Response to Chippla’s “White Africans”
The following comes from a comment in response to the post, “White Africans,” at Chippla Vandu’s Blog:
The knowledge here informs me to maintain that Africaness is a state of mind. Africaness is determined by content of character—not color of skin or geographic location. Louis Leakey grew up with the Kikuyu people—does that make the man who defined homo sapien sapien an African? David Duke was raised by a Black woman—does that make him one of the Black family? To direct the term “African” to any of the Greek-based Ptolemaic dynasties that ruled Egypt (or their descendants to the fortieth generation) appears to be political sex-working to me. Every properly assimilated citizen of empire knows who to please in order to appear “balanced” and “reasonable.”
It should follow, then, that we, who are interested in being African need to know what the African state of mind was before, say, circa 550BC when the Greeks really got going at Miletus. To even remotely suggest that there is no Pan-African mindset that can be distinguished among the diversity of Africa indicates to me that the person making the assertion is under the influence of European existentialism (you know, the stuff that makes you say, “Whatever!” like an Encino valley girl).
Without any more bombastic fanfare, the basic foundation of African Deep Thought (the thinking that has made the most lasting African peoples) is a preoccupation with keeping people alive. Ancient African peoples are of cultures so old that there were no others to invade and steal from on a massive scale. This means that African people got into “the habit” of life. Being biased toward life can easily be called in our times a “liberal bias.” (It is strange how life conservation can be considered liberal.) To keep people alive you need families. This means that African people are family oriented people. I have just eliminated almost every person with strong African features in the Hollywood entertainment business. You see how this works? Africaness is a state of mind. For me, not to care what my ancestors thought and go off and make “my own” “new”—to run off and “redefine” is again more product out of the fashion centers Europe—brand new retro.
So it should be easy to see how this basic Africaness, the bias toward preserving life, impacts issues like “crime” and “HIV/AIDS.” When I see a 10-year old boy with a machine gun in Uganda or Zulus and Xhosas displacing the Khoisan people, I see the influence of empire. (The invasion of the Nile Valley civilizations by Indo-Europeans caused a chain reaction of migration and violence that is often underestimated—systematically and deliberately underestimated. Every properly assimilated citizen of empire knows who to please in order to appear “balanced” and “reasonable.”)
By definition, my person can live with any person (without regard to this European concept of “race”) that is biased toward preserving all life for the concept of divinity. Yes, chickens get eaten and bugs get squashed but there is no excuse for assuming that “kill or be killed” is universal human nature. And, let’s not confuse “kill or be killed” with “murder or be murdered.” I think Hamlet got this shit covered.