Roots Archives Forum

Many artists sing about going back to africa but i think this is fantasy because as an afrian from kenya myself i can say that conditions in africa r too tuff for anyone who was not born there.please tell me what u think.

i think it is irrelevant

marcus garvy was (in my opinion) refering to breaking from the shackles and chains of slavery and white oppression
and going to the promised land, freedom

and i dare to say in those days life in africa was better (for black people)than in the US compared to now

Vinnie,

Where exactly in Africa was life better than in the United States? "Rhodesia"? South Africa? Congo?

I dare say that when Marcus Garvey was alive, there were few independent nations in Africa-- Liberia and Ethiopia, I think. And at the end of Garvey's life Ethiopia was occupied by fascist Italy.

Just remembered there is a terrific article in a recent edition of the New York Review of Books about repatriation that discusses a number of recent books as well as the author's personal experience.

Unfortunately the article is not available for free online. Worth checking out at your library if you have a chance. Or you can buy access for $2 online. http://www.nybooks.com/contents/20070927

Very thought provoking.



Kwame Anthony Appiah, "What Was Africa to Them?*"

The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade by William St Clair

Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787–2005 by James T. Campbell

American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era by Kevin K. Gaines

Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in Africa and Beyond by Ekow Eshun, with illustrations by Chris Ofili

Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route by Saidiya Hartman

picaraza wrote:Vinnie,

Where exactly in Africa was life better than in the United States? "Rhodesia"? South Africa? Congo?

I dare say that when Marcus Garvey was alive, there were few independent nations in Africa-- Liberia and Ethiopia, I think. And at the end of Garvey's life Ethiopia was occupied by fascist Italy.

you are correct there

makes me think of this hop hop song from a rapper in africa one line he says " so you think your tough? everday i hunt for food and avoid the soliders with ak" ....he was taking a jab at american hip hoppers who sing about the tough old ghetto life they live in usa,as if it were a joke to him and more like luxury their u.s.a ghetto.

stange huh one mans ghetto is anothers paradise

Leggo Rocker, You nailed it My Bredren!

i believe this was the reason why marcus garvey founded the blackstar liner tho to repatriate to africa

@leggo,

Yes, but in that context "Zion" and "Babylon" are metaphors. Similarly, "Africa" may be used as a metaphor.

But the topic is repatriation--physically packing your bags and moving to the continent of Africa.

Rasta grew out of Garvey's Back-to-Africa movement. Certainly, if Garvey is considered to be a prophet his words and deeds must be taken very seriously. And. as Vinnie points out, the Black Star Line was not a metaphor, but an earnest effort to transport Americans to Africa.

Spiritual journeys are one thing, but pan-Africanism, Afro-centrism, black separatism, and repatriation are also in-the-world (corporeal) political movements.

I don't see Rasta as being "quietistic" in any sense. I don't see an indifference to politics or the in-the-world the needs of "blood, flesh, and bone bags". Politics matter.

(But then, I am an outsider looking in.}