I remember vividly; as if it had happened yesterday – the first time I had the pleasure of traveling to London. For those who are unaware of the reality of the UK; particularly London or Paris – there are a great many people of African ancestry there – a by-product of Great Britain’s colonization of the continent of Africa.
On this occasion; I was blessed to be there in light of our Happily Natural Day work at a festival dedicated to similar themes called Adornment. Well; as I exhibited there very proud I might add of my posters of Marcus Garvey; my table with a red black and green flag and my books for sale of African consciousness and the like, I was approached and joined in conversation by a patron who as the conversation would have it was from Madagascar. Another patron joining in the conversation was from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and another from the Ivory Coast. Well; when the question was asked of my where I was from I proudly proclaimed I was from the United States and that I was born in Virginia. Well one of the patrons asked me again – more inquisitive than disrespectful almost as if I did not understand the question…
No where are you from?
I fumbled in response- immediately embarrassed and feeling a sudden anxiety explained that because of slavery my ancestral homeland was unknown to me. That the records of such had been destroyed lost or not felt any of the littlest bit if import over the generations that my bloodline had sojourned in these shores. In that moment I felt a feeling wash over me that I hadn’t felt before. That though I prided myself in who I am and who I knew myself to be – a piece was missing a piece that I could not know intimately. I feel as though this must be understood when we as people of African ancestry explain what has happened as a result of slavery particularly in the North American version of white imperialism – we have had to construct an entirely new identity born out of a devastating cultural violence – a cultural genocide that no one could imagine or empathize with – not even our family across the ocean.
The patron would go on and ask if I had gotten a genetic ancestry test couldn’t that tell me where I was from. Somehow; even though I would get one years later – knowing by way of such methods does not connect one with the same glue that connects you if you know by way of your mother’s mothers mothers grandmother….