and heterogeneous, such as E. Patrick Johnson (2004), bell hooks (1990), and Stuart Hall (1990, 1991).
I’m entering this debate using a different lens. This dissertation is an autoethnographic journey of my experiences covering two summers (June 27-July 18, 2005 and May 16-June 12,
2006) I spent in different parts of West Africa: Burkina Faso, Benin, and Ghana. I use these experiences to demonstrate how African American identity is best understood as identities in motion, adapting and changing in different environments and within various contexts. 2
Additionally, I attempt to expand the discourse on African American identity by focusing on the
ways in which it is affected by travel outside of the U.S.A. This document will expose the ways
in which structural forces within the three aforementioned countries “attempt to ‘interpellate,’
speak to us or hail us into place as the social subjects of particular discourses” (Hall & du Gay,
1996, pp. 5-6). My research complicates notions of identity, location, traveling, home, and even
the body by showing the connectivity of these issues and the particular effects they have on me
as an African American woman.
In the remainder of this document, I will give the personal by using a narrative voice as
well as performative writing to give power and authority to my subject position. This allows me
to expose my ideals, vulnerabilities, and insights in order to make the subject matter more
accessible to the reader and permit he or she to come into better understanding of my particular
life as an African American woman.
Through my writing, the reader will experience my journey firsthand. My work offers a
unique version of reality, different than the reality offered by Alice Walker when she told us
about Celie’s low self-esteem in The Color Purple (1982) or Toni Morrison when she described the psychological effects that slavery had on Sethe in Beloved (1987). Furthermore, my work is advanced by song lyrics, dramatic monologue, and poems, poems that share common themes with poets like Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton. It is my intention to continue this legacy of
Black women writers, for they have given me the background for understanding African
American identity in the context of the United States. Yet, the novelty of my research is that it offers a fresh and nuanced way of understanding African American identity, not as defined by
U.S. constructions, but as a transformative and transnational identity that changes, adapts, and modifies according to contexts. 3
* * * *
On June 26, 2005, I discovered what it means to be a citizen of the United States.
Contrary to popular beliefs, it was not while standing in a class with one arm placed on my heart—pledging eternal allegiance to the flag of this country. Nor did I find it by the endless singing of nationalist songs—neither the “Star Spangled Banner” nor “America the Beautiful” spoke much to me. It wasn’t while grilling burgers or hotdogs at 4th of July celebrations or while observing President’s Day. No, it came about in a rather unusual way, not within the bosoms of
American borders or boundaries but rather, halfway around the world while sitting in a plane headed for Paris, France.
I had been in the air for about six hours, having left from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on a Boeing 747. The thought of being in Paris didn’t excite me much, which I found troubling since it was my first time outside of the U.S. Actually, Paris was a momentary stop, a divider between me and my ultimate destination: Burkina Faso, West Africa. I sat in my seat eagerly awaiting arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport. I can remember thinking, Just a few more hours,
I’ll be there—in Africa. My head spun uncontrollably, and my palms were sweaty and sticky.
That’s why I hurriedly completed the customs form that the flight attendant handed me prior to landing in Paris. Okay . . .
Name: Renata Harden. Place of Birth: Macon, Georgia. Address while in France: Connecting. Phone: Connecting. Occupation: Student. Date: June 26, 2005 Nationality: What?
What did they mean by nationality? I mean, I knew the definition of it, but what was I to put?
In the U.S., I’d only been allowed to write Black/African descent. Now, all of a sudden, I was 4 supposed to write American. Truthfully, I wasn’t quite sure who an American was. All I knew is that the term didn’t refer to me. How could it?
I was raised in a country whose constitution denied African Americans as HUMAN BEINGS; That considered African Americans as PROPERTY for more than a century; That enacted laws guaranteeing SECOND-CLASS CITIZENSHIP for African Americans;
Consequently, it has been a struggle for me, and many others, to weave a unified identity that is both Black and American. African American sociologist, W.E.B. DuBois, refers to this dilemma as double consciousness, “Which resulted from the inherent struggle of being both a
‘Negro’ and an American. . . . Not surprisingly, tension [exists] between the individual’s
‘blackness’ and the broader White society” (Sellers et al., 1998, p. 21). And so, I never felt this two-ness—being Black and American. As a matter of fact, I’ve often felt like reggae artist Sizzla
Kolonji (2003, track 7): “I was born in a system that doesn’t give a f**k about you nor me nor the life . . . of our kids” (“I Was Born”). Plus, Toni Morrison (1992) reminds me that “deep within the word ‘American’ is its association with race. . . . American means white, and
Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen” (p. 47). It is at this moment that I tried coming to grips with my own position, acknowledging my own standing and the ways that I occupy this world. It is true that
“to know who you are means knowing where you are (Clifford, 1989, p. 186). And it is with this same sentiment that I realized that my identity was wrapped up in U.S. racial politics.
I wanted to grab the flight attendant and give a good explanation for my confusion. If she had just stopped for one moment to listen, I would have told her
that I didn’t feel very comfortable writing American; 5
That I am not seen as an American in the U.S. That not once in my American history have I been allowed to consider American as my nationality. That writing American now would seem out of line, out of place, out of default.
Would she have sympathized to my opinion that ideally, I am the essence of what an American is? That someone is American by the mere struggle for basic human rights on which this country was supposedly founded. That the work of my forefathers and foremothers helped to build this country, making it one of the greatest superpowers in the world. But, somehow I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t articulate this position to the flight attendant. I couldn’t say that I was
American and then offer a disclaimer. This experience made me realize the grievances I have with this country, which could be articulated the following way:
I pledge my grievances
I pledge my grievances To the flag of the United States of America And to the Republic which was founded On slavery Genocide Rape Lynching Murder Racism Hate For which it still stands One nation despising GOD Despicable With liberty and justice for all who are not Poor Colored Lesbian Gay Or Atheist
6
A Traveling Fool
Traveling caused a rupture in my identity. But I had done more than just travel, for traveling implies leisure or recreational activity for the middle class or literary elite and is often associated with tourism. Halualani (2002) reminds us, “It is partly through travel and the practices of tourism that cultural systems and groups have been imagined, identified, reinvented and re-created, and reproduced over time through a set of representational and discursive practices” (p. 133). We can think of the many brochures and pamphlets that feature the voyeuristic gaze of tourists, often used to market distant and exotic lands to Westerners. They’ve offered places where the Westerner can leave the hustle and bustle of modernity, subsequently to escape to a place where a simpler and purer life awaits. But let’s not forget that travel has excluded many based on race, gender, class, nationality, and ethnicity and has been driven by desires for exploitation, colonization, and imperialism. I found myself understanding Clifford’s plea (1989) to expand understanding of travel by answering, “How do different populations, classes and genders travel? What kinds of knowledge, stories, and theories do they produce” (p.
183). And though there is a history of African American travel, especially to Africa, ranging from Paul Cuffe’s 1812 exploration of Sierra Leone to Sylvia Boone’s 1974 guide of West
Africa, most of their work has been excluded from mainstream discourse about traveling, thereby showing the marginalization of voices that are not white, European males.
I find it necessary to offer a different way of understanding notions of travel; for I had not traveled, rather I had journeyed, journeyed to places within myself hardly known, places that haunt me in my daily life, places of discomfort and comfort. And I understand journey as
Obenour (2004) describes it as including “a state of mind, eventual physical movement, engagement with a liminal world and emergent nature of experience” (p. 1). I left the U.S., 7 journeyed outside the societal constructs that I was accustomed to, outside the racial discourses that had worked to create, sustain, and maintain my ethnic identity. And now I found myself upon a new journey, not only in the physical sense of the term, but also spiritually, emotionally, and mentally—a “journey as self-discovery” (Mason, 1990, p. 345).
My subsequent destination to Burkina Faso was much more than a tourist destination and would certainly complicate the notion of identity for me. It was more than a vacation spot or a chance for summer romance; rather, for me, a person bound to “Africa by heritage and culture,” it was a “diasporic travel . . . a returning to ancestral culture of origin for a finite period of time. .
. serv[ing] as a catalyst for broaching issues of ethnic identity” (Day-Vines, Barker, & Exum,
1998, p. 464). And though this journey would be filled with obstacles and challenges, I agree with bell hooks (1995) that “it helps to be able to link this individual experience to the collective journeying of black people. . . . Reconstructing an archaeology of memory makes return possible, the journey to a place we can never call home even as we re-inhabit it to make sense of present locations” (pp. 42-43). hooks raises a pivotal point: we journey back to understand the present.
Growing Up With Shaka Zulu
“Hurry! Get the tape. It’s coming on,” my older sister yelled.
“This one?” I asked while holding a VHS tape in her face.
“No, get a blank one. Betta yet, get two. It’s on for two hours tonight,” she replied.
There were no disturbances when this film showed, no phone calls and no discussions. My family and I sat for hours watching this movie, our eyes staying glued to every scene. My older siblings, with their wide-eyes dancing across the screen, probably fascinated with the clothes, the swords, and the land; and my father, a distinguished older gentleman who sat upright in his 8 favorite burgundy chair. His eyes pierced the screen, his brows lowered deep into his forehead as if he was concentrating. His look was serious, as if he was observing something more.
At this moment, I remember thinking, All of this for Shaka Zulu (1984)? Why all the commotion? Why all the noise about a movie, especially such a long one? Why would my family stay glued to the T.V., to TBS Superstation? Why would the house be in total silence when this film showed? My 11-year-old mind couldn’t grasp the significance of this film. All I knew was that Shaka Zulu was African. But what did my family know, particularly my father?
Did they know he was an African king and warrior, that he fought against British forces in South
Africa, that he was responsible for implementing a divisive war strategy, through which his power led him to control much of the land? After watching the film, I began to know Shaka
Zulu and his mother, Nandi. Their story became my story. I sat for hours, reciting lines until I knew them by heart. I imitated Nandi’s ways, especially her walk. Such a dignified walk, her head raised so proudly, her feet gently touching the ground. She wore her pride as an ornament.
She was flawless. Her strength showed through her smile, her features, her talk. No, I didn’t imitate her. I became her. She was African, and as long as I carried myself as Nandi, I was
African. She was I and I was she.
This was what I knew about Africa and Africans. I imagined all Africans to be this way: strong, resilient, and powerful. I dreamed an Africa with rolling, mountainous hills, deep blue waters, roaming wildlife, and active and prosperous people. Of course I had influences that challenged this representation. U.S. media did much to deter my dreams of Africa. Constant portrayals of Africans in jungles as primitive and savage people dominated the media, from the news stories broadcasters told to Hollywood films such as Law of the Jungle (1942) or Tarzan of the Apes (1918). But oftentimes, these films were countered by Black discourses on Africa, 9 starting in the early part of the 20th century (Garvey, 1921/1995; Robeson, 1945; Woodson,
1942). Africa was a historic motherland for many African Americans, the place that was the true home of Black folks. It was a place that offered security, unconditional love, and peace to a
Black population that was constantly bombarded by U.S. racial attacks. It was a depiction of nostalgia—the longing for a lost connection with a past place and time. And it certainly continues to impact African American identities. Jones (1996) describes African American identity as influenced by feelings of not “being at home in North America, of returning to Africa and finding brothers and sisters in the Motherland—thereby positioning the African American as stranger in a strange land who has but to go ‘home’ to find her true place” (p. 134).
Back to the Future
And here it is now, the year 2007, and some of my perceptions of Africans and African countries have changed because of my visits to West Africa. I found an Africa that exceeded my earlier description but existing alongside extreme poverty, disease-stricken areas, and colonial devastation. This present reality came face to face with my imagined Africa and the memories of Shaka Zulu and his mother, and this document will show the confrontation between these views. I understand Dunn’s (2004) assertion that
for travelers to Africa, an understanding of the land and its inhabitants pre-exists before
contact, given the construction of Africa and African identities in societal discourses,
narratives and representations. Different travelers may react and/or alter these discourses
in myriad different ways, but the societally [sic] constructed narratives remain the
foundational ground upon which they react and negotiate their own understandings. (p.
487) 10
And if this is troubling, I wonder what sense could I make of myself while in a foreign country, especially in West African countries, including Burkina Faso, Benin and Ghana—the three countries at the head of my work. What does it mean to be an African American outside the U.S.? Surely, these countries construct an Africa that challenges both U.S. representations and my own. For example, the U.S. constructs Africa as a place where tradition lies as opposed to modernity (Dunn, 2004). And in my attempt to subvert dominant ideology on Africa, I constructed an overly strong depiction of Africa and Africans, one where their strength prevented them from suffering from the challenges or maladies posed by colonization. My work succumbs to Dunn’s (2004) belief: “Postcolonial African travel narratives build upon the colonial discourses and tropes—appropriating, re-employing, subverting and inverting them depending upon the context and the author” (p. 487). Though the trips to these countries were relatively short, usually about a month, my experiences within these imagined communities, “Imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”(Anderson, 1983, p. 6), compelled me to ask: How have these three countries interpellated a specific African identity and what is the impact on the identity of an African
Diasporic subject, particularly an African American?
This research is important in many ways. What’s more important than exploring a dimension of identity that often gets neglected by researchers—who would much rather focus on
Black identity as impacted by experiences within the United States (McPherson & Shelby, 2004) as opposed to a more thorough investigation of Black identity as a part of the African Diaspora, a
Diaspora created from the dispersal of an estimated 17 million Africans during one of the first forms of globalization—the TransAtlantic Slave Trade. Additionally, more attention should be 11 given to scholars whose work on Black cultural identity refuses to be limited to Eurocentric interpretations. Therefore, let’s expand our understanding of identity so that we may fully appreciate the multitude and heterogeneity of Black identities and so that we may challenge the discourses that continue to essentialize blackness. Furthermore, we must explore the ways that
African American identities are impacted by ideology within other countries. In other words, the cultural memory and historical representations within these countries have undoubtedly affected my own identity as a Diasporic subject and this is worthy of attention. For example, touring the slave trade route in Benin and standing in the slave dungeons in Ghana have caused me to re- consider the role of the African American in the global economy and to explore African
American identity in relation to global identities. It has been beneficial for me to understand the
Jewish Diaspora and Jewish peoples’ encountering of historical sites while traveling within
European countries (Boyarin, 1992; Langer, 1991; Rowe, Wertsch, & Kosyaeva, 2002), but the fact also remains that the African Diaspora has been severely under-theorized when applying this same principle to sites within African countries. I hope, therefore, within this dissertation, to alleviate this problem by expanding current understanding of traveling, identity, and Diasporas.
Postcolonial theories guide this study. Although most postcolonial research is dominated by South Asians (Brah, 1996; Hegde, 2005; Shome, 2002; Spivak, 1985) my work bridges the gap between African Diasporic studies and postcolonialism and makes connections between
Africa and African America. The postcolonial paradigm also offers a space for understanding the issues that affect colonized and marginalized individuals, without them having to be
“whitened” for the academy. For example, Duran and Duran’s (1995) book Native American
Postcolonial Psychology shows the benefit of analyzing Native American identity using a postcolonial paradigm, finding that “a postcolonial paradigm would accept knowledge from 12 differing cosmologies as valid in their own right, without their having to adhere to a separate cultural body for legitimacy” (p. 6). Finally, I hope that the dissertation will contribute to the discipline, will benefit it in the sense that it has been rare for an African American female communication scholar to use autoethnography to expose her hidden and truer self by means of narrative and performative writing. Basically, I take Jackson’s (2002) call seriously regarding the need for African American communication scholars to discuss their experiences and take agency in knowledge production of African American communication:
African American intellectualism remains subordinated within the communication
discipline, which institutionally refuses to acknowledge the importance of non-White
ways of knowing. With that refusal comes a dismissal of African American identities,
which are enveloped in African American communication research. (p. 44)
This is the beginning of a journey for me as I’ve told you the story of my initial travels outside the U.S. and its physical and mental impact on my body and mind. Chapter Two further expands Chapter One. It also discusses race and journeying, identity and Diasporas, and cultural and collective memories of imagined communities—all positioned within the theoretical lenses of postcolonial theories, and built from the methodological understandings of autoethnography.
The chapter illuminates the path of my journey, showing how imagined communities create identity in a Diasporic subject. The journey resumes in Chapter Three with an investigation into the imagined community of Burkina Faso, which worked to create a specific African identity centered around issues of home, the body, and naming. Identity was enhanced through educational courses and through my living arrangement with a host family. In Chapter Four, I explore experiences with the cultural memory and historical representations of slavery found in memorial/heritage sites within Benin and Ghana. This chapter highlights the ways in which 13 these sites use ideological constructions to create African identity as well as African Diasporic identity. Here I also deconstruct the impact of globalization, tourism, and the socio-economic context that sustain these historical sites, of which the Point of No Return in Benin and Ghana’s
Elmina and Cape Coast Castle. Chapter Five is the last leg of the journey, as if it must be taken by boat, for it is water that brought my ancestors here over 350 years ago and it is water that brings me back here now. And after such a long and arduous journey, Chapter Five offers some internal reflections about the varied and personal experiences found within this spectacular journey and briefly discusses the future process of deconstruction. Though the experiences within these countries are different, a journey through them gives insight into the ways in which the African Diasporic subject is interpellated within three West African countries. I write this dissertation keeping James Baldwin’s (1955) words in mind:
One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how
relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly
give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that
order which is art. (p. 7) 14
CHAPTER II.
LAYOVER OF ILLUMINATION: THE PATH OF MY JOURNEY
“America”
If an eagle be imprisoned
On the back of a coin
And the coin is tossed into the sky,
That coin will spin,
That coin will flutter,
But the eagle will never fly.
Henry Dumas (1988/2005, p. 108)
I hate layovers! The little seats don’t quite fit my behind and really don’t offer any legroom to lie down. The constant pacing back and forth, anxiously waiting for the airline number to be announced over the PA system. The rude stares of people sitting close to me, especially little kids. And the food! Don’t let me get started on the awful, bland, tasteless food served in airports. The only good thing about being in an airport is that it provides moments for mental solitude that help with self-reflection.
It is likely that many will read this and think, Wow, this girl got some serious issues! But who wouldn’t, having grown up in a climate of racial ideology—an ideology that constantly enforced the idea that I was worthless, not worthy of attention, of love, or of celebration. I’m not oblivious to the problems this has created for me, for I knew something was wrong before I left this country. I never quite understood my location, my position as a citizen of the U.S. Maybe you need to understand the context of my identity. I left a world that 15
Told me I was nothing EXCEPT Black. And Black really is a step up from Nigger, Tar baby, Jiggaboo, Coon, Junglebunny, Pickaninny, Topsie, Porch monkey, Darkie, Spook; As if Black could not possibly mean something good; As if Black could not mean beauty; As if Black could not mean love; This situation reduced Black to mere names—it could not possibly be anything outside of a color. To speak of being Black was to speak of being raced.
Like Fanon (1967), “I discovered my blackness, my ethnic characteristics; and I was battered down by tom-toms, cannibalism, intellectual deficiency, fetichism, racial defects, slaveships, and above all else, above all: ‘Sho’ good eatin’” (p. 112). My identity was trapped, imprisoned by the racial ideology of the U.S., which hadn’t matured much from Count Arthur de
Gobineau’s idea of three races—Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid—coming from the
European imagination of the Middle Ages, encompassing Europe, Africa, and the Near East.
Considered the father of modern racism, his “Essay on the Inequality of Human Races” (1853-
55/1967) explains the capabilities and qualities of all three races, producing the first extensive secular argument for racial hierarchies even influencing Adolf Hitler (Wright, 2004). And since
I am “made in America,” I couldn’t disregard that those of visible African descent are regarded as a race, an “ideology used to explain slavery to people whose republic was founded on radical doctrines of liberty and natural rights and race explained why some people could rightly be denied what others took for granted: namely, liberty” (Fields, 1990, p.114).
And if I couldn’t make the correlation between race and nationality, it was made crystal clear by one of the most distinguished presidents within U.S. history. Thomas Jefferson, the principle author of the Declaration of Independence, used his “Notes on the State of Virginia”
(1784/1954) to explain to Americans that for them to have freedom, Africans must be enslaved or removed from the land, for they will affect the progression of the Nation. He believed that 16
Blacks and Whites were incapable of living together because of the distinctions that nature had made between the two groups. Blacks are a separate species that threaten the democracy of the young nation. They are present within this Western nation, but they are antithetical to the
American ideal. They may be in America, but they are still “other” to it.
And if one of my ears ached from the discourse spouted from mainstream America, the other bleeds from the constant reminders found within my own community about race and nationality. I left a world that
Told me I was EVERYTHING Black. And Black was more than skin. It was a way of Talking, Dressing, Dancing, Laughing, Styling Living. As if Black could not possibly be American As if Black could not possibly be more As if Black could not possibly be free. This situation reduced Black to modes of behavior and ways of acting—it could not possibly be anything outside of social constructions. To speak of being Black was to speak of a whole way of life.
It’s from my community that I learned that being Black and being American was hardly possible.
Wilson (1999) writes, “To be African American is to experience a complex, even disjointed, subjectivity. Black self-consciousness is a hybrid of self-knowledge and social knowledge, influenced by personal perception as well as communal beliefs about race. . . . Black subjectivity is shaped by social forces and institutions” (p. 206). It’s from the work of DuBois (1897) that I learned that African Americans are Americans because they are embedded within the American landscape, but because they are simultaneously excluded from the American dream, they exist in 17
a state of duality—as an American and a Negro. He believes that every African American asks
themselves, “What, after all, am I? Am I an American or am I a Negro?” (p. 83).
And who can forget Malcolm X’s (1965) question: “How can you think you are an
American when you haven’t ever had any kind of American treat over here?” I imagine myself
sitting in the Ford Auditorium in New York City while he profoundly explains:
Ten men can be sitting at a table, you know, dining, and I can come and sit down where
they are dining. They’re dining. I’ve got a plate in front of me but nothing is on it. Just
because we’re all sitting at the same table, are all of us diners? I’m not a diner until you
let me dine. Then I become a diner. Just being at the table with others who are dining
doesn’t make me a diner. And this is what you’ve got to get in your head here in this
country. Just because you are in this country doesn’t make you an American. No,
you’ve got to go farther than that before you can become an American. You’ve got to
enjoy the fruits of Americanism. And you haven’t enjoyed those fruits. You’ve enjoyed
the thorns. You’ve enjoyed the thistles. But you haven’t enjoyed the fruits. (“After the
Bombing”)
I can see myself within Hill-Collins (2001) explanation of U.S. national identity as being created on a racial triangle of white settlers, indigenous Americans, and enslaved Africans.
These groups became the categories for U.S. citizenship—the first-class white citizen; the foreign Indian who stands outside citizenship; and the second-class black citizen. Therefore, I fit outside the idea of being an American; rather, I am a “domestic other”—included in the body politic “like one of the family,” but simultaneously excluded from its national identity. With all these different positions and views, it is easy to understand the desires of activist like Mary
Church Terrell (1940), who laments, “I cannot help wondering sometimes what I might have 18 become and might have done if I had lived in a country which had not circumscribed and handicapped me on account of my race, but had allowed me to reach any height I was able to attain” (p. 427).
These discourses taught me a lot about race and nationality. But, what they did even more of was essentialize Blackness by confining it to the realms of race. I learned who I was and what it meant to be Black from these discourses. But I hope here to move beyond this essentializing discourse and provide a lens to understand Black identity in motion. And honestly, these discourses trouble me, for they are exhausting and tiring. To live my life with these constant reminders can be somewhat burdensome and rather overwhelming. Sometimes I wish I could just spread my arms and fly high above this world, just to escape somewhere above the clouds. I’d sit and listen over and over again to Langston Hughes’ (1994) dream:
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every [wo]man is free.
“I Dream A World” (p. 129)
Colonial Crossings
No road whatever will lead Americans back to the simplicity of this European village where white men still have the luxury of looking on me as a stranger . . . . This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again—James Baldwin (1955)
Leaving the U.S. showed the contradictions in my identity. That’s what journeys are about; they allow people to leave their comfort zones, however awkward, that have insulated and protected them. They are then able to engage in a critical, reflexive turn. Journeys are “about 19
the interplay between observer and observed, between a traveler’s own philosophical biases and
preconceptions and the tests those ideas and prejudices endure as a result of the journey”
(Blanton, 1997, p. 5). Yet, not all journeys have been in this favor.
Historically, journeys have often been taken for colonizing purposes. Many may think of
early European explorers who exploited and colonized various parts of the New World like
Columbus, Polo, or Cortez. Or some may think of the countless missionaries and merchants who
gathered their belongings only to travel to “exotic” places. Take Africa, for instance. Few may
have even heard of the American Colonization Society, which sponsored “back to Africa” trips
to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other West African countries to newly freed slaves. Or one of the most infamous traveler’s throughout Africa, Henry Morton Stanley (How I Found Livingston,
1872; Through the Dark Continent, 1878; The Congo and the Founding of its Free State, 1885),
who became the primary authority on the continent due to his extensive traveling, even
responsible for creating Congo Free State. Stanley’s claims were believed to be “authentic,” a
conclusion that all travel writings seek. Dunn (2004) describes travel writings as “employ[ing] a
certain level of ‘truth claims’ because they are purportedly based on the experience of the author.
They reflect a vision of ‘reality’ because that reality was experienced firsthand. Thus, the truth
claims of the author lie predominately in the fact that they are relating experiences that are
ontologically ‘true’” (p. 486).
Still, I cannot escape this implication of the colonizing, for even though I wish to offer a
different view of Africa than most White, male, academic scholars, I have to acknowledge the
nuances of my own location. I am a middle-class woman, pursuing a doctorate degree who often
has the luxury and the leisurely time to take trips to Africa. And I agree with Halualani (2002),
“There can be no touring (with both financial and cultural economies at work) without the 20 exploitation of indigenous peoples” (p. 136). And in this writing, I am privileging my voice at the expense of the many other voices that could be heard. I seek to problematize and jump around the White male audience; yet, I acknowledge that I am in a position of privilege and although I wish differently, this location will ultimately influence my experiences and I must take responsibility for this. Clifford (1989) writes,
Location . . . is a matter of being aware of the difference that makes a difference in
concrete situations, of recognizing the various inscriptions, ‘places,’ or ‘histories’ that
both empower and inhibit the construction of theoretical categories. . . .‘Location’ is thus,
concretely, a series of locations and encounters, travels within diverse, but limited space.
(p. 183)
Like Said (1983), I acknowledge that I left the U.S. guided by theory that was grounded in my experiences here in this country. Yet, as theory travels, it moves and changes depending on contexts and social situations. A theory applicable here may not have the same qualifications when applying them to African contexts, as Said shows that “theory has to be grasped in the place and the time out of which it emerges as a part of that time, working in and for it, responding to it; then, consequently, that first place can be measured against subsequent places where the theory turns up for use” (p. 242). And in this era of globalization, different audiences will be addressed, all having varying degrees of understanding and knowledge and coming from different locations. “The ‘experiences’ described and explained by theory are non-synchronous, exclusive of one another in hierarchical ways. Theory is always written from some ‘where’ and that ‘where’ is less a place than itineraries: different, concrete histories of dwelling, immigration, exile, migration” (Clifford, 1989, p. 185). 21
What I am offering is a limited interpretation of my experiences, with the understanding that “experience is at once always already an interpretation and is in need of interpretation.
What counts as experience is neither self-evident nor straight-forward; it is always contested, always therefore political” (Scott, 1992, p. 37). Yet, I am also aware that there are limitations imposed on the reader of this text. As Umberto Eco (1990) has proven that the “interpreted text imposes some constraints upon its interpreters. The limits of interpretation coincide with the rights of the text (which does not mean with the rights of its author)” (pp. 6-7).
Furthermore, it is this understanding of location that complicates my position as an
African American woman traveler. Even though a lot of Black women’s travel were restricted by laws enforced by Jim Crow, Black women have used travel and journey as a metaphor during various time periods, from slave narratives’ description of daring escapes from the South to the
North to different autobiographical genres. It is easy to see in early writings such as A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince (1853), Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of
Ida B. Wells (1970), and A Colored Woman in a White World (1940) that for African American women “travel or journey motif is an important shaping factor in the author’s lives and in their narratives. . . .[They] continue the radical tradition of social action. . . .” (Mason, 1990, p. 342).
Still, African American women are not always a subject in travel, for one only has to recall the millions of Black women who were forcibly removed from various African countries only to fall victim to the Middle Passage. They were objects rather than subjects, seen as only being Black and being female, further causing them to possess a very limited subjectivity. I, like the aforementioned women, now desire subject status. So, I ask: How can my journey be used to challenge the dominant structures that have prevented Black women from acquiring subjectivity? 22
Journeying for these women offered a sort of pilgrimage, especially upon travels to
Africa. One only has to read Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) to understand the significance of journeying to Africa for an African American woman. Or one can read Eslanda
Goode Robeson’s African Journey (1945), Gwendolyn Brook’s (1972) Report from Part One, or
Maya Angelou’s All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986) to note the particular peculiarities of the African American woman’s journey through experience. Communication scholar Olga Idriss Davis (1997) expounds on the significance of journeys as pilgrimages, highlighting that
the rhetoric of pilgrimage for the African American is a language deeply rooted in the
quest for self-identity. From the time of slavery the African American has inquired, Who
am I? Why am I here? How do I return home. . . . The popular notion of pilgrimage is one
of a sacred journey to come in contact with a higher or greater spiritual source. It
symbolizes a spiritual awakening elicted by a journey, an escape, a gestalt from which a
higher level of consciousness is achieved. (pp. 156-157)
And when African Americans couldn’t journey to Africa physically, they opted instead to bring Africa to them, creating an image of Africa in their minds. Recall Countee Cullen’s
(1977) poem “Heritage:”
What is Africa to me?
Copper sun or scarlet sea
Jungle star or jungle track
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose lions I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang? 23
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?
(pp. 1311-1314)
Africa as a theme occupies much of African American literary imagination, often used in a mythic or romanticed way to give strength to a downtrodden people. In a way, Africa is
“remembered” and is a staple part of the African American mind. Langston Hughes (1998) states it simply in “Afro-American Fragment”
So long, so far away, is Africa’s
Dark face
(p.129)
Eslanda Goode Robeson’s (1945) autobiography explains what she learned of Africa, writing,
“When I was quite small, Africa was the place we Negroes came from originally” (p. 7). There’s nothing wrong with these cherishing sentiments about Africa, for they are probably very beneficial in the development of Black self-esteem and awareness. Yet, Thomas (2002) reminds us of the turbulent role that Africa has played in influencing African American identity. During various time periods, African cultural expressions were not favored by many because of ideological reasons, “Having rejected the label “Africa” as part of a broader strategy to further political and economic goals. Defining identity—and Africa’s role in it—was part of a process intimately bound up with struggles for social, political, and economic freedoms” (p. 144).
It has been argued elsewhere that Black travel writers have not offered much of a different view of Africa than their white counterparts. Because they have been influenced by 24
Western ideology, they still portray Africa in a negative way. They’ve visited Africa and
occupied momentary spaces and times; yet, they haven’t begun to complicate the notion of
African identity. In their portrayal of Africa, writers have also used Africanist discourse to
describe their experiences. Among other writers, Gruesser (1990) describes the ways in which
Richard Wright’s Black Power (1954) and William Gardner Smith’s Return to Black America
(1970) falter due to Africanist discourse, creating
texts [that] show their authors’ attempting but ultimately failing to escape the trap of
Africanist discourse, which regards Africa either as a dream or a nightmare. Despite their
awareness of the perils of echoing assessments made about Africa and Africans by white
authors, all of these writers end up reinforcing rather than escaping Africanist discourse.
Each brings with him or her a romanticized preconception of the continent; when Africa
refuses to live up to their expectations, these writers become disillusioned with it and
alienated from it. (p. 9)
African themes are prevalent in many poems, literatures, and other artistic formats; however, many African Americans never honestly considered returning to Africa. Frederick Douglass, for one, “Did not believe that those Afro-Americans who were free should abandon those who were still captives. Nor did he believe that his contemporaries should return empty-handed to Africa or ignore the contributions that earlier generations of Afro-Americans had made in building
America” (Skinner, 1993, p. 440). Nevertheless, many African Americans considered themselves as Pan-Africanist, promoting the well being of the entire continent rather than specific regions.
Moreover, “They saw their future cultural, economic, political, and social positions as being linked to that of Africa, and they sought the freedom of Africa and of African peoples wherever they existed” (Skinner, 1993, p. 440). 25
The above discussion shows the connections between race and journeying, especially the ways in which Black bodies cross boundaries and borders for exploration of self. It further exposes my location as an African American traveler, drawing an extension from African
American women travels to Africa. It is apparent from the discussion that an understanding of these concepts is central to the exploration of Black identity within Burkina Faso, Benin, and
Ghana. This discussion seeks to explore two important questions: What does journeying mean to an African American and what is Africa in African America’s imagination? Plus, I argue that these issues will certainly influence how I experience these West African societies, thereby, complicating and expanding notions of identity.
Roaming Intersections: Identities, Diasporas, and Postcolonial Theories
“No Matter Where You Travel, You Still Be Black”
No matter where you travel,
You still be Black,
You carry all your history
On your own damn back.
Houston Baker (1979/2005, p.61)
I listen to reggae music while I travel. I love the feeling it gives me. I’d sit and listen for hours, as if a secret message is in the music, as if all I have to do is listen closer, as if all I have to do is clear my mind and just let the music take me somewhere. Anywhere. It’s often said that reggae is freedom music. But freedom from what? What about me needs releasing? What has my mouth gagged and my feet bound? What has my mind entangled, entrapped, engulfed?
Reggae artist Jah Cure (2005, track 9) asks, “What am I longing for? (“Longing For”). To answer simply: I’m longing for me, to know who I am. 26
Why is this important? Identity is an important aspect of human lives, as Hecht and
Ribeau (1991) believe that as “identities evolve and emerge out of social interaction, identity types begin to take shape and define social existence. Thus different identities emerge out of different construals of social reality” (p. 501). Traditionally, identity has been studied as a fixed entity that disintegrates over time (Glazer & Moynihan, 1970; Herskovits, 1938; Redfield,
Linton, & Herskovits, 1936; Steinberg, 1989). Identity may influence one’s behavior as well as one’s relationship to a specific group, but understandings of identity become rather complicated when considering issues of race, nationality, location, and border-crossing.
Most of the research on African American identity focuses on issues related to racial identity (Asante, 1980; Baldwin & Bell, 1985; Sellers et al., 1998; Thompson Sanders, 1991,
1995, 1999). Scales measuring racial identity of African Americans have been used extensively, especially Cross’ Model of Psychological Nigrescence (1971, 1991). This model is used to describe the five stages of racial identity development in African Americans and to describe the unique social and cultural experience of being Black in the U.S. It examines how a Black person constructs a psychologically healthy Black identity despite inequalities inherent in U.S. society.
Though it is a useful model for examining racial/ethnic identity development, it fails to address the process of identity development at a specific event.
Believe it or not, this method is considered to be the underground approach. It offers a qualitative description, including a person’s attitude and belief regarding the African American community. This approach is not unfamiliar to the Black community, for it was DuBois
(1903/1969) theory of double consciousness that addressed the psychological development of
Black identity. Double consciousness creates for African Americans a feeling of “two-ness—an
American and a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals 27 in one dark body” (p. 38). He sees African Americans as both Black and American, but positing that these are two separate concepts that impact African Americans identities. African Americans have not weaved a unified identity that is both Black and American; instead, their identity is fractured—at times it is of an American and at others it is of a Negro. Dubois’ theory
“recognizes that African Americans’ cultural experience is not only a consequence of their stigmatized status within this society, but also is a function of their particular historical and cultural experiences in America and Africa” (Shelton & Shellers, 2000, p. 29).
The more mainstream approach to African American identity focuses on universal properties of group identity. Oftentimes it has focused on the impact that group identities have on individual behaviors and the process resulting in group identities. This approach tends to ignore specific experiences of different groups; rather, these researchers focus on common psychological structures that influence group identities of different ethnic/racial groups. They use measures that are applicable to members across a variety of groups (Luhtanen & Crocker,
1992; Phinney, 1992). Universal properties and the significance of group identity on an individual are the main goals of this approach. Jean Phinney’s Multigroup Ethnic Identity Model
(MEIM) is the most popular of this group. “She argues that it is important to examine the universal properties associated with all ethnic groups” (Shelton & Shellers, 2000, p. 29). Though she knows that differences persist amongst various ethnic/racial groups, she still supports using a single measure and method of investigating identity development. This method falters in its ability to theorize specific aspects and experiences of different groups. Rather, in one broad sweeping stroke, Phinney (1992) tries to understand the universal properties of group identities, regardless of the groups. It tells little about the person’s feelings about the group or of being a group member. 28
Other research has addressed factors associated with the development of racial identity
(Broman, Neighbors & Jackson, 1988; Demo & Hughes, 1990; Ellison, 1991). Age, income, education, geographic location, religion, neighborhood composition, educational level, and political activism are all variables that have been used to predict the impact of racial identity among African Americans. McPherson and Shelby (2004) explain five dimensions of Black identity, which they refer to as modes of Blackness. They believe that Black identity operates at a racial, ethnic, national, cultural, and political dimension. Racial dimension adheres to the idea of race, meaning that the person has to be of African descent. Ethnic dimension observes the idea of ethnicity, meaning that the person endorses Black cultural norms. National dimension includes both ethnic and racial dimensions but it also focuses on group territory or home, i.e., a neighborhood or geographical area. Cultural dimension means that a person supports Black aesthetic, language, and religion. And the political dimension means that a person shows a commitment to resisting oppression and supports group empowerment. They believe that these may function as a subset, at varying levels, or simultaneously.
Their theory is beneficial, as it offers a way of understanding and conceptualizing Black identity. Many African Americans may recognize themselves within these categories. Yet, these categories can also be a problem, for categories are a way of showing belonging but they can also be used to exclude people from a certain group. What happens if a person does not belong to any of the categories? Does that mean that they are not Black enough? Or what if a person reflects more dimensions than those listed? Does that mean that they are too Black?
Additionally, these dimensions imply that there is nothing more to being Black. These categories also do not account for differences that may exist among African Americans such as sexual preference or religious affiliation. It seems that the authors position African Americans as 29
a homogenous group, which is a faulty assertion. Basically, for one to belong to this model, he
or she has to fit the stereotypical images of what has been popularly defined as “Black” in this
country.
Other Black centered models on identity have been developed, including Baldwin’s
(1981, 1984), Baldwin and Bell (1985), Baldwin, Duncan, and Bell (1987) and Kambon’s (1992)
Afrocentric alternatives, which expand issues of continuity for Africans within the Diaspora.
Baldwin’s model centers on the two core components of a complex biopsychical structure of
Black personality—African self-extension orientation and African self-consciousness. The
African self-extension uses spirituality as the organizing principle of the Black personality system, where spirituality allows an inter-connectedness with the total communal experience. It
“gives coherence, continuity, and Africanity to the basic behaviors and psychological functioning of African American people” (Richardson, 1998, pp. 78-9). The second component,
African self-consciousness, “Refers to the conscious level expression of the African self- extension orientation, and it represents the conscious collective survival thrust of African people
(p. 79). In this regard, it offers a way of understanding the affect of oppression on African
peoples.
I’ve explained the previous models used to investigate African American identity. I’ve
discussed both the mainstream and the underground approach and even offered Afrocentric
alternatives. But something is still missing here? For one, all of the above research focuses on
Black identity within the U.S., as if it is confined to U.S. borders. I’ve already shown that Black
folks travel, so why is there such a lack of research on Black identities in motion? Two, this
research essentializes Blackness by its refusal to explore Black identity as being fluid and
multidimensional. Additionally, this research limits our understanding of Black identity, for 30
African American identity is also shaped by it being a part of a larger African Diaspora. In seeing that African Americans are also Diasporic subjects, it becomes useful to understand the ways in which other countries, especially in Africa, impact Diasporic identity. Don’t get me wrong, the above theories are beneficial, but they are somewhat limited. I want to expand these ideas, use them as a sort of jumping board for my own research. There’s a hole in the literature that I wish to fill: I wish to expose a different way of studying identity by drawing connections between race and travel and by expounding on the ways in which an African Diasporic subject is interpellated in the discourse produced about African identity, as observed from experiences in
Burkina Faso, Benin, and Ghana. This research will definitely add to previous understandings of identity. Now, what do I need in order to accomplish this task? I need more ways of theorizing identity. I need more pluralistic ways of understanding identity. I need the work of Mercer
(1994), Lee (1998), Johnson (2004), hooks (1990, 1995), Clifford (1992), Hall (1990, 1991) and
Halualani (2002).
Identity Excursions
Once you know who you are, you don’t have to worry any more—Nikki Giovanni, 1943 (as cited in Lancaster, 2001).
What did I know about myself? Well, I knew that I was somewhat cute, a little smart, and a tomboy. I knew that I came from sharecroppers in the middle Georgia area. I knew that my father was in Macon’s civil rights bus boycott when he was a teenager. What did I not know? I didn’t really know the complicated position I occupy until the summer of 2004.
A seven passenger Mercury Mountaineer headed down I-75, destined for Tybee Island, a small island off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. A celebratory vacation for the completion of my master’s degree, every seat was filled with small nieces and nephews and my older aunt, father, and mother. I sat in the front, next to my father as he drove and we listened to a little Otis 31
Redding. My father momentary interrupted my easy listening with talks of the past and the future.
“You know, what’cha doing is important,” he said as he lowered the volume on the radio.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said surprisingly.
“Yeah, it is. Your dream is the dream of the slave. Don’t you know that?” he questioned.
“Uh, yeah,” I stammered. “I’ve thought about that.”
He turns and faces me, proudly exclaiming, “Your great-great-great grandmothers were slaves, but look at you. They’d be so proud of you right now.”
Would they? Would they be proud to know that I wasn’t even sure of who I was? That I was now beginning to question my own identity, my own being in this world. That my identity didn’t seem to come as natural to me. And yet now it seems that traveling has caused a further rupture in who I am and how I see myself. Mercer (1994) explains that “identity only becomes an issue when it is in crisis, when something assumed to be fixed, coherent and stable is displaced by the experience of doubt and uncertainty” (p. 503). For some people, identity is not a problem. It’s something that few will ever challenge. Lee (1998) agrees with Mercer, finding that “identity often remains dormant for those who are content with their living arrangements, social networks, and ideological milieu. Identity, however, becomes an awakened, conscious issue when agency questions surface: Who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing? Who do I want to be?” (pp. 22-23).
And yet maybe the problem was that I had essentialized blackness, locked it into specific categories and constructions, holding it hostage from the outside world. I even hate to admit that
I should have heeded E. Patrick Johnson’s (2004) warning to not see blackness in opposition to 32 whiteness, but as a cultural identity that is fluid and versatile, varying from location to location.
It can never be captured, as it is slippery beyond scope. hooks (1990) helps me understand the importance of critiquing essentialism, stating,
Such a critique allows us to affirm multiple black identities, varied black experience. It
also challenges colonial imperialist paradigms of black identity which represent
blackness one-dimensionally in ways that reinforce and sustain white supremacy. When
black folks critique essentialism, we are empowered to recognize multiple experiences of
black identity that are the lived conditions which make diverse cultural productions
possible. (pp. 28-29)
In a subsequent work, Killing Rage: Ending Racism, hooks (1995) offers another way of understanding Black identity. She describes the changes that resulted in a drastic detour from
Black identity based on common experiences producing racial bonding to Black identity as a response to White supremacy. Racial integration further complicated the notion of a monolithic
Black identity or community, since many African Americans received gains based on class.
Nationalist rhetoric offers a unitary representation of Blackness, but fails in its many attempts to subvert the dominant White supremacy ideologies. hooks finds that we must acknowledge the fluidity of Black identities and “only by privileging the reality of that changing black identity will we be able to engage a prophetic discourse about subjectivity that will be liberatory and transformative” (p. 250).
I’ve come to understand myself through my journey because it exposes me to something different about my identity. As Clifford (1992) argues, “Cultural identities can no longer be adequately understood in terms of place, but are better conceptualized in terms of travel” (cited in Barker, 2000, p. 200). And let me go further. I must say that I believe Hall’s (1991) identity 33
theory described in his article “Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities.” That we
should abandon our old ways of understanding identity, that identity is in process, that it lives
through difference, continually producing and reproducing itself, that it is not based on
similarities between peoples, but is “always in part a narrative, always in part a kind of
representation. It is always within representation. Identity is not something which is formed
outside and then we tell stories about it. It is that which is narrated in one’s own self” (Hall,
1991, pp. 147-48).
In another work, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” Hall (1990) contends that there are at
least two different ways of thinking about ‘cultural identity.’ The first position defines
‘cultural identity’ in terms of one shared culture, a sort of collective . . . which people
with a shared history and ancestry hold in common. The second position recognizes that,
as well as the many points of similarity, there are also critical points of deep and
significant difference which constitute ‘what we really are;’ rather – since history has
intervened – ‘what we have become.’ (pp. 222-223)
For Hall, the first position defines identity as ‘being’ (which offers a sense of unity and
commonality), and his second position defines identity as ‘becoming’ (or a process of
identification, which acknowledges the discontinuity in identity formation).
And who can forget Halualani’s (2002) impressive book In the Name of Hawaiians in which she takes the reader on a personal journey through the discursive formation of Hawaiian identity. In her book, she examines the ways in which Hawaiian identity has been impacted by specific contexts and different theories, particularly highlighting the use of historical imaginary, law and governance, tourism, and diasporic community practices. Her goal is to expose the ways in which significant historical moments have shaped Hawaiian identity and sociality, which 34 ultimately influence their own self-understanding. Her work is grounded in the belief that
“identities are legacies in the making” (p. xv). She asks, “How are we, as social-historical subjects, related to power in terms of the structural forces that invisibly inscribe how we see and enact ‘who we are’? And what are the ways in which we can actively move through framed conditions?” (p. xxiii).
What implications do these efforts have for my work? Well, it explains that identity is plural, that the confusion I experience about my own identity is not abnormal, that identity is not a concrete category, but a contested and contradictory concept complicated by notions of modernity. Plural ways of conceptualizing identity are needed in order to explore the ways in which identity is created by communities within Burkina Faso, Benin, and Ghana and to understand the affect it has on a diasporic subject. This plurality definitely comes in handy, especially in my attempt to conceptualize how these countries construct African identity. I offer ways of investigating how identity is formed through cultural and historical representations. It is these works that guide this project as I expound on identity transformations. However, I must be careful as I walk this tightrope of identity, as Wright (2004) advises:
Seeking to determine subjectivity in the African diaspora means constantly negotiating
between two extremes. On one end stands the ‘blackness that swallows,’ the
hypercollective, essentialist identity, which provides the comfort of absolutist assertions
in exchange for the total annihilation of the self. On the other end stands the
hyperindividual identity . . . which grants a wholly individualized (and somewhat
fragmented) self in exchange for the annihilation of Blackness as a collective term. Any
truly accurate definition of an African diasporic identity, then, must somehow
simultaneously incorporate the diversity of black identities in the diaspora yet also link 35
all those identities to show that they indeed constitute a diaspora rather than an
unconnected aggregate of different peoples linked only in name. (p. 2)
And speaking of Diaspora . . .
Diaspora Odyssey
From the beginning of this discussion, until now, I’ve referred to Diaspora without a
specific explanation of what it is. And if identity is already slippery and hard to grasp, its
connection to Diaspora adds another dimension. What exactly is a Diaspora? Park (1950)
defines Diaspora as “a Greek term for a nation or part of a nation separated from its state or
territory and dispersed among other nations but preserving its national culture. . . . The term is
used with reference to those parts of the Jewish people residing outside Palestine” (p. 112). The
Jewish Diaspora has been the most widely studied Diaspora, including anti-semitism and
extermination (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1986), the Holocaust (Bauman, 1989; Boyarin, 1992;
Langer, 1991), and construction of Jewish-ness and Jewish identity (Jacobson, 1998; Mosse,
1971), even though many diasporas exists based on racial, ethnic, or religious characteristics.
Sander Gilman’s (1991) “Are Jews White? Or, the History of the Nose Job,” found in
The Jew’s Body is one of the most prolific bodies of literature about the Jewish Diaspora and identity, specifically addressing the images and stereotypes used in constructing Jewish-ness. He uses current debates in the U.S., particularly focusing on discourse about the Jewish body, thereby further challenging notions of Jewish whiteness and calling attention to the Jewish nose and skin color as changing representations from nineteenth century onwards. As you can see,
Diaspora studies have been thoroughly populated by research on Jewish communities.
Yet, we also need a wider understanding of Diaspora, not just its applicability among
Jewish populations. In general, Diaspora immediately connotes issues of border-crossing, as 36
Clifford (1994) writes, “The term ‘diaspora’ is a signifier not simply of transnationality and movement, but of political struggles to define the local—I would prefer to call it place—as a distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacement” (p. 308). Barker (2000) explains the connection between traveling, Diaspora, and identity, citing that
Diaspora focuses attention on travels, journeys, dispersion, homes and borders in the
context of questions about who travels. . . . The concept of Diaspora helps us think about
identities in terms of contingency, indeterminancy and conflict; of identities in motion
rather than of absolutes of nature or culture. Routes rather than roots. (p. 201)
Identities travel, are always in a sort of limbo, never static or clinging; instead, where you are going is more important than where you are from. Hall and Du Gay (1996) add, “Diaspora emphasizes the historically spatial fluidity and intentionality of identity, its articulation to structures of historical movements. [It] links identity to spatial location and identifications” (p.
92).
From the above discussion, one can tell that Diasporas are not arbitrary places; rather they are spatial locations that serve a need for the residing community. This space is rather complicated as Brah describes (1996):
Diaspora space as a conceptual category is ‘inhabited’ not only by those who have
migrated and their descendants, but equally by those who are constructed and represented
as indigenous. In other words, the concept of diaspora space . . . includes the
entanglement, the intertwining of the genealogies of dispersion with those ‘staying put.’
The diaspora space is the site where the native is as much a diasporian as the diasporian
is a native. (p. 209) 37
Though Diaspora communities range in their scope and capacity, there are some general characteristics and attributes that most Diasporic communities share.
Usually most diasporic communities, generally speaking . . . share an emotional
attachment to their ancestral land, are cognizant of their dispersal and, if conditions
warrant, their oppression and alienation in the countries in which they reside. Members
of diasporic communities also tend to possess a sense of “racial,” ethnic, or religious
identity that transcends geographic boundaries, share broad cultural similarities, and
sometimes articulate a desire to return to their original homeland. (Palmer, 2000, p. 29)
With this definition is mind, it’s rather simple to understand the African Diaspora. The
African Diaspora is a relatively new term, only being used for the past forty years, even though they have been in existence a long time in different parts of the world. It has been used to show the connections among people of African descent. Early definitions of the term attempted to expand understanding based on the Jewish Diaspora. George Shepperson (1968) uses a Biblical analogy to make the comparison:
Although it cannot be said that the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, the so-called Negroes,
have been dispersed into all kingdoms and countries of the world, they have certainly
migrated to a very large number of them. And the forces which have driven them abroad,
slavery and imperialism, have been similar to those which scattered the Jews. It is,
therefore, not difficult to understand why the expression ‘the African Diaspora’ has given
currency as a description of the great movement. . . . (pp. 51-52)
Although much of the research on the African Diaspora focuses on the Atlantic branch, the African Diaspora is actually made of three other Diasporas: the intra-African, Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean. Scholars such as Zeleza (2005) are particularly bothered by U.S. and 38
‘Atlantic exceptionalism’ and English, resulting in the marginalization of other African
Diasporas, like Brazil, which is the largest African Diaspora in the Americas. Even though many
Diasporas exists, regardless of their location, “Real or imagined, Africa is the matrix of the
African Diaspora, the lost homeland and center. For people of African descent who had been abducted from or driven out of Africa, the ‘dark’ continent is the place of origin, the guarantor of identity and filiation; it is a mythic site, a source of inspiration and consolation, to which one longs to return” (Fabre and Benesch, 2004, p. xv). The African Diaspora groups African descended people linked as much by a common experience of enslavement, forced migration, color and race prejudice, discrimination as by their genetic makeup. It is usually concerned with one of two issues:
(1) The ways in which preceding African cultural, social, or political forms influence
African-descended persons in their new environment, and how such forms change
through interaction with non-African cultures (European, Native American, Asian, etc.);
and (2) comparisons and relationships between communities of African-descended
people who are geographically separated or culturally distinct. (Gomez, 2005, p. 2)
Two recent seminal works—both published in 2001—Rethinking the African Diaspora:
The Making of the Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil by Mann and Bay and
The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities by Okpewho, Davis, and
Mazrui provide information on the global aspects of the African Diaspora, focusing on the experiences of different people of African descent across the globe. These works display multiple voices and multiple identities linking people of African descent across regional areas, showing life on both sides of the Atlantic and showing the interconnectedness of cultural norms. 39
These works offer different ways of conceiving of Diaspora and Africa and its relation to identity.
Any discussion on the African Diaspora would be incomplete without referencing Paul
Gilroy (1993), whose influential work The Black Atlantic has been noted as being a canonical piece in both postcolonial and African Diaspora studies. Gilroy’s work has also allowed me to understand the concept of Diaspora as it relates to the African Diaspora. Gilroy believes the dispersal of Black people from Africa resulted in the creation of the Black Atlantic instead of an
African Diaspora. He notes the limitations in our current understanding of Diaspora, believing
Diaspora should be seen as a unit of analysis by itself. He comments in a 1994 interview that
first we have to fight over the concept diaspora and to move it away from the obsession
with origins, purity and invariant sameness. Very often the concept of diaspora has been
used to say, ‘Hooray! We can rewind the tape of history, we can get back to the original
moment of our dispersal!’ I’m saying something quite different. That’s why I didn’t call
the book diaspora anything. I called it Black Atlantic because I wanted to say, ‘If this is a
diaspora, then it’s a very particular kind of diaspora. It’s a diaspora that can’t be
reversed. (Lott, 1994, pp. 56-57)
He finds that the dispersal of Africans from Africa and the contact between Africans and others has created a hybridized and creolized transatlantic culture. Therefore, no group has a monopoly on Black cultural productions or expressions because all have access to it. Black intellectual thought like DuBois, Delaney, Wells-Barnett, and Wright as well as Black music (hip-hop, jazz, reggae) are products of the transatlantic culture of the Black Atlantic, for they rarely follow any defined path or trajectory. The Black Atlantic exceeds national borders and limitations, ethnicity, time, and space. 40
Even though Gilroy’s work has had a profound impact upon research pertaining to the
African Diaspora, it has not gone without thorough critique. Palmer (2000) criticizes Gilroy’s analysis for using a nomenclature that is problematic on various levels. It privileges the experiences of those who lie in the Atlantic basin, especially in North Atlantic, at the expense of the other African Diaspora communities mentioned earlier in the discussion. In this sense,
Gilroy conflates the histories, memories, and experiences of different diasporic groups. Palmer also calls attention to the racialization of the name, asking whether a “White Diaspora” also exists. Palmer is most unsettled with Gilroy’s use of the Atlantic as a signifier, citing this ocean’s prominence in the haunting memories of the Middle Passage. Likewise, Zeleza (2005) also finds Gilroy’s analysis problematic for not thoroughly engaging with the African American experience, especially the pivotal role that Africa plays in African American thought and collective memory. Even when discussing modernity, he often focuses on the work of Black males, using exploration and travel in Europe as an awakening experience for DuBois, Wright, and others. Zeleza finds Gilroy’s
postmodernist phobias against essentialism, real and imaginary, strategic or slight, while
at the same time desperately seeking a ‘black,’ not a ‘white,’ or ‘multicultural’ Atlantic;
for its exclusionary epistemic cultural politics in its Eurocentric excision and disdain for
Africa; and for mystifying modernity as the primary object of Black Atlantic critique
barring questions of imperialism and capitalism. (p. 37)
Because the Jewish Diaspora remains the focus of much of the work in Diaspora studies, this poses a problem when expanding understanding about the African Diaspora, which is different from the Jewish Diaspora in its composition, maintenance, and relationship to its homeland. My study is just one way of complicating the notion of Diaspora, shifting the focus to 41 the African Diaspora and connecting African America to Africa. Plus, the relatively new studies on the African Diaspora fail to address issues of identity, race, journey, and Diaspora as interrelated concepts. This shows the worthiness of my study: to show the ways in which my identity is understood while taking different routes, while exposing myself to different environments, different conditions, different ideologies, and different representations all within a diasporian space.
Postcolonial Trek
I haven’t simply been speaking of race and journeying. Nor have I just given isolated understanding of identity and Diaspora. And it would be shortsighted to assume that I’ve arbitrarily discussed general elements about these terms. Rather, these concepts provide a lens into my theoretical section. Madison (1999) explains the importance of theory:
You sense that theory is more than adoration or disdain. It is more than language,
gatekeepers, belonging, respect, or isolation. It is all and nothing more than recognition.
You think you know something, but theory leads you to know it again. You were always
aware of power, beauty, pain, language, race, and yourself. But theory circles you back
to all of them, including yourself. Breaking the parts open, piece by piece, theory
demands that you take notice—pay closer attention. You see again and greet anew.
Things are more complicated, because things are more. Whether you agree with theory
or not (even if you argue with it) it makes you feel and see differently. You speak
differently and more. The recognition is not unrecognized. (p. 109)
What you’ve been reading about falls under the rubric of postcolonial theories. Theorists like Clifford, Said, Hall, Gilroy, Fanon, Spivak, and Brah are some of the many postcolonial scholars whose work complicate notions of identity, home, journey, the body, displacement, 42
location, and Diaspora, just to name a few. Though these scholars come from different
disciplines, backgrounds, and trainings, their work provides a critical way of understanding
culture, society, and people. Young (2001) describes postcolonial cultural critique as “focusing on the forces of oppression and coercive domination within the contemporary world such as the politics of anti-colonialism and neocolonialism, race, gender, class, nationalism, and ethnicity”
(p. 11). Additionally, it offers pluralistic ways of understanding these concepts by dislodging them from their usual fixed positions and by offering varied and multiple interpretations of phenomenon.
It’s not surprising that I would choose to use theories like these. They present the conflicts underlying the interaction between groups of people, not just in the U.S., but the world
over. They explain conflicts that are racialized, ethnicized, nationalized, sexualized, classified,
and gendered. They encompass the ideas and the consciousness of previously colonized peoples
by articulating their experiences under colonial domination in an attempt to define and
rediscover their identity free of external pervasion or expedient distortion. That’s why when
using these theories, scholars have a strong element of resistance, as seen in the work of Frantz
Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Kwame Nkrumah, Walter
Rodney, and Gloria Anzaldua.
Said’s (1978) canonical book, Orientalism, develops a vocabulary to describe the ways in
which non-Europeans are demonized in society and expands understanding of culture. He
believes that culture produces the political, causing text to create both knowledge and reality.
What makes Orientalism such a vital and powerful book is the way Said developed a new
discourse on postcolonial theory. This book influenced debates about the interrelationships of
postcolonial literatures by investigating the powerful forces acting on language in the 43 postcolonial text, and showing how these texts constitute a radical critique of Eurocentric notions of literature and language. With the publication of this book, the language used to refer to colonial territories changed and a new discourse was created.
Another well-respected postcolonial scholar that has followed in the footsteps of Said is
Gayatri Spivak, who in 1985 threw a challenge to the race-class blindness of the Western academy, asking, Can the Subaltern speak? By ‘subaltern’ Spivak meant the oppressed subject, the members of Antonio Gramci’s ‘subaltern’ classes, or more generally those of inferior rank.
Spivak acknowledges that the Black struggle has been one that has produced the gains associated with postcoloniality and relates it to the problem with identity formation. In an interview with
Landry and MacLean (1996), Spivak comments,
First, subaltern insurgency, struggles within slavery. Emancipation, Pan-Africanism—
something like the nationalist identity necessary for anti-colonial struggles. Within this
analogy, . . . the gains of the Civil Rights movement may be comparable to negotiated
independence, which is when the problems of postcoloniality begin. . . . Identity battles
are then like the failure of decolonization that is the usual post-Independence experience.
(p. 295)
She interrogates the politics of culture from a marginal perspective in her article, “Can the
Subaltern Speak (1985)?” Spivak describes how an Indian widow who was also involved in the national struggle for Indian independence, Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri, killed herself while menstruating as a way of articulating her own agency. Her death would be re-writing the discourse on sati-suicide. But because her story would be re-written by others, Spivak concluded that the subaltern is still unable to speak. Her point here is that like the colonized, the postcolonial or neocolonial subject still does not have agency and is still not heard. She calls for 44 formation of sites that will allow the subaltern to speak, a way of moving locations in order to understand the possibilities that arise by problematizing positionality. She explains that “what we are asking for is that the hegemonic discourses, and the holders of hegemonic discourse, should dehegemonize their position and themselves learn how to occupy the subject position of the other” (p. 125). Spivak urges me to critically think through my beliefs, prejudices and assumptions, and to ask myself: how did this knowledge arise and become “normalized”?
Although postcolonial theories have been dominated by work produced by South Asian scholars, the work done by African peoples has not gone unnoticed. Fanon’s (1963) seminal work Wretched of the Earth helps define postcolonial theory through its militant articulation of anti-colonial revolution, becoming the handbook for the procedures and experiences of colonial subjects. He provides an extensive analysis of the colonial system at a theoretical and psychological level, thereby creating a psychopathology of colonialism.
He also describes identity dilemmas experienced by colonized Black subjects in Black
Skins, White Mask (1967). In this book, he focuses on the adverse effects that racism and oppression have produced on the Black psyche. He believes that Black people are psychologically unhealthy due to a racist society that creates harmful psychological constructs that prevent Black people from acknowledging White hegemony. To Fanon, the Black man dons a white mask by “epidermalizing” white cultural values into his consciousness. He becomes alienated from his body and himself.
African born scholar Ngugi wa Thiongo has used postcolonial theory to develop a brand of decolonizing ideology. Postcolonial theory has forged the discourse out of which the language of imperialism emerged and the idea of the “civilizing mission.” For Thiongo, rejection of the colonizers language meant a reclaiming of a part of his Gikuyu identity. In his 1986 work 45
Decolonizing the Mind, Thiongo describes the significance of language, believing it is a way for
people to better understand themselves and the world around them. For him, writing in Gikuyu
is a way of decolonizing the mind and going back to his mother tongue, thereby, dismantling the
dominant cultures insidious form of oppression.
Moreover, Caribbean activist/scholar Walter Rodney can be credited for using
postcolonial theory to challenge ideas of underdevelopment in Africa and modern colonized
civilizations. In his 1981 work How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney analyzes the colonial relationship of production and the economic and political contradictions that continue in poverty-stricken Africa today. Rodney uses a postcolonial theoretical approach to illustrate how a neocolonial condition and imperialism has Africa depending on a capitalist system.
What’s the importance of using postcolonial theories? Well, the study of African
American or African Diasporic identity would be incomplete without acknowledging the role colonialism played in shaping Black identities. Any conceptualization of Black identity must begin with this concept. Colonization, “An economically driven activity involving the subjugation of one people by another” (Young, 2001, p. 16) took place throughout African countries; yet, its applicability and continuation in the Americas was usually through slavery and labeled in terms of racism. Slavery and racism were both products of colonialism. African
American identity can be understood as a product of internal colonization as hooks (1995) describes, “Even though African Americans in the United States had no country, whites took over and colonized; as a structure of domination that is defined as the conquest and ownership of a people by another, colonialism aptly describes the process by which blacks were and continue to be subordinated by white supremacy” (pp. 108-9). 46
Postcolonial writing also sparks a good conversation, a political conversation with its own consigned language of the oppressed and marginalized. The writing highlights a struggle, but also a commitment to the work bound to the quest for self or a “usable identity” as Fanon asserts, or a defined historical culture. In this writing, I can symbolically reclaim, name, and return to the community the cultural past and identity of which she has been deprived.
Postcolonial theory allows me to forge, within my own specific historical and cultural contexts, a new way of exploring and educating the world through the revolutionary power of a discourse which allows deconstruction of heteronormative, racist, oppressive mainstream theories which place people considered “other” outside of the canon. Plus, writing can be seen as a form of resistance. Gates, Jr. (1984) points out in his essay “Criticism in the Jungle” that “for all sorts of complex historical reasons, the very act of writing has been a ‘political’ one for the black author”
(p. 5). For Gates, writing means responding to the system of thoughts that underpin Black political and cultural reality in the U.S. for centuries. Postcolonial theory laminates principles and assumptions about Black cultural lives and identities.
Touring Imagined Communities: Importing Cultural and Collective Memories
Imagine belonging to a place
a place so close in mind
Yet so far in distance.
You reach out to touch
yet your memory fades.
A forgotten memory.
I’ve realized that belonging is more important to me than I thought. There’s something about connecting with a place, connecting with a certain time and space. In a sense, its’ 47 therapeutic, this sense of rationalizing positionality in this world. If one can show belonging to a place, then one has achieved much of an admired goal: the reassurance that one’s identity has a foundation. In a sense, one’s identity is built around the happenings of an imagined community.
It is the imagined communities encountered on my journey that reveal the vulnerability of my own identity, yet expose me to other ways of understanding Black identity.
Benedict Anderson (1983) describes nations as primarily constructed imagined communities. For Anderson, a nation “is imagined as a community, because . . . it is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship . . . [thereby] members are willing to die for such limited imaginings” (p. 7). Anderson goes on to show how print capitalism impacted the formation of these imagined communities by disseminating symbols and rituals that in turn create national identity and consciousness. Print language organized and created unity in a group of people, enabling them to understand each other. “The convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language . . . set the stage for the modern nation”
(Anderson, 1983, p. 46). Although Anderson’s theory does not account for differences across gender, race, ethnicity, class, etc. or the instability of identity, his theory provides a way of understanding the ways in which print communication determines the conditions for national consciousness and identity and the nation-state.
How can we speak of imagined communities without discussing the significance of time, space, and place? These are concepts that help create a sense of community within a nation.
Nations are organized around a common sense of time measurable by calendar and clock.
Hardly do we speak of time in relation to space, even though Foucault (1980) remarks, “A whole history remains to be written of spaces—which would at the same time be the history of powers—both these terms in the plural—from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little 48 tactics of the habitat” (p. 149). For example, our homes are designed according to different living spaces, i.e., bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, etc. and our interaction in these particular spaces dictate social meanings. Yet, space is not a flat surface that time traipses across; rather, it is relationally defined, exposing social relations and revealing cultural practices and assumptions.
As communication scholars, we know that space is communicative. Weisman (1992) explains,
“There is a striking parallel between space and language. . . . Space, like language, is socially constructed; and like the syntax of language, the spatial arrangements of our buildings and communities reflect and reinforce the nature of gender, race, and class relations in society” (p.
2). And what about place? Barker (2000) writes that “place . . . [is] the focus of human experience, memory, desire and identity. That is, places are discursive constructions which are the target of emotional identification or investment” (p. 293). White (2004) finds Anderson’s theory especially beneficial as it shows that “the imagining of the community is not a matter of the community’s content, for A may be engaged in different daily activities from B, while perhaps even speaking a different vernacular from C or practicing a different religion from D.
What is important, rather, is how A feels connected to B, C, and D in time and space” (p. 53).
With the conversation veering in this direction, I dare not continue without addressing how nations also reflect cultural and collective memories. Nations may use different ways of inscribing memories in their citizens. For example, they may use holidays and celebrations to commemorate certain events, i.e., Fourth of July to mark U.S. independence from England.
Collective memory has a specific function, which
unifies the group through time and over space by providing a narrative frame, a collective
story, which locates the individual and his and her biography within it, and which,
because it can be represented as narrative and as text, attains mobility. The narrative can 49
travel, as individuals travel, and it can be embodied, written down, painted, represented,
communicated and received in distant places by isolated individuals, who can then,
through them, be remembered and reunited with the collective. (Eyerman, 2004, p. 161)
Maurice Halbwachs (1951/1992) believes that cultural and collective memories are developed by a community through the narratives that frame their needs and interests. These narratives are the source of the memories that are used to define a particular community. That’s why memory is so dynamic: there’s constant feedback between the community and their memories, cyclical in a way. Collective memories are then tied to individual experience, as Kenny (1999) finds that
all experience is individual in that collectivities do not have minds, or memories either,
though we speak as if they did. Yet it is also true that individuals are nothing without the
prior existence of the collectivities that sustain them, the cultural traditions and the
communicative practices that position the self in relation to the social and natural worlds.
(p. 421)
Memories complicate notions of time, space, and place in many ways, for they are often grounded in the past yet presented in the future. Additionally, memories are constructed for a reason and play a significant role in identity formation, as Said (2000) finds, “Ours has become an era of a search for roots, of people trying to discover in the collective memory of their race, religion, community, and family a past that is entirely their own, secure from the ravages of history and a turbulent time. . . . [Memory] gives them a coherent identity, a national narrative, a place in the world” (pp. 177/179). Meanings are shared through memory. Just think of the texts we read, including poetry, books, and even chronicles. Or repeated festivals, i.e., Juneteenth celebrations marking emancipation for African Americans; rituals, spectacles, or ceremonies. A common cultural memory helps maintain group identity. But what we choose to remember is 50
somewhat distorted by what we choose to forget, and that is one expense of remembering certain
events. Heller (2001) finds that “creating identity by reinforcing old cultural memories, by
selecting among them, by creating new memories, or by fusing them, aims at making certain
distinctions and achieving a kind of completion, all of which frequently places emphasis on the
exclusion of other memories” (pp. 1033-1034).
Memories are also spatially constructed. Think for a moment of places that have a
significant or special meaning. There has to be a reason why some may have strong reactions
upon visiting, whether it’s a certain spot in the neighborhood, a cemetery, or a bridge or building
that sparks emotion. Pierre Nora (1989) agrees that some memories are non-material
(commemorations and public displays). But others are physical “sites of memory” that are
spatially constructed. Tangible elements from the past, such as prisons, battlefields, and burial
places are material sites that maintain concrete and physical memories. It is linked to sites where
a significant or unique event took place, or is regularly repeated. Sites like the World Trade
Center, cities like Hiroshima, monuments and buildings like the Auschwitz death camp, and even
historical figures like Abraham Lincoln are all spatially constructed memories. Young (1993)
describes these places as informing imagined communities. They are “sites where groups of
people gather to create a common past for themselves, places where they tell the constitutive
narratives, their ‘shared’ stories of the past; they become communities precisely by having
shared the experiences of their neighbors” (pp. 6-7). Blair finds that memorial sites “by their very existence, create communal spaces” (p. 48).
This area is not a new form of inquiry, for there has been an intensive investigation into
this subject, especially its concern for memorials, monuments, and museums. Just look at some
of the research regarding memories as pertaining to war and nationalism (Heffernan, 1995; 51
Johnson, 1995; Withers, 1996), American memorials of violence and tragedy (Foote, 2003), race and memorials (Leib, 2002), or Robben Island (Hoelscher & Alderman, 2004). But the majority of this research focuses on the Jewish Diaspora, especially Jewish memories as displayed in museums and memorial sites. As a result, there is a range of research in this area. Scholars have examined the significance of narratives and Jewish cultural memory (Boyarin, 1992;
Brockmeier, 2002; Friedlander, 1993; Valensi, 1986), Holocaust testimonials (Langer, 1991),
Holocaust and identity (Maier, 1988), and Holocaust museums (Katriel, 1993, 1994; Rowe et. al., 2002; Young, 1993, 1994). Maybe this abundance is due to the fact that there are over 50 heritage museums and reconstructed sites all over Isreal. Cultural institutions like museums and other sites of memories are powerful in forming imagined communities because “they are potentially ideal public spaces where personal, private or autobiographical narratives come into contact with larger-scale, collective or national narratives in mutually inter-animating ways”
(Rowe et. al., 2002, p.98). These spaces permit community members to remember, remember an event or scene or happening, a way to “look backward, to the previous life of the community members, so as to constitute them as a collective in the present day” (Zelizer, 1995, p. 187).
Let’s say that Anderson’s (1991) theory is true, that nations are imagined communities created by a specific discourse through print communication, which influences member’s perception of time, space, and place; that nations produce cultural and collective memories to unite citizens, creating a sense of unity among strangers. Would this theory be applicable within
Burkina Faso, Benin and Ghana? In what ways do these communities create a specific African identity and in what way does it impact me as an African Diasporic subject?
The ways in which these countries constructed African identity will likely differ, especially when considering the diverse histories of them all. Burkina Faso is a landlocked 52 country, bordering Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Niger. In the late 1800s,’ it was colonized by France, but it subsequently gained independence in 1960. Similarly, Benin was colonized by France and is located between Nigeria and Togo, and Burkina Faso and Niger to the North, lying at the coast of West Africa. It is known as the “most beaten track by
Europeans of any Africa” (“Facts about the Republic of Benin”). France and Portugal erected ports within the country, but in 1904 it became exclusively a part of French West Africa. It later received independence in 1960. The impact of France’s assimilation tactic of colonization on
Burkina Faso as well as Benin is quite overwhelming, especially upon their culture. I understand that culture is not static or “out there” waiting to be plucked by researchers. Rather, I ask: “not what culture ‘is,’ but how the language of culture is used and for what purposes” (Barker, 2000, p. 35).
Formerly colonized by England, Ghana became the first African country to receive independence through the efforts of Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah in1957. It lies just south of
Burkina Faso, east of Togo, west of Cote d’Ivoire, and south of the Atlantic Ocean. Both Benin and Ghana are recognized for their slave legacy, with Ouidah in Benin marking the official starting point for UNESCO’s slave heritage tour. Benin’s Gateway of No Return and Ghana’s
Elmina and Cape Coast Castle are the destination sites for many people of African descent from the Diaspora.
I argue that, in various ways, these communities interpellated a specific African identity and I became enmeshed in this discourse. The funny thing about interpellation is that the individual has no choice in the matter. Interpellation “describes the process by which ideology addresses the individual. When one realizes that the call is for oneself, one becomes a subject relative to the ideology” (“Interpellation”). Esposito (2003) concurs by adding, “We are called 53 to certain subject-positions; we are asked to take on certain identities. We are not completely free agents in this process of interpellation” (p. 233). Though some insist on the ability to resist ideology, the potency of ideology lies in its ability to seductively and saliently penetrate the minds of individuals. Here it is useful to use Katriel’s (1993) understanding of ideological discourses. Although he uses it to explore the ways in which Israeli heritage museums use ideological communication, one can easily see the connection to the heritage sites explored in
Benin and Ghana. Heritage sites are
laced with little, often disconnected stories about a half-forgotten past woven around the
traces of yesteryear. . . . This rhetoric of beginnings is designed to establish an
authoritative version of the past, to capitalize on the revolutionary phase of national
coming-into-being, and to mobilize audiences’ commitment to the values of the
pioneering era. When performers and audience share a basic ideological frame of
reference, when all indeed argue that they are standing on the very spot where ‘it all
began,’ the museum tour becomes a ritualized enactment of commonly held
understandings and valuations of past events and shared origins. (Katriel, 1993, pp. 71-
72)
In seeing that these sites are not arbitrary standings, but are rather loaded ideological weapons, it becomes important to investigate the ways in which these constructions impact identity. Further, I must also ask: what impact does globalization, tourism, or the socio- economic contexts have on these cultural representations? I should also follow the advice of
Young (1993) and ask: “What meanings are generated when the temporal reality is converted to material form, when time collapses into space. . . . What is the relationship of time to space, place to memory, memory to time?. . . . How does a particular place shape our memory of a 54 particular time? And how does this memory of a past time shape our understanding of the present moment?” (p. 15).
I wish not to conflate the experiences within these different countries, for they differed from each other in various ways. But the experiences within these countries all lead credence to understanding the ways in which African identity is communicated and constructed through ideology. Now there are plenty of ways of approaching ideology, but I choose to understand ideology as constructed through and by motivated representations, to borrow from bell hooks
(1994). hooks uses this term to explain the ways in which popular culture is used by the dominant group to legitimate and maintain their privilege by distorting groups of people in media images, but I believe the term is applicable for my research purposes. How can I use the concept of motivated representations? Well, the representations of African identity that I encountered were not absent ideologies, but were motivated efforts used for a specific purpose by people within society, especially those with authority, power, and privilege. These constructions cannot go without examination, without interrogation, without meaningful analysis. I must interrogate and challenge these representations by asking: What exactly were the motivations for these representations?
Autoethnographic Detour
I know that these are some very complex questions that would lead one to ask, How does she plan to answer them? Good question. But first and foremost, let me explain my agenda before continuing to Chapter 3. I’m not trying to give a concrete answer to these questions, for they cannot be answered simply. An answer would be too quick to give. An answer implies that the story is done, finished, over; that there is nothing else we could possibly learn from the research; that there is no other possible way of investigating race, journeying, identity, diasporas, 55 communities, or memories. No, I’m not giving an answer. I’d rather raise questions than give answers. I want to raise questions that challenge current thinking, moving the reader in different directions. I want to complicate current understanding of the concepts described above. No, I’m not giving an answer. I want to problematize the images encountered in these countries. I want to expose the contradictions inherent in myself, those that caused comfort and discomfort.
The best way to do this is to be innovative, creative, and performative. Autoethnographic writing, this way of writing that “privileges the exploration of self in response to questions that can only be answered that way, through the textual construction of, and thoughtful reflection about, my lived experiences” (Goodall, 1998, p. 3), encompasses all these things. Yes, there’s something special about this type of writing, this autoethnographic writing, this narrative and reflective writing, “This way of connecting the personal to the cultural” (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739). And as Langellier (1999) shows, personal narratives can “educate, empower, and emancipate” (p. 129). This can be of particular importance for marginalized voices like mine.
Just look at some of the literature. One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that
Zora Neale Hurston (1935) dabbled in autoethnographic approaches to construct African
American folktales in the South and voodoo and religious culture in Haiti and Jamaica (1938).
And some may agree with Chaney’s (2001) argument that “all slave narratives are autoethnographic because they are constructed by slaves (the others) and incorporate the idiom of the conqueror with an intent to represent the other to the conqueror (White America)” (pp.
392-393). With autoethnography, marginalized voices are brought to the forefront, as in Dixon’s
(1998) autoethnographic exploration of her Native American culture and her family’s renewed attempts to regain it. 56
Autoethnography allows me to provide highly personalized accounts from my experience
to extend understanding of a particular culture. It allows me to blur the borders of subjectivity
and cultural experience. It is a method and a text, a “form of self-narrative that places the self
within a social context” (Reed-Denahay, 1997, p. 9). My autoethnographic purpose falls more in
line with Pratt (1986), who describes it as a way for “colonized subjects to respond to or dialogue
with metropolitan representations” (p. 7) as a way of promoting marginal voices. Additionally, it will meet Trinh’s (1991) standards of being a responsible, reflexive autoethnography that
“announces its own politics and evidences a political consciousness. It [will] interrogate the realities it represents” (p. 188). Yet, I’m also motivated by the words of Sherley Anne Williams
(1980): “I think that our migrations are an archetype of those of the dispossessed and I want somehow to tell the story of how the dispossessed become possessed of their own history without losing sight, without forgetting the meaning or the nature of their journey” (p. 197). 57
CHAPTER III.
TURBULENT WINDS: BECOMING “KUMBA” IN BURKINA FASO
A person peeked from behind the door and asked: “Kumba?” I turned, a puzzled and startled look on my face: “Are you talking to me?” Looking confused, the person continues, “Yeah, you are Kumba, right?” I step closer, “Yeah . . . I’m Kumba.”
* * * * Plane rides can be dangerous and scary. Just think: an object suspended in motion for
hours, only separated from land by air. No amount of taro readings, spiritual sayings, or midnight prayers can guarantee a safe arrival at the destination. Basically, there is no control. No control over the pilot. No control over the plane. No control over the wind. Winds that blow the plane from side to side, up and down. Winds that make seats unstable, baggage in disarray, and
stomachs unsettle. But I don’t worry, for Bob Marley’s lyrics (1975) ease my mind:
Forget your sorrow and dance
Forget your trouble and dance
Forget your sickness and dance
Forget your weakness and dance
“Dem Belly Full” (track 3)
Forget this momentary situation, for the impending arrival in Burkina Faso offers some comfort.
But the wind in Ouagadougou, the capital, can be tricky too. My body and mind reacted to wind that blew me to shreds, blowing understanding of myself, of culture, of identity. The wind whisked me away out of my comfort zone only to drop me in a place where I became “lost in translation.” This chapter offers investigation into, what I will call, the imagined community
(Anderson, 1983) of Burkina Faso, which worked to create a specific African identity centered
around issues of home, the body, and naming—all enhanced through educational courses and 58 through my living arrangement with a host family. This chapter also highlights the specific ways in which I became interpellated in this discourse, with special reference to the cultural performance of a particular African ethnicity, Fulani.
Home-Coming
I can remember Dorothy’s heartfelt claim in the Wizard of Oz (1939): there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home. All she had to do was click her heels. Click those beautiful diamond-embroidered shoes together, and magically she could return home. Just like that. No waiting in lines, no hassles with travel agents, no long, tedious journey. I guess believing that shoes could somehow lead one back home isn’t as ridiculous as it may sound. People have always had different perceptions of home, believing
that chariots could swing low and carry them home. That home is where the heart is. That one could always find their way back home. That a wo/man home is his/her castle. That we can be at home with a person.
Even E.T., the extra-terrestrial, only had to phone home to return to his family. Bammer (1992) hints that home is “one of the few remaining utopian ideals—the expression of our need to believe in a place of shelter where we ‘belong’ and are safe” (p. xi.). But home is also a complicated concept, as Somerville (1992) believes that “people may have a sense of home even though they have no experience or memory of it” (p. 530, italics added).
* * * *
“You like this, don’t you?” My host-brother asked.
“Yeah! That’s R. Kelly. That’s my song,” I excitedly replied.
“We have more too,” he said.
Out comes more music, including Lauryn Hill, 2Pac, Bob Marley, and more. I was excited to see that they had this music. Maybe this meant that they knew something about my culture. Or 59 maybe they were just accommodating it. But, wait! Why did I automatically assume that they didn’t have this music for themselves, for their own enjoyment? Evidently, I was assuming that they were Africans in Africa, so they couldn’t possibly know anything about this type of music.
They must have been trying to impress the Black Western traveler, or so I thought. This situation speaks directly to Gilroy’s (1993) critique of African American exceptionalism, by which African Americans are positioned as the progenitors of Black cultural forms, especially music, upon which influences from other cultures “dissolve into each other or rather into the receptacle provided for their interaction by the grand narrative of African American cultural strength and durability” (p. 108). I had fallen into this trap of African American hegemony. Still,
I sat on the porch swing with my host-brother and continued listening. I, wearing a white t-shirt and jean Capri pants, and he, in a red Phat Farm shirt and denim jeans.
“You like Phat Farm?” I asked.
“Yeah, you don’t?” He replied.
“Yeah, I do. But I didn’t know Phat Farm was here, in Burkina Faso,” I said.
“No, it’s not. I got it from Nigeria. It’s not real. But it looks like it, doesn’t it?” He asks.
“Oh yeah, like the real thing.” I replied.
I felt funny saying the real thing. It put me in the position where I had to be an authority on
Black culture. I was in the same situation that Johnson (2003) found himself in while conducting research on an all-White, atheist, gospel choir in Australia, where he was asked to determine the authenticity of gospel music. Like Johnson, my Blackness acted as cultural capital, therefore, allowing me to be an expert on Black cultural production. But, the shirt was real because he was wearing it. Plus, I didn’t want to get into the business of dictating what was real or fake. Besides,
I had more pressing issues on my mind, like the new family I was living with, the food, the 60
language barrier, and the whole new culture. I had very mixed feelings about being in Burkina
Faso, even about being in Africa. I didn’t know this place, even though I often dreamed of being
there. Everything was different. The streets were busy with people: people selling things on the
side of the roads, people sitting at tables eating, people riding through on mopeds, following no apparent speed limit. Mopeds. Mopeds. Mopeds everywhere! Donkeys, goats, and chickens aligned most of the un-paved streets.
This was all very surprising to me, but what was I expecting? Was I expecting the streets to be aligned with fancy boutiques and stores instead of local vendors operating from stands?
Was I expecting people to be eating casually in restaurants instead of outside at tables? Was I expecting the streets to be filled with expensive cars instead of mopeds and domestic animals? I was looking at this country and judging it by Western sensibilities. Richard Wright (1954) warns me that “a Westerner must make an effort to banish the feeling that what he [sic] is observing in
Africa is irrational, and, unless he is able to understand the underlying assumptions of the
African’s beliefs, the African will always seem a ‘savage’” (p. 117). But, in this culture of difference, I was lost. This wasn’t the Africa that Countee Cullen praised. This wasn’t the magical place that Langston Hughes dreamed of. This wasn’t the Africa that Maya Angelou wrote passionately about. This wasn’t the Africa that DuBois (1965) described as
A beautiful land; not merely comely and pleasant, but haunted with swamp and jungle,
sternly beautiful in its loveliness of terror, its depth of gloom, and fullness of color; its
heaven tearing peaks, its sliver of endless sand, the might, width and breadth of its rivers,
depth of its lakes, and height of its hot, blue heaven. There are myriads of living things,
the voice of storm, the kiss of pestilence and pain, the old and ever new, new and
incredibly ancient. (p. 85) 61
Was this the real thing?
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
I loved our lunch breaks between classes. Lunch occurred right after our first two
classes, contemporary African culture and African literature. I really enjoyed these classes, but
lunchtime gave me an opportunity to meet the local people and venture around the city. I can
remember walking through the streets and hearing people whispering Black Americans, Black
Americans. Some would even go as far as to yell sister or Black power while holding a fist. I
enjoyed this recognition, for I pictured it as possible admiration.
It rained often because it was the rainy season, which cooled the temperature, but
ultimately made the streets very muddy. There were hardly any clouds in the sky to block the
radiating sun. I sweated profusely from every inch of my body. However, this didn’t bother me,
for I was in Africa. And even though I had noticed some things that contradicted my romantic notions of Africa, I was still in love with the idea of being there. Upon my walk, I came upon an
older woman and some children.
“Madame, madame,” they yelled as they all rushed toward me.
“Parle Vous Anglais? [Do you speak English?]” I asked.
Just then they circled me. I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t speak much French
and apparently they didn’t speak English.
“Madame, madame,” they began motioning with their hands, the woman, old and frail,
and the children, some with ringworms and mouth infections. Apparently, they wanted
something to eat. I grabbed a can of Pringles and gave it to the woman. Just then, she turned
and gave it to all the kids, leaving herself with nothing. They continued tugging at my shirt, but I didn’t have anything more. 62
“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything else,” I replied, knowing they didn’t understand, and
truthfully, their incomprehension of English allowed me to escape the situation.
I was silent on the bus ride home. I walked through the gates of my house, greeted the
family members and continued to my room. I shut the door, turned the lights out, through myself
on my bed and cried. I replay all the things I have access to in the U.S., this privilege to be
privileged. Buju Banton’s (1995) lyrics ring in my head:
Who can afford to run will run
But what about those who can’t, they will have to stay
Opportunity a scarce, scare commodity
In these times I say
“Untold Stories” (track 5)
I wanted to sleep the night away, sleep until days were filled with sunshine, where people didn’t have to beg for food, where they didn’t have to sleep outside on corners, where they didn’t have to suffer from health abnormalities, where they didn’t have to struggle to survive. But, sleeping wouldn’t solve the problem, for it is a reality that “people do not choose to be poor . . .; instead, they are limited and confined by the opportunities afforded or denied them by a social and economic system” (Mantsios, 2000, p. 179). And sleeping couldn’t blind me to my own socioeconomic privilege, a privilege that was built on the back of lower-class blacks who participated in anti-racist struggles. I even hate to admit that I may have even masked my own class privilege because of the overwhelming burdens of race in the U.S. I was one of those people that hooks’ (1995) describes as emphasizing racism as a system of domination without drawing attention to class. They do not want to call attention to the way in which class power mediates the extent to which they will suffer from racist exploitation and aggression. Instead it 63 is in their class interests to emphasize the way racism inhabits their progress” (p. 166). I was settled into a “luxury of obliviousness.” But it is this experience, with hunger, that brings my own class privilege to the forefront. The privilege of not being hungry—something that I would likely take for granted in the U.S.—is a privilege that sleep cannot hide. Sleeping affords me the opportunity for doing just that: sleeping.
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
The days seem really long here. We use this to our advantage, for it gives us time to squeeze in more activities during the day and to see the city. I thought there was nothing more to see in the city: I had seen the poverty, the diseased, the homeless, the starving, and more. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see this Africa, even though I already knew that “the poorest continent is Africa, where as much as half the population meets the UN description of absolute poverty” (Sernau, 2001, p. 242). Still, this wasn’t the Africa that I had envisioned and frankly, I thought maybe that I was too sensitive to deal with the devastation I had seen in this country. I have to ask Fortier’s (2001) question: “What happens to home once it loses its mythical status?”
(p. 412).
We had a planned excursion on this day, so we did not have our 3:00 class, African media and cinema. After stopping by the post office, we left the major downtown area and began what seemed to be a long drive outside of Ouagadougou. The further we got from downtown, more roads became paved and the less people we saw on the streets. Where were we going? No more dilapidated buildings, only a few motorists on mopeds, and clean roads. After about thirty minutes, we pulled into a neighborhood full of luxurious villas constructed in the style of North African palaces. It was called Ouaga 2000. The houses were adorned with vibrant colors, elaborate gardening constructions, and beautifully detailed gates with guards. 64
They were two, three, and four story homes. We were told that government officials and officials from the peacecorp lived in these houses.
How could this be? This is a stark contrast from the Africa that I had seen. Here were million dollar homes, beautifully decorated, tucked away in a safe and guarded neighborhood, with all the amenities one would expect to find in lavish suburbs across the U.S. And right down the road lies poverty, disease, sickness, hunger, delapitated homes and buildings, and unpaved and muddy streets. It was like I walked out of Harlem into Beverly Hills. I walked away from this feeling very uneasy. Uneasy that people could live such a privilege life in the midst of such devastation. Uneasy that people could come into the city and then escape to their own safe haven. Uneasy that people could enjoy the bounties of wealth without helping the person down the road. Uneasy that I can recognize this and see that I am that person. The person who will return back to her own world, one that does not suffer from poverty, sickness, or disease. The person who lives in this city momentarily, surrounded by hunger, but knows where her next meal will come from. The person who knows that she can get up and leave at anytime. Wow, what a person I am?
Or, maybe, just maybe, this situation is more than about me. Maybe I should think more of the larger system that is operating in this context. It speaks directly to the nature of wealth distribution in individual countries that create the economic inequalities described above. The accumulation of wealth among elite classes in most countries produce an alarming disparity between the rich and the poor. Sernau (2001) believes that wealth “ensures that those near the bottom will be called on to spend almost all of their incomes and that what wealth they may acquire, . . . will more likely depreciate than increase in value, and the poor will get nowhere” (p.
69). In Burkina Faso, as in other African countries, the benefits of wealth are received mostly 65
from elite classes, a class of individuals Nwauwa (2003) describes as “Frankenstein Monsters—
African elite, who in turn, were the vanguard of the nationalist movements that ultimately
overthrew the colonial system . . . [but] began to imitate European culture” (pp.8-9). From this situation, it is easy to see the legacies that colonialism has left on this country, especially in observing where and how people live. Still, the neighborhood I toured was where wealth resided, and frankly, wealth had no neighbors.
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
Almost every morning, without fail, debates occurred in African literature class. Our
professor was very smart and seemed to have a wealth of knowledge about Africa and about
literature. It was in this class that I became exposed to African writers such as Chinua Achebe,
Ngugi wa Thiongo, and Mariama Ba. He encouraged conversation amongst the students about
various issues. There were about twenty students in the class, mostly from Bowling Green State
University, my hosting school, but a couple from other universities in the U.S. One early
morning discussion about tourism lead to the topic of interracial dating. The teacher then began
describing the African psyche:
“A lot of Africans like marrying Whites.” He said.
“Why?” a student asked.
“I believe they have an inferiority complex. Many would rather marry White than
African.” He replied.
“Is it for a green card?” another student asked.
“Sometimes. But many believe that white skin is better. It is mysterious and more
attractive than black. Once you’ve married white, you are considered a success—you’ve made
it.” He replied. 66
The class was quiet. Maybe none of us knew how to approach this subject. Or maybe we were just trying to digest his comments. I guess he noticed the class’s demeanor, for he then turned and asked,
“As you’ve rode around the city, haven’t you seen the billboards for skin whitening cream?”
I had noticed the billboards, but they were in French. I saw the picture of the beautiful, light-skinned Black woman using some kind of cream, but I didn’t associate it with desiring white skin. This was all very puzzling to me. Here I am in Africa, thinking I will find the most militant Black nationalist people, who were confident in who they were and proud to be Black, especially African. To my surprise, I find that this is just like home, where many Black
Americans bleach their skin or alter their appearance through surgery, just to have white skin or features.
The admiration for whiteness, evidently, had consumed the thoughts of Black people across the globe, regardless of region or environment. Many look upon their own skin with disdain. Some look in the mirror with hatred. A few may view themselves with contempt.
Their behavior resembles Pecola Breedlove’s in The Bluest Eye (1994) where she often wondered: “What made people look at them [little white girls] and say ‘Awwwww,’ but not for me” (p. 22). Like her, many Black people may have taken the disgust for their Blackness to a higher power by praying to GOD, “Please, God. . . . Please make me disappear” (Morrison,
1994, p. 45). But, why is there such an intense desire for White skin? Pecola, like Blacks encountered here and elsewhere, know the impact of having white skin, or at least lighter skin.
They know the strict color caste that exists in Black communities, that “shaming on the basis of skin color is one racially based trauma retention that has been passed on from generation to 67
generation” (hooks, 2001, p. 65). Simply stated, to many Blacks and other racial and ethnic groups, “Whiteness [is] the color of perfect human beauty” (Jordan, 1968, p. 35).
But, it is not just skin color that I’m speaking about, for it also attests to the mind of the
Black colonized individual. It is the longing for affirmation from White culture that continues to
hold some Black people captive, further causing whiteness to have a damaging effect especially
on the Black female body. hooks (1981) explains, “White racists and even some black people
who had absorbed the colonizer’s mentality depicted the white woman as a symbol of perfect
womanhood and encouraged black women to strive to attain such perfection by using the white
female as her model” (p. 387). So, if Burkinabe generally like marrying Whites, especially
marrying white women, it may be more than just an attraction to skin color, it may be as Fanon
(1967) says:
By loving me she [white woman] proves that I am worthy of white love. I am loved like a
white man.
I am a white man.
Her love takes me onto the noble road that leads to total realization. . . .
I marry white culture, white beauty, white whiteness.
When my restless hands caress those white breasts, they grasp white civilization and
dignity and make them mine. (p. 63)
This was no different from the home I knew. I reflect back on what I’d seen so far, and,
like Maya Angelou (1986), I became “temporarily sobered” by my “intoxication” with Africa.
Continuing, she adds, “I examined whether in looking for a home I, and all the émigrés, were
running away from a bitter truth that rode lightly but forever at home on our shoulders” (p. 35).
* * * * 68
Dinner was always prepared by the time I reached home. It would usually consist of fish or chicken, rice or peas, and salad. The family knew that I really like tilapia, so it was a frequent dish. Sometimes they would also prepare local specialities, including desserts. My host-family consisted of six people: a father, mother, their two small kids, a nephew—which I refer to as my brother, and a niece, whom I refer to as sister. They were known to me as the Barrys. Every night over dinner, I would explain the happenings of the day, what I learned in class, and my schedule for the upcoming day. The whole family would sit and eat together. They were excited to hear of my encounters in Burkina Faso.
In these first couple of days, I had established a routine. I recall Querry’s comment, the architect in Graham Greene’s (1963) A Burnt-Out Case. “In an unfamiliar region it is always necessary for the stranger to begin at once to reconstruct the familiar. . . . And so from the first morning he [sic] set himself [sic] to build a routine, the familiar with the unfamiliar” (pp. 25-26).
The need to establish some sort of routine was important because of my role as a traveler.
Porteous (1976) writes, “Travelers are temporarily homeless; they carry small articles from home along with them and perform certain rituals that confer the feeling of home upon any temporary abode” (p. 387). So, after showering and dressing each morning, I would come to have breakfast at the table situated next to the kitchen. My breakfast consisted of cereal with hot milk, a glass of water, and a piece of bagette bread with butter. My host-mother joined me for breakfast every morning without fail. She didn’t know much English nor I much French, but we still managed to have small conversations about my impending day and my feelings and thoughts about Burkina
Faso. Earlier, my host-brother had given me a French dictionary, so this eased the communication a bit. And when we didn’t understand each other, we just laughed. Her presence 69 was warming and comforting. She waited with me until the bus came to pick me up. Then, she handed me my lunch and hugged me goodbye.
Whenever I arrived home after class or after an excursion, my host-father would be waiting outside the gate to the house. I’d get off the bus, excited to see him, and we’d start a conversation that would always continue through dinner. At dinner, he would insist that I eat more, eat as much as I like. I didn’t want to be greedy, for I knew that others were eating too.
So, I would just eat enough to satisfy him.
On most nights, after my host-father and mother retired to bed, I would sit and have long discussions with one of my host-brothers. We were close in age so we usually had a lot to talk about. Besides, he knew English and therefore sometimes doubled as the translator. My other two brothers were too young to have in-depth conversations, so I would usually bring them some candy home from school to make up for my relative inaction with them. My host-sister joined some of our conversations, but she was not fluent in English. It is from the conversations with my host-brother that I learned a lot about Burkinabe life. It was he who even told me that it was very common for nieces and nephews to live with uncles and aunts, sometimes for educational purposes, finances, and the like. I had no problem understanding this for “extended family households predominate worldwide” (Doyle, 1992, p. 797). African households, in particular,
“Are larger than Western households, not only because African fertility is high but also because of the composition of African households” (Rapoport, 2004, p. 180).
Oftentimes my host-brother and I would venture around the city on his moped. He admitted that he uses his moped to “mystify girls.” It was beautiful, a red and black bike with matching helmets. He would pull the bike out front and I would excitedly jump on. He would get in front of me and we would take to the wind. We drove down the streets like rebels, but of 70
course we had to be careful because our path was muddy and the traffic was high. I would often sing as we rode. With my arms hoisted out beside me, I’d begin a tune:
Don’t worry, about a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right
Singin: don’t worry about thing
Cause every little thing gonna be all right!
“Three Little Birds” (Bob Marley and the Wailers, 1977, track 9)
Sometimes, we would go back and forth, teaching each other the hooks to various songs. He would counter by singing:
I like the fireflies
I like the rolling hills
I like the mountainside when the lights are low
Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum,
dum, dum, dum, dum, dum,
It was this time spent with the family that complicated my understanding of home. I began to see home not as a place tied to location, but as a place by way of familial ties. And here
I was, included as a member of a family. Now I understand and support Paul Monette’s (1991) statement found in Half-way Home: “Home is the place you get to, not the place you came from”
(as cited in Fortier, 2001, p. 409). I was living, eating, sleeping, laughing, conversing, and basically sharing all my time with this family. This family that made me feel so welcomed and so adored, loved, and cherished. This family was my haven, a safe place away from the sights that had caused so much frustration for me. This place became a site of attachment, “A site 71 where one attaches herself, even momentarily, by way of grounding who she is, or was, in her process of becoming” (Fortier, 2001, p. 413). I mean,
can’t you imagine what it must feel like to have a true home? I don’t mean heaven. I
mean a real earthly home . . . your own home, where if you go past your great-great-
grandparents, past theirs, and theirs, past the whole Western history, past the beginning to
organized knowledge, past pyramids and poisoned arrows, on back to when rain was
new, before plants forgot they could sing and birds thought they were fish, back when
God said Good! Good!—there, right there where you know your own people were born
and lived and died. . . . That place. (Morrison, 1998, p. 213)
I know it is dangerous for me to speak of home in this manner, but truthfully, “Home is already fantasized, even when we are ‘in it’.’ It is a space that is always in construction. . . .”
(Fortier, 2001, p. 419). Yet, I must be careful, for home is also heavily criticized by feminist scholars. They speak of the feminization of home, the apparent association of home with comfort and utopian belongings, ignoring the actual lives of women, especially those who experience domestic violence and are subordinated by patriarchal power structures; a “place of violence as well as safety” (Pearce, 2000, p. 20), a place based on racial and class privileges used to keep the “other” out. Martin and Mohanty (1986) encourage me to position myself outside of home and to see “home [as] an illusion of coherence and safety based on the exclusion of specific histories of oppression and resistance, the repression of differences even within oneself”
(pp. 296-7). And all this time, I had been positioning home in terms of location, as somehow tied to a geographical area or region. Maybe that’s why I didn’t see myself as an American. I didn’t feel tied to the land. It reminds me that even the term African American is based on a relationship to land, as Jesse Jackson (1988) revealed, “To be African-American has cultural 72 integrity. It puts us in our proper historical context. Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some land base, some historical cultural base” (cited in Martin, 1991, p. 83). And that’s why I thought Africans had so much more understanding of home because they still occupied the land. I added this new understanding of home to my repertoire. A home as family, not positioned within “particular four walls and a roof. . . . When I speak of home, I speak of the place where . . . those I love are gathered together” (Dickens, 1838/1968, p. 416).
So I had finally come home. The prodigal child, having strayed, been stolen or sold from
the land of her fathers . . . had at last arisen and directed herself back to the welcoming
arms of the family where she would be bathed, clothed with fine raiment and seated at the
welcoming table. (Angelou, 1986, p. 21)
Ventures Through the Body
The body is very complex, much more than a purely biological object. It is the product of specific cultural, historical, and social contexts and the site of political discourse involving reproduction and sexuality. It is a popular subject in the academy and the driving force behind many feminist theories. It is scholars like Foucault (1980) who taught us the ways in which bodies and biomedicine get normalized through discursive formations. Still, “Some people are embarrassed by so much talk of the body, but there is really no way around our accepting the fact that the body exists, that it is the form in which we live, that it is the habitat of all that we are”
(Bacon, 1980, p. 2). It is much more than a physical vessel, for it is also “a social script”
(Alexander, 2004, p. 522). The body is a text; it can be written upon, read, and interpreted. For
Spry (1997), “The body offers a thick description of an individual’s engagement with cultural codes and expectations; it is an ancient scroll upon which is written the stories of one’s movement through the world” (p. 362). 73
* * * *
My family is Fulani. Fulani are nomadic people found in mostly western and central
Africa. They are one of sixty ethnic groups found within Burkina Faso, mostly in the north.
Fulani is also the name of the language that my family speaks, although I learned More, a
language spoken by over half of the population. More is the language of the largest ethnic group,
Mossi. More was taught in African contemporary culture class. Every morning, I had to be
prepared to engage in short conversations with the teacher, who addressed each of us, one by
one, to test our comprehension of More.
“Neyibeogo,” [Goodmorning] he said.
“Neyibeogo,” I replied.
He’d continue with greetings, usually until he had gone through the different types. I always
responded fast. I didn’t want him to think that I hadn’t studied my notes. Some days I even tried
to impress him with whole sentences: Dunna yaa Arba [Today is Wednesday] or sometimes I
would inquire about his health [Yibeog yaa laafi?]. And yet, why did I go to such lengths to
impress him? Perhaps I didn’t want him to think that African culture, particularly the language,
was too hard for me to learn. I wanted to fit in and if I could acquire the language quickly,
maybe he would see me as nearly African, or at least more African than American. At the same
time, I had to constantly practice More so that I wouldn’t get it confused with the Fulani I was
learning at home with my family. I practiced Fulani with my brother and sister at dinnertime
each night. Upon immediately entering the house, I knew to ask, Ko woody an lan saurau?
[What’s for dinner?]. They also taught me other Fulani sentences like Djam walee, which means good morning and Bânê wadeenoee wâdû, which asks, how do you feel? They would often ask me how my day went [No yau luna da?], and, by the time dinner was over, they would ask, Au 74
saummy [Are you tired?]. They were so adamant about me learning the language, that maybe
they also desired to make me authentically African. Although I enjoyed this experience, it was a
juggling act for me to remember both More and Fulani. Sometimes I found myself mixing the
languages together, resulting in sentences that were totally incomprehensible.
Yet, in both instances, it was a privilege for me to learn these languages. I had the luxury
of learning a language that many people often learn on the streets, without any formal education.
At the time of my visit, Burkina Faso had one of the lowest levels of education in Africa, and, in
terms of development, it ranked 175 out of 177 countries. The costs of education (books, school
fees, transportation) created an obstacle for children to attend school. Whether or not a child
attends school is often based on the income of the mother, the gender of the child, the family
size, the location of the household, and the time spent to reach the school. My angst at learning
two languages simultaneously is rather insignificant and meaningless when considered in the
grand scheme of education, an education that has been afforded to me because of my class
standing, “For class standing has a significant impact on chances for educational attainment”
(Mantsios, 2000, p. 178). Although class standing never really mattered to me in the U.S., it is
the experiences in Burkina Faso that caused me to consider the implications and benefits of
middle class status. But, this privilege does not define my inner character or who I am. And
really, “When it comes to privilege, it doesn’t really matter who you are. What matters is who
other people think we are, which is to say, the social categories they put us in” (Johnson, 2006, p.
35).
* * * *
My family took an interest in my clothes. They asked questions about them, inquiring
whether they were comfortable, easy to wear, or easily made. The clothes I had chosen to bring 75 were nothing special, mostly cool cotton shirts, shorts, and skirts. Before we left the U.S., we were given recommendations for dressing appropriately for the culture, so I really tried to adhere to certain guidelines—loosely fitting clothes, no low-cut or revealing shirts or skirts. Most of my outfits were considered within the dress code, or at least that’s what I thought.
As I sat in my room one night preparing for the next day’s class discussion of Things Fall
Apart (1996), my younger brother knocked at the door and summoned me to the porch. I arrived there to the presence of a tailor, equipped with measuring tape and an assistant.
“This is our tailor. He makes our clothes,” my brother said.
“Nice to meet you,” and we shook hands.
I stepped back, looking puzzled. My father continues, “He’s here to measure you.”
“Oh . . .okay.” I stammered.
I stood there, on the porch with the rest of the family, while the tailor and his assistant measured my body. I asked no questions, only following orders to their desires, lifting my arms and standing upright when instructed. These two men criss-crossed me, drawing tape from my shoulders to my arms, from shoulder to shoulder, uneasily crossing my bosoms, waist, and hips, and finally resting after noting the distance from my hips to my feet. I had been reduced to a torso, no longer a person with a beautiful mind, body, and soul.
And yet, what was wrong with the clothes I brought? They fit the length guidelines that we were given. They were easy to wash and outfits could be made to mix and match. Had I brought clothes that violated some unspoken rule in this society? Or did my family just want me to have some African made clothes to make me fit in more or make me authentically African?
Had they prepared clothes that they saw as more fitting for a woman? How did being a woman affect their choice to dress me? Maybe being a woman played a factor, especially because of the 76 role that women occupy in Burkina Faso society. I learned in African contemporary culture class that the illiteracy rate for women is about 85%, that life for many Burkinabe women is consumed by many responsibilities, from cooking and maintaining the household to gathering water and caring for children. Many women are expected to occupy “a woman’s place,” and this may partly explain why “from access to land and commercial credit, to employment, labor and training, to health, reproductive and family life, to equal participation in governance and development processes, African women have continued to face particularly great obstacles in the realization of the promise of human rights” (Olowu, 2006, p. 80). And because the illiteracy rate is very high for girls, they usually aspire to three ambitions: to do hair, to cook, or do needlework. Though there are changes occurring, oftentimes this is the scenario that many women find themselves in, especially within the more rural areas, where there is a heavy emphasis on marriage. The perception of women and women’s role in Burkinabe society surely influenced my family’s desire to dress me, although I also believe that they wholeheartedly embraced me as a person. I understand de Certeau (1984) when he writes, “Give me your body and I will give you meaning,
I will make you a name and a word in my discourse” (p. 149).
But don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the attention. And I loved the idea of wearing African clothes. I felt accepted and even a little special that clothes were being specifically designed for me, and I acknowledge the fact that my family didn’t have to make this generous offer to me.
Yet, there was no way I could possibly turn this offer down. I was wrapped up in the moment and in their expectations of me. I didn’t want to appear unappreciative, rude, or snobbish. So, I found myself going right along with the program. I was taking on this identity, and since I was already learning the language and eating the food, how could I stop this process of interpellation? 77
About a week later, the dresses were done. The tailor brought them to the house. Seeing
my family’s excitement and anticipation, I interrupted dinner to go and try the dresses on.
Suiting up, wow what a great feeling! I wonder if this is the same feeling that athletes get when
putting on their team’s attire. Or a doctor when she’s putting on her medical robe? I felt like I
was representing someone, like I was a part of something larger. It was a new feeling for me, but
it felt good nonetheless. Excitedly, I walked out—no, I strutted out—like a peacock, flashing all
its feathers to show the multiplicity of its beauty. The porch became my runway and my stage,
and I used it to my advantage.
But something was wrong! I couldn’t wear the dresses in public until I could get my hair
properly done. In its present state, my hair looked terrible and it just didn’t match the beautiful
ensembles that were designed for me. So, the next day, my host mother and sister took me to the
beauty salon to get my hair braided. After about an hour of intense braiding, I walked out of the
shop a new and improved woman. Plus, I couldn’t wait to show my classmates my new hair and
clothes.
The day finally arrived for me to wear my new outfit with my new hair. I dressed early
that morning, just to give myself a little more time to prepare for today’s classes and activities. I
was ready when the bus driver came to pick me up. “You look amazing,” he said. This was the
remark of more and more people as they gathered onto the bus. Our first excursion this morning
was to The Moogho-Naba’s Faux Depart, in which we watched an historical re-enactment of
Princess Yennenga’s founding of Burkina Faso and the Mossi empire. The re-enactment included a horse similar to her famed steed, Ouedraogo, and featured the present Mossi King and his council. After the public re-enactment, we were given the opportunity to privately greet the
King. 78
In the presence of all this historical prominence, the King and his throne, and his many companions within the court, I felt like a queen, for I was surely dressed as one. But it was more than the dress, even though it was beautifully designed. And it was more than the hair, which was a popular craze amongst young Burkinabe women. It was the whole new attitude that these things gave me. I was confident in myself now than ever before. I felt beautiful in a way that
U.S. society had deprived me of. My beauty wasn’t found within a low-cut blouse or mini skirt.
It wasn’t found by 3-inch stiletto heels or a pound of makeup. Nor was it found by a small waistline. I found myself in a world that didn’t place value on the advertisement of women’s body parts. A woman could be beautiful without revealing every aspect of her body. For once, I was simply beautiful. The tailoring prepared me for a crown. And the activities of the day were surprisingly in line with that feeling. I remember thinking, How appropriate! A day fit for a queen.
But isn’t this romantic, for me, a girl from a small metropolitan city in Georgia, to travel to Africa to become a queen? Like Cinderella, a new dress and a new appearance had inspired a whole new me. But wait, wasn’t I already somebody? I mean, I wasn’t a blank slate waiting anxiously for someone to write upon. The Black body, in particular, “Is a body that is always on display, always on stage, and always in the process of its own exhibition. . . . [It] is not a blank screen against which meaning gets projected. Instead, it is the core text already infused with meaning” (Young, 2003, p.114). Unlike Cinderella, I couldn’t get wrapped up into this fantasy, for the world I lived in was real. Plus, I wouldn’t turn back into a frumpy maid when the clock struck midnight, but I would have to return to the life I knew in the U.S. I had to go back to being myself, for no fairy tale could prevent me from acknowledging the world that I live in and the tangible effects it has on my real life. But, for one small moment, I was so wrapped up in this 79 romantic view that I failed to fully realize the material consequences that impact my body, a body that already occupies a specific position in both historical and contemporary times. A return to reality made me understand that
my body is the futured body of my great-great-grandmothers, my great-grandmother, my
grandmother and my mother. It is the future manifestation of my ancestors’ bodies
viewed from a past perspective in which the future past, the futured, is the then-present
that is now. To look at my skin, my own body and my image reflected in a mirror is to
see not only me standing there looking at myself—but also to view the various parts of
these other bodies that ghost my own. I am the embodiment of their experience of the
body. (Young, 2003, p. 146)
Rites of Passage
At birth, I was given a name. I had no choice in the matter. No one sought my approval for this name. No one asked me if I preferred another name. But as time passed, I grew accustomed to it. And with no other choices available to me, I accepted it. And it has become a part of my identity and a connector to the outside world. Cooke (1977) writes, “To have a name is to have a means of locating, extending, and preserving oneself in the human community, so as to be able to answer the question ‘who?’ with reference to ancestry, current status, and particular bearing, with reference to the full panoply of time” (p. 171). Even more powerful is the ability to name. We name objects around us all the time: streets, babies, illnesses, people, etc. Naming is supposed to bring order and structure to our world. And those who are able to name are those who have power. King (1990) writes, “The namer has the power; the named is powerless. For the powerless, being named carries with it the threat of limitation, reduction, and destruction” (p.
684). Hence, naming is not an innocent act or an act without consequences; rather, it carries 80 connotations of power and has social, cultural, and political implications. Martin (1991) expresses, “Names can be more than tags; they can convey powerful imagery. So naming— proposing, imposing, and accepting names—can be a political exercise” (p. 83). Still, naming cannot automatically be assumed to be a bad thing, as the act of renaming provides a way for people to acquire strength, unity, and pride. Benston (1982) writes, “Renaming can be a means of self-creation and reformation of a fragmented familial past” (p. 684).
* * * *
I was usually exhausted by the time I arrived home, so much so that I barely got a chance to watch any T.V. This really wasn’t a problem since most of the T.V. broadcastings were in
French; plus, I enjoyed relaxing with the family while they watched T.V., and sometimes they would translate the message. One night, a movie came on, one that sparked controversy in the
U.S.; one that has shed light on the importance of family, of storytelling, of memory, of surviving; one that I knew, that required no translation: Alex Haley’s Roots (1977). We usually watched T.V. in the living room, but for this occasion, the family wheeled the 20-inch T.V. outside onto the porch. Neighbors from across the street came over to join us in this showing.
The porch was filled with people, all trying to get the best seat so their view wouldn’t be obstructed. The movie had already started by the time we all got settled. We had just gotten to the part where
Kunta is running,
running, running,
From the eyes of the white Englishman,
running, running,
From the arms of the black African, 81
running running.
Kunta is fighting,
fighting, fighting,
As the men surround him,
fighting, fighting
As the men whip him,
fighting, fighting.
Kuntaischained.
We watched this part in total silence. No one spoke or said a word. On this porch, I sat with people who were unlike me in so many ways. We didn’t share the same language, nor the same lifestyle, nor the same culture. Yet, here we sat, looking at the same scene that managed to connect us. This wasn’t just my story, this was their story, the story of the African who was captured and sold to the U.S. I wondered what feelings this stirred in them. Did they feel anger or regret about the role of the African in Kunta’s capture? Or did they feel anger or mistrust toward the white Englishman? It remained quiet for the next several scenes, until we came to the part where Kunta becomes Toby.
Overseer: “Your name is Toby. I want to hear you say it. Your name is Toby. You’re going to learn to say your name. Let me hear you say it. What’s your name?”
Kunta Kinte: “Kunta . . . Kunta Kinte.
Whip cracks against his bronze back.
Overseer: “When the master gives you something, you take it. He gave you a name. It’s a nice name. It’s Toby and it’s going to be yours till the day you die. Now I know you 82 understand me and I want to hear it. Again!” He instructs the field hand to give Kunta another lash of the whip.
Overseer: “I want to hear you say your name. Your name is Toby. What’s your name?
Kunta Kinte: Breathing heavily, “Kunta.”
Just then the whip hits against Kunta’s back and he screams. His body shivers from perspiration and exhaustion.
Overseer: “What’s your name?”
Kunta Kinte: “Toby.”
Seconds after this scene, an unavoidable conversation arose. It was the type of conversation that was inevitable. This was the kind of dialogue that was certain to take place at this time and at this particular moment.
“Do you know where your ancestors are from?” My host-father asks.
“No. I hear they do DNA testing now to help people determine their ancestry, but I can’t afford that. People like Oprah Winfrey, Isiah Washington, and Spike Lee have done it.” I replied.
“You are Fulani. Your name is Kumba. Kumba means second daughter,” he proudly proclaims.
I had no response, even though I was blushing and smiling from ear to ear. How could I be Fulani? Does being Fulani make me less African American? I didn’t want to disregard the culture and ancestry that I have in the U.S., but I also didn’t want to miss this chance I have at being African, of acquiring an African identity. This moment makes me recall Roscoe Lee
Browne’s caution to Maya Angelou (1986): “Be careful, sweet lady. You went to Africa to get something, but remember you did not go empty handed. Don’t lose what you had to get 83
something which just may not work” (p. 176). At the same time, I had essentialized African-
ness, because for me, it took a real African to confirm that I was African. I was merely African because I was Black. It didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t know much about Burkinabe culture.
Although this is a different type of naming than it was for Kunta Kinte, on many levels it is the same. Both names, Kunta and Kumba, are a way of referencing people, thereby giving meaning to them. Nelson (1992) writes, “Names . . . mark ideas. The function of naming is solely to assist memory and to communicate our ideas to others” (pp. 29-30). But, with naming comes expectations, for a person is expected to assume the behavior and characteristics that the name implies. Therefore, Kunta and Kumba are not arbitrary names; they are predictors of a new identity, Kunta = slave while Kumba = Fulani. It is hoped that a person will fulfill the destiny that the name implies. Names only mask the true identity of a person.
More importantly, aspiring to the expectations of our names is also contingent upon outside forces that will shape our experiences in the natural world so that we are able to live up to our respective name. For instance, Kunta was simply provided a name, Toby, but it took outside forces to make him adapt to his new name. Toby may not literally translate to slave, but it is the process of becoming Toby that ultimately makes him a slave. It is what the name Toby represents and, therefore, Kunta is shaped into a slave by the external environment such as the slave master, the overseer, life on the plantation, etc. With a new name, comes a new identity.
The same principle can be applied to my role as Kumba. Although the name means second daughter, I will need social and spiritual experiences to support and confirm that new identity.
And for me to assume this new identity, which comes with it’s own set of expectations, behaviors, responsibilities, and characteristics, I will also need to be in an environment that 84 nurtures and supports this identity. And honestly, for me, this type of environment is only in
Burkina Faso.
Yet, I understand that there is power in naming someone. Like Kunta, someone had given me a new name, a new identity. And I wanted and needed this connection to Africa. I can hear Malcolm X (1964) saying, “You don’t even know your true family name” (p. 161). And even though this may not be a family name, this was my chance, my shot at an authentic African name. Ralph Ellison (1964) writes, “Our names, being the gift of others, must be made our own”
(p. 147). And as a Black person living within the U.S., whose ethnic label has changed from
Negro to Black to African American, I understand the history of naming as it pertains to us, as
King (1990) explains, “Naming has always been an important issue in the Afro-American tradition because of its link to the exercise of power. From their earliest experiences in America,
Afro-Americans have been made aware that those who name also control, and those who are named are subjugated” (p. 683). Although I wasn’t beaten into submission, I had acquired this name from someone who stood in a position of power to me. This was the father I had lived with for almost a month, who sat with me through occasional afternoon lunches and nighttime meals, who took me to his office and introduced me as his daughter, who made sure that my stay was good and that I felt comfortable, who adorned me in beautifully custom made dresses. He may have seen the name as a rite of passage, as it is found that many African cultures perceived naming in this way. Halsey (1988) states that naming is “a heavily ritualized rite (or is that right?) of passage and theme prevalent in African culture” (p. 259). Examples highlighting the importance of naming can be found throughout African cultures, but it is most noticeable in the naming of children at childbirth, where many children are named after the day of the week. It is 85 believed that the day of the week determines the child’s personality. But, I must ask: What was wrong with the name Renata?
Nevertheless, I still felt validated, yet confused. My situation is similar to Maya
Angelou’s (1986) experience in Ghana, where she writes, “For the first time since my arrival, I was very nearly home. Not a Ghanaian, but at least accepted as an African. The sensation was worth a lie” (p. 102). I appreciated this acceptance. After these words, the conversation between my father and I became a blur. I couldn’t hear anything else that was said. But I imagine him continuing this acceptance speech by saying:
But watch, watch where you walk, forgotten stranger—this is the very depth of your
roots: Black. Walk proud. Watch, listen to the calls of the ancestral spirits, prodigal
son—to the call of the long-awaited soil. They welcome you home, home. In the song of
birds the winds whisper the golden names of your tribal warriors, the fresh breeze blown
into your nostrils floats their bones turned to dust. Walk tall. The spirits welcome their
lost-son-returned. (Excerpt from Home-Coming Son by Gabre-Medhin, 1964, p. 51)
* * * *
In the above description, I’ve detailed experiences encountered while living in Burkina
Faso. I’ve described the ways in which this community challenged and expanded my understanding of home, the body, and naming, leading to a better understanding of an African identity. All of me became entwined in this new environment, ultimately causing a deeper reflection of myself. I became a subject to this discourse, acquiring a new language, a new look, and a new name. While in this community, I received representations of African identity through the activities and the new home that I found myself in; yet, at the same time, I came closer to understanding what an African American is. 86
Plus, in this environment, I was thrust into a position where I had to enact an African
identity as a kind of cultural performance, “The systematized practices of people within a
specified social context” (Alexander, 2004, p. 503). Performances are not empty illustrations of
cultural life; rather, they open up space for reflection of cultural values and new possibilities.
Bell (1999) writes, “Performance is ultimately about transformation. . . . Performance is re-
presentation that is always a tensive negotiation between the material and the symbolic, between
audience and performers, between the fields of social discourse that constantly displace any
claims to reality” (p. 182/190). We perform everyday in our respective lives, whether it is at
home, school, or the workplace. And like Phelan (1993) says, “Performance implicates the real
through the presence of living bodies” (p. 148).
Yet, I realize that this performance is momentary, happening in this time and this
specified place. I’ve returned to a life where everybody knows my name, where I can dress in
the latest urban attire, where I have a home in Georgia with relatives who love and care for me.
But this experience has made me realize that “no one true identity exists prior to the act of
performing. No one true identity remains stable in and through performance. Understanding
identity as having these ‘performative’ qualities enables a discussion of gender, color, nation,
and ethnicity that bypasses essentialist categories” (Blocker, 1999, p. 25). And even though I’ve
fully engaged and problematized specific experiences by exposing the contradictions
encountered and the spaces of comfort and discomfort that have impacted my identity as a
person of African descent, there, thousands of miles away from Ohio, straight across the Atlantic
Ocean, nestled within West Africa, lying just above Ghana, tucked away in Burkina Faso, in the city of Ouagadougou, I am still Kumba. 87
CHAPTER IV.
THE LONG ROAD HOME: THE CHAINS OF MEMORY IN BENIN AND GHANA
I inherited a trauma, a cultural trauma to be exact. “A cultural trauma refers to a dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric, affecting a group of people who have achieved some degree of cohesion. In this sense, the trauma need not necessarily be felt by everyone in a group or have been directly experienced by any or all” (Eyerman, 2004, p. 160). It was given to me, placed on my shoulders to bear. It didn’t come with a treatable diagnosis or a medicine regime. Rather, it caused tears, a loss of appetite, and unbearable grief. It consumed everything about me. Memories of death and pain flashed before my eyes. I awoke to cold sweats, only to find myself shivering in my nakedness. No one warned me about this. No one told me to be on guard, to protect myself from this bodily takeover. None of the literature I’d previously read could have prepared me for this horror. But, there’s one artist who expresses the cause of this trauma:
Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
“Redemption Song” (Bob Marley and The Wailers, 1980, track 10)
I recall this song, not only because of its lyrical verses, but for its ability to connect the past and
the present— Bob Marley makes this experience his own by collapsing both time and space to
accurately describe the African slave’s experience. He echoes these sentiments in another
famous tune:
Evrytime I hear the crack of a whip,
88
My blood runs cold.
I remember on the slave ship,
How they brutalize the very souls.
“Slave Driver” (Bob Marley and the Wailers, 1973, track 2)
I found these songs and this strategy particularly useful when describing the experiences I encountered while touring the slave heritage sites within Benin and Ghana.
Benin and Ghana offered me something different from Burkina Faso. I entered Benin and Ghana with the intent of finding my roots, of going to places where my ancestors once stood.
And even though I wasn’t able to pinpoint a specific location of origin for my ancestors, I took comfort in knowing that at least I had tried, tried to find the exact spot where their feet touched the ground, where their tears soaked the earth, where their sweat fused with strength and sorrow.
In uncovering this lost past, I thought maybe I could understand their struggle better. And frankly, I wasn’t interested any more in reading about plantation life or Jim Crow or Civil
Rights. No more readings! It was time for me to go to the place it all started. Toni Morrison
(1990) writes, “On the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork you journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply”
(p. 332). And perhaps I had journeyed “to Africa, hoping to briefly escape American racism and experience racial dignity at its source” (Richards, 2005, p. 620). So what if I wasn’t as successful in tracing my lineage as Alex Haley. At least I could say that I had learned another piece of the story, and as Timothy and Teye (2004a) write, “Travelling [sic] to ancestral lands also helps people explain and evaluate themselves. From a search for their past, they find themselves in the present” (p. 112). 89
This is a road that is hard to travel: a road that I often wish was destroyed, a road that is
still under construction for me. But it is a journey that adds to our understanding of Black
identity, “For slavery is a cultural marker, a primal scene and a site of memory in the formation
of African American identity” (Eyerman, 2004, p. 163). Thus, with a heavy heart, I delve into a
deeper examination of these memorial sites by exploring experiences with cultural memory and
historical representations of slavery found in these sites within Benin and Ghana. Here I will
also deconstruct the impact of globalization, tourism, and the socio-economic context which
sustain these historical sites, of which the Gateway of No Return in the historic city of Ouidah in
Benin and Ghana’s Elmina and Cape Coast Castle. This chapter also highlights the ways in
which these sites use ideological constructions and representations to create African Diasporic
identity.
The Road to Ouidah
Ouidah is a historic city in Benin. It sits just west of Porto Novo, the official capital. It is characterized by its many forts, which also symbolize the activities of the slave trade. As a matter of fact, Ouidah is the most important slaving port in Benin. In 1994, UNESCO launched the Slave Route Project in Ouidah, which was motivated by French historian Jean-Michel
Deveau’s description of the transatlantic slave trade as “the greatest tragedy in human history because of its extent and the time it lasted” (Diene, 1998, p. 6). The project spans over ten years.
It includes stakeholders and population groups from the scientific community, artists, educators, community leaders, journalists, and intellectuals and is fueled by a task force and UNESCO’s
Division of Cultural Policies and Intercultural Dialogue. The Gateway of No Return, a monument facing the Atlantic Ocean, is the most popular feature in Ouidah. “A massive arched 90 gateway, some 50 feet high. . . . Etched across the top of the arch are two long lines of naked, chained men disappearing into the sea” (Branford, BBC News, 2006).
Ouidah also offers a variety of cultural attractions such as the Vodun Temple of the
Pythons, Catholic and Moslem cults, and a prevalent Afro-Brazilian and colonial presence. The city exists much in its original form, yet also reflects cultural influences in its architectural design such as the monumental houses. Much of the city’s rich heritage was unmanageable until political authorities and the community developed an urban rehabilitation policy that renovated many of the religious and public buildings and established roads. Oloude (2004) finds,
“Although these initiatives were quite beneficial, it remains that in the absence of strong national and local recognition as well as appropriate legislation, certain rehabilitation activities undertaken run the risk of producing a negative effect on heritage protection and even threatening the authenticity of the heritage sites” (p. 37). Although Ouidah has great potential as a city, it is often overlooked by Cotonou, which is a larger city and the seat of government in
Benin. Generally, this is the information that one finds in an average travel brochure, but there are many other ways for one to describe Ouidah. For instance . . .
* * * *
Walk with me. Don’t be afraid of the animal statues that sit to your left and right.
UNESCO built those here when launching the Slave Route Project of 1994. As a matter of fact, all of what you see was constructed by UNESCO to “mark the different stages along the Slave
Route” (Oloude, 2004, p. 37). But, I want you to look past that, past the display of human tragedy that is succinctly designed for your interest. Past the towering monument that guards your entrance to the Atlantic Ocean. Past the lavish billboard offering you a stay at a new luxurious beach resort. All of this was not here when I was here, so imagine that these are not 91 here now. It’s just me and you. Close your eyes and give me your hand. Listen to my voice as I guide you.
You feel that? That’s your bare feet against this red clay road. But don’t worry; the road isn’t muddy or sandy, so your feet will be okay. Yet, the road is long and narrow. It sits alongside swampy areas and is nestled between soaring palm trees. It’s picturesque, its beauty in so much detail—the greenery, the mountainous trees, the exotic flowers—all permeating the scene. The scene is intoxicating. If you stop and look now, you may think you are in paradise.
Watch your step. We’re coming over a short bridge. Okay, now keep moving. You hear that? Sounds like crickets or grasshoppers. What is it? The noisiness found along this road irritates my ears. Who knows what irks amongst the bushes? Plus, the walk is long and the sun is hot, almost draining. But it’s a good thing that the wind offers a steady blow. Yeah, I know you are tired but keep moving. Stop dragging your feet! Pick them up and walk! Move!
Okay, hear that? It’s the Atlantic Ocean. Keep your eyes closed. Just take a moment and think. Look how far you’ve come. You were once on a road, taking the route that is believed to be the “final part of the itinerary taken by the slaves” (Oloude, 2004, p. 37). You’ve walked in my footsteps. And now we stand here at the shore of the Atlantic Ocean.
Shhh. Listen. Hear clearly as the ocean speaks to you. Hear the sound of thundering waves. They carry the voices of the slaves. Listen to them. Listen with your mind, your heart, your ears, your soul, and all of your being. Hear the moans of the weeping mother. Hear the cries of the abandoned child. Hear the yells of the helpless father. So many sounds, intermingling with the crack of whips, the noisiness of ships, the paddling of canoes, and the whistling of wind, all seem overwhelming. 92
Get the lump out of your throat and listen. Listen to the bodies being thrown overboard.
Listen to the seamen groping and suckling the slave’s breast. Listen to the rapid heartbeats of the slaves. Listen . . . to death. I hate the sound of the ocean. The secrets this ocean could tell, the many souls who perished at its bottom. And like Moore (1981) says, “The sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave” (p. 49). This is the place where I boarded a ship sent from the
New World. You see, a road isn’t just a road, an ocean just an ocean. This one road, lonely and destitute, brought us all the way to our destiny. What once was a road is a road no more.
And yet, look how freely you stand here. No chains or shackles at your feet. No menstrual blood running down your legs. No scars illuminating from your back. No blood flowing from your head. No sweat or perspiration dripping from your limbs. No torn or bloody feet from your long march. No tears of sorrow. No agonies from defeat. No iron ores in your mouth to keep you from screaming. No chains to the dead. No loss of hope. No loss of self. No loss of life.
Who would have thought that such horror could be hidden in such a beautiful place?
Most would be “troubled by the incongruity of such physical beauty at the site of human horror”
(Richards, 2005, p. 628). I’m willing to bet that Sade’s (2000, track 6) song makes plenty of sense to you now:
I see them gathered, see them on the shore
I turned to look once more
And he who knows me not
Takes me to the belly of darkness
The tears run swift and hard
And when they fall
93
Even, even the comfort of a stone
Would be a gain.
“Slave Song”
Do you see how it feels to be unsure of yourself, of your destination, of having to be guided through a strange place, of having your steps marked by the speech of others? Standing on this burning sand, I peered out at an ocean that I had never seen before. The first time I stood here, I wasn’t full of emotion. Tears didn’t streak down my face. I wasn’t uncontrollable or sobering with intensity. I was numb. Now open your eyes . . .
* * * *
The performative writing above offers a symbolic account of Ouidah from a slave’s perspective. But, let me also give my personal reaction to Ouidah and explain the impact it has had on me, for this place has left a lasting impression in my memory. After we toured the
Gateway of No Return, I didn’t have a triumphalist narrative to tell. Unlike many other
Diasporic Africans who venture to slave sites, I didn’t feel imperative to construct a narrative of survival. I agree with bell hooks (1995) when she advises “for black folks to acknowledge that we are collectively wounded by racial trauma [by] severing our attachment to an unproblematized tradition of racial uplift where that trauma had been minimized in the effort to prove that we were not collectively dehumanized by racist oppression and exploitation” (p. 134).
What I experienced on this day changed me forever. Instead of boasting of our great survival, this site challenged my view about being African American. Surely, my personal narrative differs from the one UNESCO intended for me to construct. UNESCO has three objectives with this site: 94
1). To put an end to the silence surrounding the tragedy of the slave trade and slavery by
contributing to a better understanding of its deep-seated causes, its implications and its
forms of operation through multidisciplinary research; 2). To objectively highlight the
consequences of the slave trade on modern societies, in particular the global
transformations and cultural interactions among peoples generated by the tragedy; and 3).
To contribute to the establishment of a culture of tolerance and peaceful coexistence
between peoples by encouraging debate on cultural pluralism, the building of new
identities, citizenship and intercultural dialogue. (“The Slave Route”)
Instead, I walked away from this site feeling rather pessimistic about being African
American. Goods, products, property—these were the only words that I could use to describe myself. I meant nothing more to anyone, nothing more than an object that could accrue wealth for someone else—an object used for specific purposes then thrown away. Like the Negro spiritual says, I felt like a “motherless child.” I had no more purpose in this world than being a commodity. The Black Nationalist pride I came here with was somehow eroded and replaced with shame. I didn’t want to be associated with Africa nor America. The label African
American became useless to me even though I knew the importance of this name. “‘African
American’ emerged as part of the efforts of a generation of black intellectuals to come to grips with their, more collective than individual, rejection by American society after being promised full integration following the end of the Civil War” (Eyerman, 2004, p. 166).
What am I outside of a slave? All my life, I’ve been reminded of being a slave, as if my story begins with this event. There were hardly any narratives that told me I came from greatness; instead, most history books begin the African American story with descriptions of plantation life. And honestly, sometimes I tire from hearing this. My feelings lament Zora 95
Neale Hurston’s, “Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am a granddaughter of slaves . . . ” (cited in Eyerman, 2004, p. 165). I wanted a great history to be proud of, the kind that appear in Hollywood films like Troy (2004) or Gladiator (2000) or Alexander (2004). I wanted to see myself mythologized in poems and stories like the Greeks and Romans. I wanted people to be fascinated by my strength, agility, and power like in 300 (2006). Instead, people flocked to the theater to see Amistad (1997). Millions of T.V. viewers tuned in to catch every episode of Mama Flora’s Family (1998) and Queen (1993). Books like Roots (1976) top the bestsellers list. I longed for a different story, a different narrative about the African American journey. Sadly, I was ashamed of my own history. Was it even possible to feel any worse than I felt at this moment? Unfortunately for me, I had two more sites to see in Ghana. So, I picked up a little strength, a teaspoon of pride, and an ounce of obligation and headed to Ghana.
Dangerous Curves: Maneuvering Through Elmina and Cape Coast
Elmina, which means “the mine,” sits just southwest of Accra, the national capital of
Ghana. Most of the resident’s fish, mine salt, or build boats for a living, although fishing accounts for much of the economic activity, some 75% of jobs. Gold was “discovered” by the
Portuguese in 1470 and trade between the Europeans and African kings flourished, making
Elmina the center of West African gold trade. The city is famous for its largest castle, St.
George, popularly called Elmina, which was constructed by the Portuguese in 1482 and is widely known as the oldest European building in Africa. In 1637, Dutch ownership expanded the castle, adding “bricks and timber brought from Amsterdam [and] creating a larger courtyard overlooked by a new range of rooms. They turned the late medieval Portuguese church in the courtyard into a slave market” (Billings, 1999, p. 2). Elmina was very important because of its proximity to the
Atlantic Ocean; therefore, it “became an important distribution point for slaves that were brought 96 from the hinterland to be shipped to the Americas. The Castle was turned into a transit point for many thousands of slaves” (Arthur & Mensah, 2006, p. 303).
The influence of Dutch culture can be found throughout the city, especially in the design of houses, churches, cemeteries, street and family names, and holiday celebrations. Because of its unique culture and rich tradition, Elmina attracts more than 100,000 tourists annually, with foreign tourists accounting for about 70,000. Meeting the demands of these tourists has led to the creation of luxury three-star beach resorts like Elmina Beach Resort and Coconut Grove.
However,
the living standards in Elmina are low and this is reflected in the environment. The
fishing harbour [sic] is silted and polluted, the beaches are covered with waste, the city’s
drainage system is poor and basic road, telecommunication and electricity infrastructure
are inadequate. Opportunities for good health care and education are constrained and
these impact on the living standards of the residents. (Arthur & Mensah, 2006, p. 304)
To help rejuvenate the city, Elmina has designed the Elmina Cultural Heritage and Management
Programme (ECHMP), which hopes to bring needed revenue to the city and people through heritage tourism.
Just west of Elmina lies Cape Coast, the first administrative and economic capital of
Ghana. Before Portuguese arrival in 1471, Cape Coast, meaning “short cape,” was a Fetu fishing village. The city was built around Cape Coast Castle, a famous slaving fort built by the Swedish in 1655 but eventually acquiring new ownership under the British in 1663. Later, under British colonization, Cape Coast was a very important seaport and therefore enjoyed economic prosperity. Its prominence in the Central Region was owed to advances in modernization, especially in terms of education, religion, health, and print media. All of this changed with the 97 building of railways connecting to inland cities, particularly from coastal Sekondi and Accra to inland Kumasi. This system changed the sea trade industry, with Cape Coast loosing economic activity to Sekondi. After Ghana’s independence in 1957, the government had only one aim in mind: industrialization. Industries were established in major cities and a port erected in Tema, causing Cape Coast to further suffer. By the end of the 1970’s, it was in a state of decline.
People began to migrate to more prosperous areas seeking economic opportunities. Currently, it is under revitalization through an urban development plan that includes intensive place promotion initiatives as a way of targeting tourists.
Although the above description provides a general background on Elmina and Cape
Coast, like Ouidah, it is the historical prominence of the slave trade that bring many tourists to visit these places. In all three cities, the horror of the slave trade is hid amongst the beauty of the natural scenery, sometimes even overshadowing the local population. Yet, for Elmina and Cape
Coast, the castles tell their own story, although too numerous to mention. But, if one listens closely and intently, he/she may even hear the narration of one such story. I, for one, can just imagine how the story would begin.
* * * *
The journey through Ouidah consisted of bodily movement. I asked you to walk with me as I described the physical experiences of slaves. But this time, I want you to take a journey through my words as I narrate and describe the mental process of becoming a slave. This story is not for the weak minded or faint of heart, but it is for those who long to have a deeper understanding of the slave experience, my experience. My story begins like any slave’s story, with the realization that I am not free . . .
* * * * 98
Let me out! Let me out! I don’t belong here. I don’t belong behind these bars. This iron is straining my feet and neck. I’m caged, but I’m not an animal. Let me go! Let me go! Don’t touch me. Stop spraying that water—it’s cold! Move your hands! Don’t widen my eyes! Don’t prod my teeth! Don’t fondle my genitalia! Where are you taking me? Don’t look at me like that, that ravenous look with dancing eyes. Is this what you want? To taste the sweetness of my breast.
To please yourself by violating my womanly gifts? Go ahead. I know what resisting leads too— the death room—a 7-by-10 foot cage with no window or air. Or an iron cannonball placed at my feet while baking in the blazing sun. I’m physically chained, but I’m not ready to die. Which do I choose? To settle for this injustice in hopes of getting pregnant and released or be the mother of
“bastard go-betweens who could speak both tongues” (Derricotte, 1996, p. 108).
* * * *
The dungeon is crowded. The Dutch call it the “hoeregat”—or whore hold. It’s too dark to see the face of the other 150 women. I stand in this spot and menstruate. Blood trickles down my legs to the floor. I stain the ground. But, this is my spot! This is my spot! I can’t share it with the other women. These few inches are all I have in this world. I’ll sleep right here tonight, this spot saturated in blood, urine, and feces. I’ll slightly hold my breath as not to breathe in the foul odors nor the sulphurous air from the ammunition in the adjoining tunnel. I can’t find my siblings. But honestly, “We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters we were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brothers and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning” (Douglass, 1855, p. 48). Or maybe my brothers hide between the thousand or so men in the next dungeon. Hallowed within the dungeons bowels, it will be months before I see them again, if ever. 99
* * * *
Maybe my family is up the road in Cape Coast Castle, a grand castle that sits just ten miles west of Elmina. Sparkling in its whiteness and towering stance, cannons surround the castle to protect its’ cargo from invasion. Where does my son sit behind these thunderous walls?
Maybe he stands in the sweltering underground dungeons the British built to hold thousands of men—“a womb in which the slave was born” (Hartman, 2007, p. 111). In the dank atmosphere, surely he smells of suffering. Maybe he is being branded just as I speak or perhaps he is shackled to the wall. He is being eaten alive in the belly of the beast and his excrements thrown about the castle. Twice- a-day washings in the sea don’t mask the odor of food and feces.
Screams, moans, groans, and wailing is in the air caused by the pain of dysentery—the bloody flux—a “discharge of blood, mucus, and pus” (Hartman, 2007, p. 120). Standing in his own feces and vomit, he doesn’t yet understand his fate in the Caribbean or United States. He is too young to grasp a life of servitude on plantations and in sugar fields. The stench that seeps within his skin won’t allow him to foresee the brutality of chattel slavery. And if he doesn’t survive life in the dungeons, his body will be swallowed by the sea. Will I ever see him again?
* * * *
My fate is sealed. I occupy my time by watching the sun turn into the moon. I’m not quite sure of how long I’ve been here, but I would guess about four full moons. Food is tossed out at us, but I hardly make a run for it. My tears go unnoticed and my pain is unmentioned. I use my nails to violently scrap down the wall. Fingernails break clearly off my hand and blood flows down. But, it’s a silent comfort to know that I ruptured a few layers of brick and mortar.
The pain doesn’t bother me. My heart stopped beating a long time ago. In such a hopeless 100 situation, only the walls offer some degree of solace. My mouth is motionless but my body continues. So
wit my chest ah sing
yeh
wit my chest ah sing
yeh
ov da flesh tore open
ov da wall an da gate
ov da hate
dat took away the land
dat took away da man
from the shore
took away da drum
took away da drum
yeh
“Elmina Blues” (Rux, 2003, p. 71)
* * * *
I bend down into this dark, damp room and stand motionless. I can’t see the area around me, but I hear the noises of the sea. It is busy today, with Dutch and Portuguese ships docked at the coast. My naked, starved, and malnourished body passes through a six-inch slit in the wall, built to prevent any insolence by the human cargo. I no longer weep. I look out on this ocean now, unsure of the horrible fate that awaits me. This ocean, set to carry me to unknown lands.
Lands my fathers do not know. I won’t come back here, for this is the point of no return. I don’t 101 know the fate that awaits me, but surely life in Brazil or Surinam offer no better outcome. I only wish that my descendants will return to this point one day and bring a piece of me back. But until then, my soul wanders. You know the strange thing about this situation? I would have never thought that I’d live in a castle one day.
* * * *
I try to take one final look at these shores, but the gray misty haze is too thick. I hear the sounds of the slaves. Men once known for bravery now cry. Women who walked proudly now move in shame. Tribes known for their strength now tremble with fear. My feet follow the movement of the chains. I’m herded into a small canoe that takes me out to a larger ship, where
Dutchmen wait with lusting eyes. My skin burns from the violent scrubs used to cleanse my body.
I hear the echoing sounds of flutes and drums and my body is told to dance. I’m then pushed and shoved into a tight narrow space. I have no room to move. My body lies flat on this surface. The person lying next to me is sick and her vomit splashes onto my face. But, it doesn’t harm me, for
I no longer have a body. Chains now replace what were once hands. Shackles are now known as feet. And I, once a proud Fulani woman, am a slave. Who am I? I was marched 500 miles inward to this coast. I’ve been raped, beaten, starved, burned, and branded. Who am I? I’ve sat in a dungeon for months instead of in the peacefulness of my village. I dream of my family, not knowing the comfort of their touch. Who am I? The vile hands of men have ravaged my body and the spoils have damaged my mind. Who am I? They count me as “kop,” or head, but my new name is WICS25.
* * * * The above is a performative piece describing the mental torture of becoming a slave as experienced by a captive woman, and like the performative piece about Ouidah, both are fictional accounts based on the images I encountered along the Slave Route Project. But, “What 102
makes it fiction is the nature of the imaginative act: my reliance on the image—on the remains—
in addition to recollection to yield up a kind of truth” (Morrison, 1990, p. 332). Nevertheless,
these sites also caused me to experience emotional and mental turmoil, so much so that mourning
is the only word that accurately describes how I felt. How could such a gift to feel my ancestors
become a burden? I was hysterical, but this is a common reaction among African Americans
when they tour these sites, as Richards (2005) writes, “Once in the dungeon areas, diasporic
Africans are likely to succumb to memory’s temporality, in which past and present identities
merge; African Americans, in particular, are known to respond with uncontrollable tears or to
direct their anger at whites, seen as the contemporary agents of a historic oppression” (p. 627).
My heart was broken into pieces and I didn’t know if it could ever be put back together again.
Maybe I should have better prepared myself for this event. Perhaps I should have done more
research or watched more documentaries that dealt with slavery. Or I could have probably taken
advantage of the plethora of resources offered during Black History Month. But maybe, just maybe, I should have read Richard Wrights’ (1954) lines more carefully:
a tiny, pear-shaped tear that formed on the cheek of some black woman torn away from
her children, a tear that gleams here still, caught in the feeble rays of the dungeon’s
light—a shy tear that vanishes at the sound of approaching footsteps, but reappears when
all is quiet, a tear that was hastily brushed off when her arm was grabbed and she was led
toward those narrow, dank steps that guided her to the tunnel that directed her feet to the
waiting ship that would bear her across the heaving, mist-shrouded Atlantic. (pp. 341-
342)
But, here I am, sobering violently and slipping into depression. I’m losing myself and I can’t seem to find my way back to reality. By the time I arrived to W.E.B. Dubois’ house, which 103 is a national museum in Ghana, I was bereft of all my senses. My mind had been brutally injured, torn and ravaged to pieces. Bouts of depression stricken my movement. Happiness became a distant memory. I stood outside of his house, attempting to wipe away my tears and my troubles. I walked inside the gate and approached the house. I fell upon his steps and wept.
Just then, Dubois appeared in an apparition in front of me. I sat, slumped over the steps, as
DuBois gently stroked my hair and tears streamed down my face. There we sat in silence. When
I finally got up to leave, I realized the purpose of the trip. Like Kemp (2000), “. . . I understand that I have been singled out by the spirits of my ancestors to tell their story. It is their presence I feel beside me and it is why they whisper incessantly from the moment I arrived in the country,
‘where have you been daughter? There is work to do” (p. 12).
* * * * Though these sites had an emotional impact on me, I am not oblivious to the fact that they are motivated representations used to bring tourism and economic prosperity to the areas.
Hence, in addition to exploring both the captive slaves and my own experiences of these sites, I must also conduct a deeper analysis of the meaning of these places, for they represent much more than idolized stories about slavery. First, I begin with an examination of the tourists.
Tourists almost fulfill an obligation to these sites, as “tourists fill a violent absence with the materiality of their own bodies; they imagine themselves as standing in, as artifacts, for those whose names can no longer be recalled” (Richards, 2005, p. 626). At the same time, tourists provide much needed revenue to these areas, thereby helping the local and national community.
“At the macro level, tourism is expected to promote economic growth by generating foreign exchange as well as increase various forms of government revenue. At the micro level, tourism is expected to facilitate job creation, income and revenue distribution, and a balanced regional 104 development, which ultimately should improve the quality of life of residents” (Teye, 2000, p.
8).
For Ghana, tourism is the 3rd leading industry, contributing “5 percent of Ghana’s GDP and has a growth rate of 12 percent annually” (Arthur & Mensah, 2006, p. 299). Hence, Ghana’s government recognizes the benefits of being a tourist destination. Ghana established “a Ministry of Tourism in 1993 to underscore its commitment to tourism development, and with the assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Tourism
Organization (WTO), has prepared a 15-year Tourism Development Plan for the period 1996 to
2010” (Teye, 2000, p. 8). Both Elmina and Cape Coast Castle are listed as World Heritage Sites in promotion of the Slave Route Project. Ghana has also received money and support services from Shell Oil (Ghana) Limited, the U.S. chapter of the International Council on Monuments and
Sites, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and an estimated $4.1 million from the Smithsonian Institute. Hence, there are many stakeholders interested in the preservation of these heritage sites. Surprisingly, Britain is not listed as a donor even though their nationals had a considerable presence in the transatlantic slave trade.
While it may be flattering to some in the African Diaspora to see so much money and support invested in these sites, it must be understood that the target audience for these sites are not simply viewed as tourists, for they occupy a rather complicated position. In a way, African
Americans and other Blacks can be understood by the simplest definition of a commodity:
“something useful that can be turned to commercial or other advantage” (The American Heritage
College Dictionary, 2002, p. 289). This partly explains why these sites have so many stakeholders—investors understand the profit that can be made with tourists, especially from the
Diaspora. And because these sites are very popular among Blacks in the Diaspora, investors can 105 expect a good return on their investment. This situation also attests to the role that capitalism plays in these heritage sites, where private individuals or corporations maintain and own these sites as capital, thereby accruing wealth for their own advancement. The narratives as well as the memories found at these sites are part of the construct of history, but are fueled by a capitalist agenda where wealth is divided among the stakeholders. They have taken advantage of the desires that many Black people have to bring their forgotten history to the forefront. These places provide a “refashioned memory, especially in its collective forms, [that] give . . . a coherent identity, a national narrative, a place in the world” (Said, 2000, p. 179). Plus, these are rare structures, only found on the African continent, with most found in West Africa. To see an actual slave dungeon or cell, one has to go to these places. The rarity of these structures make them important for people in the African Diaspora and investors alike. Lee (1994) states, “The spirits of the Diaspora are somehow tied to these historical structures” (Castles and Fort St. Jago in the Central Region Held in the Cape Coast Castle). Because of the significance of these structures, they are heavily marketable to Blacks in the Diaspora.
Both Benin and Ghana stand to benefit from the resurgence of heritage travelers of the
African Diaspora, especially African Americans. These travelers take part in heritage tourism,
“Defined as the phenomenon in which the cultural, historical and ethnic components of a society or place are harnessed as resources to attract tourists, as well as develop a leisure and tourism industry” (Chang, 1997, p. 47). Places that focus on the transatlantic slave trade are of particular interest for people within the African Diaspora, especially because of the significance of slavery and the opportunity it presents to trace one’s heritage. Austin (1999) writes,
People of black African descent . . . share a collective identity and destiny that is centered
on Africa. For those in the Diaspora, an identification with the origins of the transatlantic 106
slave trade and with Africa as the ancestral ‘home’ is increasingly being perceived as the
missing link in their quest to find their roots and to understand their collective
sociohistorical experience, an act that is considered necessary for their self-realization. (p.
211)
Currently, African Americans account for the largest proportion of people who visit these sites.
Both Elmina and Cape Coast sponsor activities, festivals, lectures, and celebrations geared toward African Americans. Cape Coast Castle even display exhibits that honor African
American history, including the NAACP. Books such as Castles and Forts of Ghana (1999) have been written to persuade African Americans to visit the heritage sites in Ghana. But the purpose of these heritage sites differ for Ghanaian citizens.
For Ghana, the slave route was a desperate measure to generate needed revenue and to
develop a viable economy. For towns and villages scattered throughout the countryside,
it was the possibility of digging new wells, building a school, or buying a vehicle to
transport the sick to the small hospital one hundred miles away. For the jobless, it was
the opportunity for employment in the tourism industry. For petty traders, it was an
expanded market for their goods. For dreamers, it was the chance for a ticket to America.
(Hartman, 2007, p. 163)
However, studies show that African Americans only account for five percent of the ten million slaves who arrived in the Americas, with the largest proportion arriving to various islands throughout the Caribbean. So, why do these cities market heavily toward African
Americans even though they are the smallest number of African descended peoples? Timothy and Teye (2004a) find multiple reasons for this strategy. First, African Americans currently number about thirty-four million, making them the largest number of African descended peoples 107
in any single country. Second, African Americans have vast spending power because their
disposable and discretionary income has steadily increased over the years, worth now about $400
billion dollars. Thirdly, they speak English, which differs from others in the Diaspora, like in the
Caribbean or South America, where multiple languages and dialects are spoken. Fourthly, the
travel industry has recognized the economic growth of the African American travel market;
therefore, they understand the significance of catering to the needs of these travelers. Finally,
international travel gateways in large metropolitan areas now feature African countries as
popular destinations, especially because economically prosperous African Americans live in or
near metropolitan areas, including New York, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Washington D.C., Los
Angeles, and San Francisco. The African Americans who visit these places, “in general, are a
class-privileged and more educated segment of the larger African American population,
consisting mainly of those with the money and the leisure time to make the long and expensive
journey” (Bruner, 1996b, p. 290). Yet, caution should be used when focusing exclusively on
African Americans, especially because “centering African Americans perform[s] American
hegemony and its corollary, Ghanaian neocolonial dependency” (Richards, 2005, p. 635).
These sites have not gone without heavy criticism and interrogation from African
American visitors, causing confusion and conflict between African Americans and Ghanaians.
Cultural differences may account for some of the problems between African American and
Ghanaian interpretations of these sites. African Americans usually feel that the castles are being
“whitewashed” for the benefit of stakeholders, especially U.S. investors. The U.S. is heavily involved in the preservation of these historic sites, for the flow of slaves from these castles contributed directly to U.S. wealth and prosperity. Teye and Timothy (2004b) write, “Given the
American involvement in the slave trade, it is not surprising that the United States has an interest 108 in conserving and interpreting the slave heritage of Ghana” (p. 151). Hence, African Americans tend to view the restoration of the castles as a “renovation” instead of “stabilization.”
They charge Ghanaians with worrying about tourism and valuing profits instead of the past. “They say Ghanaians are handcuffed because ‘white’ institutions such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Smithsonian Institution have pledged major financial and technical aid for the 5.6 million dollar project” (Buckley, 1995, p. A10). They further accuse
Ghanaian tour guides of downplaying the ghastly atrocities that took place in the castles, opting rather for displaying “Disney-clean dungeons and expensive gift shops” (Matloff, 1995, p. 1).
Many African Americans feel as though slavery is underemphasized in these castles, with one angry African American visitor lamenting, “You’re going to beautify it and tell my grandson there was no slavery” (as cited in Ransdell, 1995, p. 33). Ghanaians are even charged a five times cheaper entrance fee than African Americans. The painting of the dungeons and the opening of a restaurant and bar in Cape Coast Castle in 1993 further angered African American visitors. A staged sit-in protest by African Americans caused the eventual closing of the restaurant and bar and a subsequent halt to painting and other restoration services. To African
Americans, these castles are more than landmarks. They are shrines built on sacred ground that attest to the tragedy of the Black holocaust.
On the other hand, Ghanaians tend to view the slave castles differently. For the most part, Ghanaians have been taught to forget slavery. Slavery is not a necessary part of their identity. Richards (2005) explains, “Slavery is not integral to how most Ghanaians define themselves. To attract tourists, Ghanaians must remember a history they learned to forget. . . .
Until relatively recently, slavery was not a subject taught in Ghanaian schools or transmitted orally in informal settings” (p. 628-629). Among some ethnic groups, it is even taboo for any 109 oral transmission about slavery. For Ghanaians, silence has replaced slave history; hence, the castles cause them to remember a history so long forgotten. Additionally, Ghanaians have a different experience of slavery, as Bruner (1996b) finds, “Although there was domestic slavery in Africa, that experience was different from the one undergone by those who were transported to the New World and suffered the indignities of the black diaspora” (p. 292). Oftentimes,
Ghanaians are unaware of the many atrocities that slaves faced once they left the shores of
Ghana. Instead of slavery, many Ghanaians feel the brunt of colonization. Professor Kwame
Arhin believes that
Ghanaians do not understand the frustration of African Americans because their British
colonial masters did not subject them to the physical brutalities slaves suffered in the
Americas and the Caribbean. Most Ghanaians rarely saw the British, so they did not feel
oppressed in the same way that slaves shipped to America obviously felt oppressed. (as
cited in Buckley, 1995, p. A10)
Some Ghanaians even view slavery as a necessary means of bringing modernization—language, education, civility—while others focus on the material privileges and wealth that slavery has produced for African Americans. In their view, Africans and African Americans are better off because of slavery.
Ghanaians also accuse African Americans of being overly sensitive and for having tunnel vision when viewing the usefulness of the castles. The castles were not only used for housing slaves. Elmina Castle eventually served as a military fortification, several provincial offices, a police training academy, and a District Assembly. Similarly, Cape Coast Castle was the site of political struggle against Britain. Many Ghanaians typically believe that African
Americans have not invested enough funds into the maintenance of the castles to have their 110 needs honored. Frances Duah, regional director of Ghana’s Museum and Monuments Board states, “What I hate is the hyprocrisy. They come in here and cry and throw themselves on the ground, but they don’t want to contribute anything to what we’re doing. Then they want to have a big say in what we do” (cited in Buckley, 1995, p. A10). African Americans may have the economic expenditure needed to visit these sites and may be the ultimate target market; however, they do not have a significant influence on the preservation of the castles. At the end of the day, discrepancy exists when considering all the stakeholders involved, particularly African
Americans who are
structurally in the weakest position: the sites are Ghanaian, and though they assert the
status of historical insiders, African Americans are political outsiders. They have no
governmental or philanthropic organizations that will argue their viewpoint; they
represent no organized constituency with resources to support their opinions. In fact,
their position replays their dispossessed, liminal status as citizens of a nation that
historically has trampled on their rights, and as fictive kin to a nation whose borders,
languages, and customs largely exclude them. (Richards, 2005, p. 631)
The dissonance produced about these heritage sites is a common theme that arises when different groups have their own views about a particular site. Usually, most sites will reflect the narrative of the politically and economically dominant groups. Examples of this can be found throughout history, but I wish to call attention to the Native American reclaiming of
Alcatraz, which Native Americans viewed as an island a part of their land but the larger
American public saw as a U.S. penitentiary. Visitors of these sites, depending on their ethnic/racial background, will likely have different interpretations. Contestation over sites like these is rather common. Another example can be found with the “contemporaneous claims to 111
Jerusalem and its holy places by Muslims, Christians, and Jews” (Teye & Timothy, 2004b, p.
149). The groups in my study have different cultural understandings of slavery and how it should be represented. Neither party seems able, or willing, to disregard their present location— locations that are ultimately privileged—in order to embrace the history of slavery. With harmless intentions, each party looks at the same object through different lenses.
* * * *
The realization of all these things made the experiences in Benin and Ghana very intense and difficult. But, it was the end of my journey and, therefore, time for me to leave
Ghana. I left Ghana two days later to return to Benin. The trip back to Benin was a somber one.
The eight-hour drive gave me time to think about all I had seen. I used this time to quietly meditate about the ways in which I occupy this world. Once back in Benin, I had five more days in West Africa. What a relief? I counted down the days to departure, because honestly, I was ready to go. I had seen enough. I wanted to see no more remnants of slavery. No more dungeons. No more chains. No more shackles. No more Atlantic Ocean. I wanted out of this cemetery. I wanted out of this terrible past. And I wanted off of this continent!
I spent the next couple of days trying to fill the time. I took small ventures around the town to local eateries and boutiques. Mundane things became useful, like re-twisting my hair, sitting out by the pool, or playing solitaire. I spent more and more time at the local nightclubs.
But, these things offered a temporary escape from the troubles of my mind. They didn’t fill the void I felt. They didn’t block the images that danced around in my head. They didn’t stop the pain that plagued my heart.
So, I decided to return to Ouidah. The usual two-hour trip seemed more like thirty minutes. I traveled down the long road that leads to the Gateway of No Return. I slowly got off 112 the bus and began a short trek toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Gateway of No Return is small compared to the stretch of the beach and Atlantic Ocean. It sits idle, surrounded only by brown sand. To enter, visitors must walk between several white planks nestled in the ground which lead to five long steps. The front of the monument shows two lines of chained African men marching toward the ocean. I felt it appropriate to enter the beach from this point. My feet burned on the hot sand, but I kept walking. I walked over small pebbles and sea shells to arrive at the coast. I stood and looked out at the ocean. Jimmy Cliff’s (1969, track 2) song rings in my head:
Many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost
As I travel along the white cliffs of dover
Many rivers to cross
And it's only my will that keeps me alive
I've been licked, washed up for years
And I merely survive because of my pride
“Many Rivers to Cross”
The ocean temporarily calms my boiling spirit. I sat there for hours, trying to find solace in this place. It was the time spent here at this coast that caused me to understand another dimension of this event: parallel journeys through the Middle Passage. The enslaved Africans and I both departed for our respective destinations as prisoners. Though my journey was of my own choosing, I had left the U.S., a place that caused mental imprisonment for me. My identity was chained and my feet marched to the rhythm of U.S. racial ideologies. This internal imprisonment 113 ultimately stifled my bodily movements and caused limitations in my self-understanding. So I ventured to Africa because it offered a temporary escape from my struggles in the U.S. I purposefully circled
back to times past, revisiting the routes that might have led to alternative presents,
salvaging the dreams unrealized and defeated, crossing over to parallel lives. The hope
is that return could resolve the old dilemmas, make a victory out of defeat, and
engender a new order. And the disappointment is that there is no going back to a
former condition. Loss remakes you. Return is as much about the world to which you
no longer belong as it is about the one in which you have yet to make a home.
(Hartman, 2007, p. 100)
On the other hand, a physical imprisonment laced the body of the enslaved Africans, which subsequently led to an internal imprisonment where a new experience as a slave made them question their own identity. We both left our destinations with fear and apprehension, only to arrive in places that disrupted our identities, where we were foreigners to the people, where we were seen as commodities. Both our identities had managed to change, somehow transform, from our varied experiences.
With this in mind, I had one last stop to make. I packed up my belongings and headed back toward the bus, walking back through the Gateway of No Return. I noticed that this side of the monument is different. It still has Africans marching, but this time they are free, both hands and feet dangling out beside them. Interestingly enough, one side represents the slave’s march toward the ocean into a life of servitude while the other signals the return of free Africans from bondage. This offers some encouragement, so I hold steadfast to my destination. I arrive back to the beginning of the road, where: 114
Under a huge, sprawling tree,
people lazily sit in lawn chairs to take advantage of the shade.
Under a huge, sprawling tree,
children carelessly play in the comfort of its shadow.
Under a huge, sprawling tree,
people vicariously chat about the current events taking place in the world.
But once, in the not so distant past,
Forced by an unruly King
Enslaved African men and women circled the tree three times
In hopes of letting the wandering African soul take final resting place in Africa
This tree,
The Tree of Hope.
It is said that King Abaja, working in compliance with European traders, forced the captured
Africans to walk around this magical tree, believing that the souls of the African slaves would return to Ouidah after they forgot their hardships in the New World. The Tree of Hope ensured a final resting place for the African slaves. The same procedure was implemented for the Tree of
Forgetfulness, where men were forced to circle the tree nine times and women and children seven in hopes of forgetting their origins, names, families, and identities. The Tree of
Forgetfulness, long chopped down and replaced with a UNESCO statue, was one of many objects used to make captives forget themselves and their perpetrator, the king. If the captives would forget, there would be no way of seeking revenge and there would be a better transition into a new identity as a slave. No one knows if these trees were actually successful in their tasks, 115 but one thing is for sure: “it [is] one thing to be a stranger in a strange land, and an entirely worse state to be a stranger to yourself” (Hartman, 2007, p. 157).
I looked upon the Tree of Hope in silence. I stood back from it, scared to approach any closer. With desperation and desire in my eyes, I wanted to march over to it. I wanted to touch it, feel the bark of the tree against my hands. I wanted to stand under the shade of its limbs. I wanted to give it a new meaning by walking three times around it, but in the reverse direction. I wanted to pour libation at its root. I wanted to do all these things, but instead did nothing.
* * * *
To conclude, this chapter has detailed some very complicated issues for me. I found myself experiencing very complex and highly emotional feelings that seem to range from day to day. I was at war with myself. “For African Americans, a return to the slave castle presents an inner crisis to negotiate the inconsistencies of Western history with an ancestral identity in the dungeons of yesteryear” (Davis, 1997, p. 160). And even worse, I had come to these dungeons in search of ancestors, and instead, found a pile of waste. The same pile of waste that a team of archaeologists found in 1972—exactly “eighteen inches of . . . the compressed remains of captives—feces, blood, and exfoliated skin” (Hartman, 2007, p. 115). How ridiculous it must sound? To withstand the annoying boarding of different planes, of waiting jetlagged and tired in foreign airports, of driving eight hours through different countries, just to arrive to that which is no more. A rather disappointing moment—to have come all this way and search for something tangible, something significant, something I could grip with my bare hands, something that would put a name to the millions of faces that entered these dungeons, but to only leave with fecal matter at the bottom of my shoes. 116
Why should I have expected to find anything in these places? These people were long
dead, both physically and socially. They belonged nowhere. They left few traces of their being.
No artifact would lead me back to them, for the slaves once
lived and breathed, but they were dead in the social world of men. They were
‘commodities in the hands of merchants and use-goods and patrimony in the hands of
buyers.’ Seized from home, sold in the market, and severed from kin, the slave was for all
intents and purposes dead, no less so than had he been killed in combat. No less so than
had she never belonged to the world. (Hartman, 2007, p. 67-68)
And I guess I expected to find mourners at these sites, people so devastatingly distraught over the atrocities committed here, people who were constantly taunted by the spirits of the captives.
Yet, instead I found people continuing with their lives. They were eating, fishing, communing, and working within these areas. Grounds that I deemed sacred now belonged to people who sought monetary items from Westerners as they entered these sites. It bothered me that people were trying to sell me items and that I had to pay an entrance fee for Elmina and Cape Coast
Castle. I remember thinking, “Haven’t my ancestors paid enough?” I felt that my status as a
commodity still prevailed although it was centuries later. My ancestors left these sites as
commodities and I returned as a commodity. Unfortunately, I found that time had only stood
still for me.
Yet, I must also momentarily interrupt my own feelings to acknowledge that these
people, usually in a dire economic situation, have no choice in the matter. Their economic needs
to provide for their families and themselves outweigh any obligation they may have to preserving the past. It is their current status and their present location that guide their desires: the basic human need for survival. Bruner (1996b) describes the wants and needs of the local population, 117 including “economic development, employment, new sources of income, better sanitation and waste disposal, improved roads, and a new harbor” (p. 290). When such amenities are needed as these, who has time to think of the past?
Furthermore, how am I to reconcile the African role in enslavement? Many slaves were stolen and kidnapped while others were taken as prisoners of war or raids. The unscrupulous selling of human merchandise wrecked havoc on all in its path. No one was safe— brother sold brother while villages were burned, families broken, and societal values lost. Those who managed to escape formed villages in other areas, even on stilts in water, as the village
Ganvie in Benin, which means “we are saved and peace.” No one really knows the motive that some Africans had in selling each other. Maybe they needed a mirror to admire themselves.
Perhaps a top hat or a pair of shoes kept their bodies warm under the African sun. Or they probably just liked the way enamel beads adorned their bodies. There are many speculations, but who knows? Still, most researchers do agree that the partnership between Africans and
Europeans was not equal. Bailey (2005) explains, “The fact of the dual involvement of
Europeans and Africans in the slave trade did not imply equal partnership but rather parallel lines of activity originating from different cultural and political spaces. No European was ever enslaved on a plantation in the Americas refutes this notion of equal partnership” (p. 58).
Moreover, the idea of Africa as a continental force is a rather modern concept. Before the slave trade, numerous communities of different ethnicities existed throughout Africa. People from different clans did not view themselves as one people or as inhabiting one continent. On the contrary, they saw themselves as strangers and not as Africans selling Africans, but as Asante selling Akan or Fon selling Yoruba. This understanding intensified the sell of Africans by other
Africans. Yet, many Africans are apologetic for the role their ancestors played in the selling of 118 human beings. I wish I could have been at the 1999 Leader’s Conference on Reconciliation and
Development in Cotonou, Benin. I wish I could have heard the apologies that were given and accepted. I wish I could have been spiritually moved by the choir’s melodic singing:
We’re so sorry, so sorry!
Somebody say so.
Sorry for the betrayal.
Sorry for the separation.
Sorry for the suffering.
Sorry for the loss of identity.
(Chargois, 2000)
As I reflect back on this experience, I think about what lies at the core of my search.
Had I come all this way to find my ancestors or to really find myself? I needed answers, any answer that would tell me what happened, tell me who I was, or tell me where I came from. I was going to do my best to find a tangible answer. But like Richards (2005) writes, “The absence of artifacts performs African diasporic identity, for dispossession of a specific history, loss of a coherent, complex universe of values and practices, constitute the very grounds of our identities in America. . . .” (p. 626). And in tracing my ancestor’s steps, I would be re-tracing my own. So surely I could find something to cling to, as if my life depended on it, as if my future was directly tied to the past. I needed to know my story and the only way I could find it was to journey to the past. And in this journey, I found that my body, though centuries later, still represents a sort of past time and place. This journey brought me to the conclusion that I am the artifact, a living artifact. I didn’t need to bring back some special ornament or object from the
Gateway of No Return or Elmina and Cape Coast Castle. I am the artifact itself. So 119
If the past is another country, then I am its citizen. I am the relic of an experience most
preferred not to remember, as if the sheer will to forget could settle or decide the matter
of history. I am a reminder that twelve million crossed the Atlantic Ocean and the past is
not yet over. I am the progeny of the captives. I am the vestige of the dead. And history
is how the secular world attends to the dead. (Hartman, 2007, p. 18)
There are many unspoken stories of the transatlantic slave trade—those who captured
and imprisoned others, those who managed to escape, those who were lost in the slave sites,
those who continued to survive without loved ones, and those who slept at the bottom of the
Atlantic Ocean. These are dead stories that only seem to come alive with the writing of this document, but this chapter only illuminates a small piece of a larger never-ending story. But like
Esposito (2003), “This is my (re)presentation of identity, difference, performance, imagination.
There are ghosts that infect these writings, histories that masquerade as memories, violences that mark me, you, that mark all of us with blood—but, even worse, with forgetting” (p. 229). 120
CHAPTER V.
BY BOAT ALONE: IDENTITY REFLECTIONS
AND THE PROCESS OF DECONSTRUCTION
I keep thinking about the Atlantic Ocean. I think about how it separates me from the places that I visited. I think about how it keeps me a part from the family I’ve grown to love in
Burkina Faso. I think about how it frightened me while in Benin and Ghana. I think about how it brought me back to my life here in the U.S. While there, I looked upon the Atlantic Ocean with disdain and hatred. As far as I was concerned, it was a vehicle used in the annihilation of my ancestors.
As I write this, it has been almost a year since I’ve returned from this journey. In describing it, I would have to say that it was physically taxing, long, arduous, and difficult. Plus,
I’m still left with the spiritual, emotional, and mental baggage of this journey. But, maybe I needed this experience. Maybe I needed to see myself in a new environment. Maybe I needed to
understand the various dimensions of my identity. Maybe I needed to know what happened in
the slave dungeons. Maybe I needed to stand at the Gateway of No Return. Maybe I needed the
Atlantic Ocean, needed the water to purify me, to cool me off from the scorching heat of racial
denigration, to dissolve my inhibitions, to moisturize my soul that was torn asunder, and to wash
me free. The water, once the bearer of sorrow and grief, now quenches my thirst to be. The
water is
Cleaning me
He’s purging me
And moving me around
He’s bathing me 121
And he’s claiming me
And moving me around
Around and around and around
And around
Watching me, claiming me
Moving me around
He’s purging me
He’s been cleaning me
And moving me around
And around
“Just like Water” (Lauryn Hill, 2002, track 10)
Replenished and anew, I’m able to see this experience clearer, with fresher eyes, and with new understanding.
Revisiting the Moment
I think about my journey to Burkina Faso. I went to Burkina Faso to dispel the myth of
African primitiveness and backwardness displayed by U.S. media, which portrayed Africa as a place void of modernity. I wanted to disprove this notion. I wanted to see people living comfortably, enjoying life and prosperity. I wanted to see the sights that U.S. media hid from me like the lavish beachfront hotels and the expensive houses. I wanted to offer a counter-discourse to the negative narratives about Africa.
But more importantly, I needed to see these things for myself. Truthfully, Africa was a sort of mirror for me. This is a familiar tradition among African Americans—to look towards
Africa for some kind of understanding of oneself. Wright (1954) explains, “Africa is a vast, 122 dingy mirror and what modern man sees in that mirror he hates and wants to destroy. He thinks, when looking into that mirror, that he is looking at black people who are inferior, but really, he is looking at himself. . . .” (p. 158). I looked to Africa to find some confirmation of myself, for I saw Africa as a reflection of me. If I could see positive images of Africa, it could possibly increase my own self-esteem, self-worth, and value, thereby validating my own existence.
Selfishly, I wanted to see Africa thriving for my own benefit, not for the benefit of the people or the land itself. I agree with Fanon (1963) when he writes, “The colonized intellectual, steeped in
Western culture and set on proving the existence of his [sic] own culture, never does so in the name of Angola or Dahomey [Benin]” (p. 150).
Even the modern advances I desired to see were merely based on my Western values, for I desired to see an Africa consumed by material wealth, thereby presuming that material wealth equaled happiness. It was not until I had lived in the environment that I realized the apparent differences between Western and non-Western societies. Day-Vines, Barker, and Exum
(1998) describe other African American students who have traveled to West Africa, Ghana in particular, and their unexpected reaction to Ghanaian values. They write, “In a society which emphasizes the accumulation of material wealth [U.S.], a poverty of hopelessness and despair is expected. As such, students expected Ghanaian poverty to assume similar likenesses. Surprised that poverty didn’t take on connotations of hopelessness one student felt compelled to reexamine her values” (p. 469).
When I arrived there, I saw an Africa that had a combination of prosperity and poverty.
Moreover, living without the luxuries available to me in the U.S. subsequently influenced the way I constructed Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso became a primitive playground for me, the modernist traveler. Not only could I escape the daily racial assaults that bombarded me in the 123
U.S., Burkina Faso offered a temporary escape from the burdens of daily life in the U.S. I could
live in this environment without the strain of being beautiful as defined by the U.S. I didn’t need
the latest fashions or apparels. I wasn’t constantly aware of my color—being Black became less
important in this environment. I didn’t always have to be on guard or have my safety
questioned. Plus, I didn’t need anything besides basic necessities. I took advantage of the
benefits this situation provided.
Or did it? Did Burkina Faso really offer me a sense of freedom or had I just longed so
deeply for it that I chose to see the experience as liberating? Had I made my own secret desires
come to fruition in Ouagadougou, the desire for an ancestral home, the need to belong, and of
acquiring an African identity? Maybe my yearning for these things had affected my experiences
in Burkina Faso, causing me to see things that I wanted to see. I had fallen in the trap of travel,
which Buzard (1993) describes as, “An ameliorative vacation . . . [that] promises us a time or
imaginary space out of ordinary life for the free realization of our otherwise thwarted potential”
(p. 102-103). I may have blinded myself to certain truths, even to the fact that I was just a mere traveler and nothing more. My work conforms to the techniques used by travel writers, “The frequent use of the first person singular, the dialogue between individuals and their surroundings.
. . .” (Dann, 1999, p. 167). But, because I wanted to have a connection with Burkina Faso, with
Africa in general, the truth was harder and harder to admit: that I was a traveler, governed by the constraints and boundaries imposed on travelers, the limits of time and space, and the burden of being in a new culture. Realistically, my experiences in Burkina Faso were more than likely based on the ways in which I encountered the environment, for “tourist sites, destinations, cultures and places are made significant through the way we encounter them, and the encounter happens in an embodied way. Cultures, places, memories, actions, and time are embodied” 124
(Crouch, Aronsson, Wahlstrom, 2001, p. 259). Still, my romanticized tale about Burkina Faso
does not change the aim of this document, which was to show the transformative nature of identity, for even though I may have used some words to romanticize or mask the truth, “Words do more than state fact, do more than engender meaning; words make experiences real. They may do this in revelation or obfuscation by clarifying the truth or by masking it” (Fassett &
Warren, 2007, p. 61).
Yet, it is these circumstances that fostered the primitive playground mentality. Because
Burkina Faso lacked much of the material possessions found within the U.S., I saw myself as going back in time to a place before modernity. It became a place where I could enjoy a simpler life. Time, as well as the people, stood still in this place to me. And that’s why it was relatively easy to become Kumba, for I saw it as a way of recapturing a past life, of enjoying life’s simple pleasures, and of assuming an identity that reflected pride and honor. Dunn (2004) states it clearly:
A trip to Africa, then, is a trip back in developmental time; a trip back into history. . . .
In the case of postcolonial travel to Africa, what is sought by the Western traveller [sic]
are purer, simpler lifestyles . . . where the modern subject must travel to another
location to ‘discover’ the displaced past. . . . This nostalgia for a mythical past means
that Africa is imagined—and frozen—as a space of ‘tradition’ where modernity can
visit the pre-modern. (pp. 489-490)
Living a life without material luxuries was acceptable for Burkina Faso, simply because I judged Burkina Faso by different standards than the U.S. And I knew that I was not going to live the rest of my life there, so material possessions became less and less valued in that environment. However, it would be hard for me to live with the same basic necessities while in 125
the U.S. because I’m accustomed to a privileged and comfortable lifestyle as a middle-class
doctoral candidate. Honestly, my life in Burkina Faso was appropriate for Burkina Faso, but it
could hardly be replicated or applied to my life in the U.S. And neither would it be desirable, for
it is the temporary experience of being a tourist that made the experience much more enjoyable.
These temporal experiences are based on the assumption that they are not real, enhanced by the
“temporalization of time and space” (Blunt, 1994, p. 17). Even the people I interacted with
were subject to this dilemma, for as Bruner (1996a) shows,
The Other in our geography is a sight of disgust; the Other in their geography is a
source of pleasure. In our place, the Other is pollution; in their place, the Other is
romantic, beautiful, exotic. In our geography, the elite pay not to see the Other, keeping
them distant or hidden, whereas in their geography, the Western elite pay for the
privileging of viewing and photographing. There is racialization at home and a
primitivization over there, in exotica. (p. 160)
I find myself in the double bind Eslanda Goode Robeson (1945) described in her autobiography,
African Journey, of being both a “guest” and a middle-class African American woman in postcolonial Black Africa.
Benin and Ghana offered a similar escape to the past, yet the scope slightly differs from
Burkina Faso. In Burkina Faso, I wanted to see modernity because of the value it brought to understanding myself. But I didn’t want modernity to have affected anything in Benin and
Ghana because I needed to go back in time to the beginning of my ancestor’s journey and retrace their steps. If things had remained as they were in the past, I could see all the remnants my ancestors left behind, and from those, create my own narrative of their lives. And maybe if I saw 126 these things, I would be able to understand the African American journey more clearly and even be more appreciative of the experiences.
My romantic notions had led me to believe that I could return to a place that was unchanged. Consequently, I had frozen African movement and space, imprisoned them within the timeframe of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I’m guilty of this, I admit, but UNESCO World
Heritage Sites also commit this crime, for they produce narratives that solely focus on the slave trade and its relevance to the West. The other stories that could be told about the structures and the land are ignored, unnoticed, marginalized, or somehow lost. Dunn (2004) writes, “The meaning and narratives attached to the sites are often frozen within the international conservative discourse of heritage. Local knowledges, perspectives and activities are frequently marginalised
[sic] and in some cases, criminalised [sic] by an appeal to ‘outstanding universal value’ and preservation for ‘humanity” (p. 492).
Unfortunately for me, I returned to a past that was hard to swallow, one that caused embarrassment and shame. The stories associated with this past were too painful to acknowledge and they differed from the ones I hoped to tell, for I wanted to hear and share tales of strength and triumph. But instead, I was confronted with a grim reality that “I, too, live in the time of slavery, by which I mean I am living in the future created by it. It is the ongoing crisis of citizenship” (Hartman, 2007, p. 133). Because of this, I’m not sure if my story offers a version of reality that differs from the many other Western, elitist, hegemonic discourses that often plague any progressive discussion about Africa. Instead of following Gruesser’s (1990) advice
“to redefine travel literature or devise new ways of producing nonfiction about the continent” (p.
19), I fell victim to the pitfalls of Africanist discourse, where “consequently, the dream- 127 nightmare opposition found in travel books about Africa by white literary travelers becomes the dominant convention of Afro-American travel authors” (Gruesser, 1990, p. 9).
More importantly, I must also admit that my writing is plagued with binaries.
Throughout this document, binaries have been used to construct the overall argument, with
Chapters 3 and 4 showing the most obvious binary—dream/nightmare. Other binaries exist also such as American/African, whiteness/blackness, privilege/poverty, slavery/freedom, journey/travel, home/away, etc. This document was even based on the premise that I would expose the contradictions and the spaces of comfort and discomfort, which in itself creates a binary. But, of course there are binaries! What other choice do I have? Binary logic is nothing new to travel writing, but it does weigh heavily on the authors of such text. Dann (1999) writes,
“Travel writers face a dilemma: either to produce glowing descriptions that require no analytical understanding and which are every bit as ‘real’ as The Sound of Music, or to relate their very worst disasters, which tend to result in the best travel accounts” (p. 182). Binaries persist throughout this document because this is the language that I was given, and honestly, I lacked another language to express myself. This attests to the power of language, for like Parks (1995) says, “Words are very old things. Because words are so old they hold; they have a big connection with what was. Words are spells in our mouths” (p. 11-12).
Walking the Path Toward Deconstruction
I’m angry! Angry at how I let myself come to be defined in such a limited manner.
Angry at how deeply I’ve let societal constructions penetrate my mind and influence my thinking. Angry that it took so long for me to recognize the miseducation that I’ve received as a progeny of the American educational system. Woodson (1933/1990) writes, 128
When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do
not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and
will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being
told. In fact, if there is no back door; he will cut one for his special benefit. (xiii)
I must break this destructive pattern. I must find a way of enlightening myself. I must begin to ask: What do I do now? Where do I go from here? How do I begin to move on from this experience? How do I apply the lessons I’ve learned from this journey to my life in the U.S.?
I begin this recovery effort with the process of decolonization, which Fanon (1963) describes as “a violent event” (p. 1). Decolonizing my mind and imagination is the first step toward gaining a better understanding of myself and of my surroundings. hooks (1995b) encourages this process of decolonization, writing that it “calls us back to the past and offers a way to reclaim and renew life-affirming bonds. . . . We connect ourselves to a recuperative, redemptive memory that enables us to construct radical identities, images of ourselves that transcend the limits of the colonizing eye” (p. 71). As an African American intellectual scholar and activist, I desire to move beyond the boundaries enforced by race and into a more open and inclusive state of critical consciousness. The anger I harbor must be channeled and used productively, as “a black person unashamed of her rage, using it as a catalyst to develop critical consciousness, to come to full decolonized self-actualization . . . undergoing a process of radical politicization and self-recovery” (hooks, 1995a, p. 16).
With decolonization comes a host of changes. New words must be added to my vocabulary such as self-recovery, radical identities, and self-actualization. I must learn to break my silence around certain issues and speak anew, with a fresh confidence and a new language.
But this will not be an easy task and I must move through this with caution, for “the 129 transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seem fraught with danger” (Lorde, 1984, p. 42). Plus, I must begin to re-educate myself about non-European worldviews and understandings in an effort to empower and advance my own self-knowledge. It is this process of re-education that will help me to scrutinize the information that is disseminated to me in the classroom, the media, and in everyday conversations. Elijah
Muhammad (1965) helps me understand the importance of education: “We need education, but an education which removes us from the shackles of slavery and servitude. Get an education, but not an education which leaves us in an inferior position and without a future” (p. 39). In addition, I must begin to challenge the hegemonic system of oppression that continues to plague people of color, and especially citizens of developing nations. Deconstruction brings necessary hope and stability to me, for as Akbar (1998) writes, “Once they have gone through the process of deconstruction, they are better equipped to purge themselves of the self-destructive ideas that fail to empower them and compel them instead to maintain white empowerment” (p. 58). And it is with deconstruction that I will be able to engage in an anti-racist struggle where I form bonds across ethnic, racial, gender, and nationality lines, and where I can fight to end white supremacy by focusing on a “democratic vision of racial justice and equality” (hooks, 1995a, p. 271).
It is only after decolonization that I may be able to reconcile the varied identities produced from these experiences in Burkina Faso, Benin, and Ghana. And yet, I’ll always be in the process of identity transformation, for identity transformation is never complete. The identities encountered within these countries are neither separate nor distinct. Rather, they too are the essence of who I am, and therefore, consume a large part of me. It would be silly and somehow shortsighted for me to end this document without acknowledging the process of reconciliation that I must do in order to make my different identities co-exists. It is true that I 130 have several identities, but identity itself is “contradictory, as composed of more than one discourse, as composed always across the silences of the other, as written in and through ambivalence and desire” (Hall, 1991, p. 148). But, I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that I no longer have to choose between different identities. I am all of these things and more. Until then . . . 131
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