American
January 18, 2007
Last night I went to listen to a guest speaker at Carleton College. The speaker was M-1, a member of the black underground grassroots rap group Dead Prez, who was talking about the history of the black panthers and hip hop music. I am a quarter black myself and there were a lot of points he made in his speech that really resonated with me, and there were also a couple point he made that I didn’t really agree with.
At one point, in response to a question about the n word and the term African-American, he said “I’m an African first. Period.” and then went on to explain how he is an African, and his ancestors were forced to come here and learn English, etc.
My ancestors came to America on the same slave boats his did and we have the same slave heritage, but I’m an American first. Period.
The main point of his talk was explain the struggle of the black community to gain power in America with the current political system and political leaders, and how we, the black community, have to reach these positions of power for the people so we can give back to the community. Now, I agree with all this, but I don’t think his mind set of being an African first is the right mindset to achieve this. If you want power in America you have to do it as an American. If you want to gain power as an African do it in Africa. By the way, have you ever even been to Africa M-1?
America is part of our legacy. Right now the black legacy is the legacy of the slave and the white legacy is the legacy of the slave owner. I think its time we change that, redefine it. The black legacy is the legacy of America. Even-though our ancestors were brought to this country against their will, they built this country. Slaves built America. They build the infrastructure and even the economy. Now in today’s world we need to own up to this legacy. Our ancestors build this country, America is our right. We build it from the ground up and we should still be playing a key role in modern America. I think this mentality is much more beneficial to gaining power in America the the the mentality of being African first which distances you from America. We are Americans. We are America. When we realize this we can go on to do great things within America. Period.
