The Black Diasporic discourse - Term Paper Example

The Black Diasporic Dis Introduction Every period in the history of African American literature portrays its unique theme. Yet, in every period, almost all African American writers have tried to present event a quick look into the diverse and rich histories of African Americans. The initial phase of the journey of the African diaspora in the United States was defined by the popularity of the slave narrative, which kept on thriving and influencing African American literature even after the abolition of the institution of slavery. Over hundreds of years, millions of Africans were dispersed all over the world by the slave trade. The transatlantic slave trade transported millions of Africans to the Americas, Caribbean, India, Europe, North Africa, and the Arab world. Numerous African American literary texts describe this great movement in detail. Michael Gomez provides a factual description of the African Diaspora in his book Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora, while Charles Henry Rowell presents a collection of African American fiction and poetry in his book Making Callaloo: 25 Years of Black Literature. This paper analyzes how the African slave trade’s shaping of the African diaspora was described in these two important books. African Diaspora in Black Literature The massive forced transport of Africans does not match precisely the meaning of diaspora. African slaves do not belong to a single ethnic or religious group, but to different beliefs, cultures, and ethnicity. However, the concept of diaspora can be related to the African diaspora in its broadest meaning of diffusion and preserved cultural traditions. Millions of Africans who were scattered across the globe through the slave trade kept hold of their culture, and continuously practiced it through rituals, traditions, music, and religion. Over the recent decades, the black Atlantic discipline has placed emphasis on the shaping of racial groups across the globe, with a focus on the flow of material objects and ideas. And still Africa is strangely missing in these lively and flourishing discourses, as the Atlantic is still viewed as mainly talking about the flow of objects, peoples, and ideas between the Americas and Europe. Hence, African American literature emerges to describe how Africa is positioned in the discourses and writings of black diasporic authors. Taking into consideration literary portrayals of Africa by African, black British, and African-American authors, this paper argues that a charting of Africa in diasporic literature contributes much to the reconstruction of current perspectives of diaspora. In black diaspora literary texts, the symbol of Africa refers as strongly to aspirations of liberation and restoration of a lost homeland. Read as one, the literary creations of authors, such as Caryl Phillips, Percival Everett, and the other authors included in the book Making Callaloo, make up a black Atlantic collection. This collection comprises not just writings that emphasize transnational movement across different points of the Atlantic, but also texts that adopt the theoretical features of the concept of diaspora—the effort to unearth a valuable past, the significance of memory, and the loss of home. Moreover, a study of diaspora essentially requires a thought on the outcomes of slavery, as well as an analysis on the relationship of Africans to the Western word and its intellectual forces, specifically those that have been identified with regard to Africans—reason and modernity. Two of the most remarkable contemporary writers of African diaspora are Michael Gomez and Charles Henry Rowell. In Reversing Sail, Michael Gomez explores the factual scattering and movement of Africans since ancient times. The struggles of Africans in Europe, the Arab world, and the Mediterranean are afterward marked by their migration into the Americas, where their predicaments in territories invaded by European colonizers are examined in relation to the African slave trade. On the other hand, in Making Callaloo, Charles Henry Rowell provides a rich compilation of fiction and poetry written by black diasporic writers. Both authors’ portrayal of diaspora demonstrates bigger patterns in modern cultural studies. Gomez supports the idea that Africans are not inferior being by providing a full history of African diaspora. Through this historical account, he tries to prove that Africa was in fact a civilized continent even before modernity stepped in, and that African diaspora was already happening way before the system of slave trade. According to Gomez (Gomez 8): A brief consideration of ancient Africa, especially Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia, remains important for at least two reasons: First, it contextualizes the discussion of subsequent developments largely inaugurated with massive trades in African captives. Antiquity reminds us that modernity could not have been predicted, that Africans were not always under the heel but were in fact at the forefront of human civilization. Second, antiquity reminds us that African Diaspora did not begin with slave trades. Rather, the dissemination of African ideas and persons actually began long ago. Gomez basically argues that in order to genuinely understand the intricacies and contributions of Africans and their diaspora one has to revisit its history before slavery. Gomez thoroughly explored the African diaspora and religion in order to trace the emergence and expansion of African slavery. He explained that the slave trade system sped up the dispersal of Africans across the globe. However, he also explained how these dispersed Africans had to reclaim their liberty and fight the system of exploitation. From these struggles, it was evident that the connections between the African diaspora were pieces of a string that always returned to Africa. As stated by Gomez, the slave trade or transatlantic movement “did not completely rupture ties to the homelands” (Gomez 79). Scattered Africans did not lose their dream of returning to their native soil. Their struggle against slavery is a fight for their homeland. The last parts of Reversing Sail depict the how the hearts and minds of the contemporary generation of African diaspora are going back to the Africa. The continuous movement of the African diaspora represents the active reconstruction and joining of the political and cultural spheres and the foreseeable struggle against oppression and exploitation Africans had suffered for so long. The ultimate message of Reversing Sail states that the recognition of and bond with Africa has to be more profound and more realistic due to the existing period of misery and hardship all over the black humanity. Black intellectuals have been actively involved in this struggle against the system of oppression. In Making Callaloo, Rowell provides a glimpse of the writings of the most talented black authors in order to demonstrate how the African diaspora contributed to the fight against slavery. Rowell explained how the African diaspora gave birth to a varied mix of black intellectuals who formed the Black Arts Movement more than four decades ago. He described how these diverse experiences rooted in African diaspora formed the foundation of the black struggle against old and new forms of slavery (Rowell xxiii): African-American people find themselves told at turns that works of art represent an entire, collective experience. We are left with jacket copy with claims like “captures the black life” or “reveals the African-American experience.” Writers since the Black Arts Movement have come to appreciate and reject the American effort at containment. They have freed themselves to consider their work with purely artistic concern and execution, shaking off the insidious and bogus weights of race, representation, and loyalty. Rowell presented his compilation of fiction and poetry with a description of the process of envisioning African diaspora through a plethora of imaginations. Even though numerous of the authors included in the collection built worlds that portrayed cultural and historical realities, other writers created new dimensions to represent their creative spheres. The shared cultural history and individual worlds collided in Making Callaloo. Percival Everett, in his work Meiosis, tells the sojourn of a black man in the United States. The story is a vibrant depiction of the lives of black people in modern America. The author shows how their connections to slavery have been used against them. But in this story a new form of slavery is portrayed—commercial slavery. The black people are publicized as violent individuals, inclined to violent sports, like boxing: “There were signs touting a boxing match to be held there that evening. The photos on the posters showed to mean looking black men staring at each other” (Rowell 89). There are also mentions of the derogatory name ‘nigger’ in the entire story. Likewise, in the story Silences by Helen Elaine Lee, the struggles of an African American family to ‘belong’ and make ends meet has been narrated in an agonizing way. The author describes how the family lived their life in neglect and indifference from the larger society. Conclusions Reversing Sail and Making Callaloo clearly demonstrate how the history of slavery shaped the African diaspora and how such reconnections to their African homeland and ancestry helped them fight the injustices and oppression meted against them. The presence of black diasporic writers is increasingly felt today. They are a powerful reminder that even before the slave trade Africans had already been at the center of civilization; they are not inferior beings, as what Eurocentric people labeled them to be. Works Cited Gomez, Michael. Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Rowell, Charles Henry. Making Callaloo: 25 Years of Black Literature. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Print. Read More