As much as I hate on
Dakar (like Dominicans) I love it.
That weekend I went to the
Goree Diaspora Festival, a series of movies, conferences and concerts in
Goree, an
island of Dakar famous for its colonial architecture, car-free streets (cars are illegal) and
La Maison des Esclaves or Slave House.
It’s a touristy place and I had avoided going because first of all, it’s expensive for foreigners to take the ferry and the slave house is not an experience I was ready to face alone.
But I decided to drag myself out there for the festival, although I still haven’t gone to the Slave House.
When I arrived at the port in
Dakar, I was predictably approached by a tout.
I told him that I didn’t want a tour as I was going to the festival, but that if he could get me the Senegalese price for the ferry ticket he could keep the $8 difference.
Although he looked like an old drunk he turned out to be quite smart, speaking English and Spanish fluently.
He said he had a degree in history and we spoke about slavery and the African Diaspora over beers.
I argued that Africans don’t understand the true impact of slavery on its descendants, or even on them.
After all—even in purely economic terms—
West Africa lost the most productive members of its labor force for centuries, and that’s without even looking at the social and psychological costs.
West Africa would not be in the sorry state it’s in now, being the world’s poorest region, if it weren’t for centuries of slavery.
Still I have been struck by how ignorant and/or insensitive people out here are about slavery (again a problem that is just as much “ours” as “theirs”).
As far as they are concerned, slavery is just another way to get “white” folks to come out here and fork over lots of money, with “roots tourism” being essentially no different than taking folks to the beach or selling them batik.
Lonely Planet even warns against the fraudulent claims of the tourist guides in Georgetown in The Gambia who have created a local roots industry by renaming random old buildings to create a “slave prison,” “slave house,” “slave market” and even a “freedom tree,” which would guarantee freedom to all those who touched it; and of course a “visitors’ book” encouraging donations in the memory of slavery.
While I can’t knock the hustle (50 Cent and all of them fake studio gangstas need to shut up and come to this part of the world, if they want to see real hustlers), and understand that cats are poor and Black Unitedstatesians are wealthy in comparison, I find such fabrications disgusting.
It is an insult to OUR ancestors.
Ultimately, these were the relatives of their ancestors who were kidnapped, dehumanized and enslaved.
It’s tragic that people would feel the need to pimp the suffering of their own just to make a quick buck.
Ironically just as I was telling homey about how I hate people hustling me as a “homecoming African” it was clear that he wasn’t listening still busy thinking about how he could hustle me for some CFA.
Once on the island, I met Queen Mother Blakely a
remarkable woman, the community mayor of
Harlem and a long-time reparations activist.
She has been coming to Goree since 1990 and is trying to realize her dream of turning the island into a first-class tourist resort for Black Unitedstatesians to come “home” to
Africa and “heal.”
I am skeptical, but will keep my mouth shut out of respect to her.
While building with her about what had just happened with my “guide” she made an interesting suggestion which still has me thinking.
She asserted that Africans would never understand slavery, and we shouldn’t even try to explain.
This reminded me of something I remember hearing in one of the classes I took on the African Diaspora.
American Blackness and African Blackness are similar, but have different roots.
For those of us on the Western side of the
Atlantic, our blackness was born the moment whitey threw the shackles on you and crammed you onto a boat i.e. it was born during the middle passages.
Thereafter, your ethnic group didn’t matter, you were a slave cause you were black and you were black cause you were a slave.
For black folks on this side, they weren’t black until the French came over and started naming streets after their generals, i.e. people saw each other as Wolof, Sereer, etc. until the French told them they were black.
Thereafter, they were black because they were colonial subjects and they were colonial subjects because they were black.
Now that’s two different forms of blackness, which could justify the logical implication of Queen Mother Blakely’s stance: Pan-Africanism without
Africa.
I am still not sure if I am ready to go that far, but I can confess that after five months in
Senegal it’s getting harder to claim that I am still a Pan-Africanist.
