As a so-called African American male, I have always struggled with how I fit into the American concept. I was born in America and have always lived here but I don’t fill like I am accepted for what I am, or do I not accept myself for what I am not? If you find an African American woman that lets her hair grow naturally, she will not be able to get a job in corporate American. Even more she will be seen as a revolutionary and a troublemaker. Why does our blackness scare America? We are the only people on the planet with wooly hair, is it a gift or a curse (Revelation 1:14)? There have been times when I felt disconnected from myself. I mean Italian Americans, Chinese Americans, and Mexican Americans are all just that. Their identity is implied and expressed in the name. They have their homeland, culture, language and foods intertwined with Americanism. As displaced Africans born in American we have no homeland to visit, no language to speak, no culture to honor, and no cultural foods that identify us. I was born in the 70’s and grow up with hip-hop music and I enjoy it, but it is not African. I have and some times still speak slang or Ebonics, but that’s not African. I grow up watching my grandmother in the kitchen cooking that delicious soul food, but it is not authentically African. Africa is a huge country with many tribes from which do we belong? If we are African American were is the African in us, or does it stop with the color of our skin. Truly we African Americans suffer with identity crises in this country. We as a people have made up a culture to substitute for the one we lost, no matter how degrading some aspects of it may be to ourselves. There are those who look at us in scorn asking why don’t we pull ourselves up like all other immigrants have done in this country. Often people speak without thinking. African Americans were not immigrants in America, our focus to today is not on slavery but on the affect it has on our psyche. It is a true statement that states, “you must know where you come from to know where you are going”. If you don’t know where you come from you can still travel the road of life, but the road will be very jagged. My story does not start with slavery, and I will not be defined by it. I took a DNA test to find out what tribe in Africa my family descended from, and we are Fulani. Since I gained this information two years ago I have found comfort in knowing truly where I come from. Now when I say I am an African American I can mean it. Hopefully all sons and daughters of African born in America will one day find their own truth and complete the puzzle of their lives.
