boswains

More sun than that comes from Mr. Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang. I love the quality of his voice and more his spirit, the thoughtfulness.. the evolution that can come from suffering and trauma.

We are still dealing with the effects of slavery..and we don’t hear this side of it. That we focus on this is so necessary. I really cannot tell you how it affects me. Forgive me but I relate it to the Holocaust that my people went through and still struggle so much about. It’s trauma and it reverberates in us all. Of course,one would not more want a music concert in Cape Castle than in Auschwitz.

Mr. Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang thank you and thank you Chris. I’ll think of this as the best journalism that can be- and it should be supported.

In Mali, for instance, different forms of slavery are discussed much more openly and it usually doesn’t sound like the one involving Euro-American slave-drivers is so present on people’s minds, as opposed to both local forms and those involving Arab slave-drivers. Among Malians who know about the European form (especially people with formal education from Euro-American institutions), there can be a conception which would shock many American descendants of African slaves: that slave origins should be hidden. A specific form of the shame Kwadwo discusses, informed by the specific context (having to do, in part, with how descendants of slaves could gain a new identity).

I only passed by Dakar and I didn’t go to Gorée Island, but even during my brief layover (and, especially, plane travels to and from Dakar), I couldn’t help but notice a sort of tension between Americans of African origins and West Africans who were interacting with them. Very anecdotal, to be sure, but it left me a lasting impression. For instance, embarking the plane from NYC’s JFK to Dakar’s Senghor, the flight attendant greeted me with a “vous, au moins, vous parlez français!” Apart from me, most people in this Air Afrique flight was going to Gorée Island to visit the place where atrocities had been made to their ancestors. Sure, this flight attendant might have had his own agenda. But, contrary to my experience with other people in (“Francophone”) West Africa, there was a clear sense that I was more like them than these Others.

Of course, the relationships between Africans and Americans of African descent are very complex. And Liberia has been the source of much discussion on the topic, academic and otherwise. But it’s interesting to get more localized perspectives. After all, Africa is possibly the most diverse continent on the planet, culturally, and there are clearly many issues at stake. From Kwadwo’s description, it sounds likely that Ghanaians have a very specific connection with Americans of African descent. It’s possible that the English language helps a bit, as a something of a link (in a way French doesn’t between, say, Haitians and Ivoirians). Similarly, the specific Christian denominations present in Ghana may also play a role in a way Catholicism doesn’t, in Francophone contexts. But, from the fact that even something as fundamental as the greetings would have to do with being chased makes it sound like slavery has had a very different meaning in this part of Ghana than it did in other parts of the continent.