#the spanish to bring the oppressive abusive empires down for good

[michaelsmediablog-blog]

Final Blog: Representation’s Role in Equality

      The most fundamental part of Human society is the Family unit. Childhood has always been seen as the most influential part of life on the formation of an identity. Why then do we not teach our children about cultures that are different from the Western idea of life? Maybe because we’ve been taught through our childhoods that these peoples are so different that our children may not understand. Maybe it’s because we try and hide the atrocities committed by our ancestors that allow most of Europe, and our country to thrive in the way we have.

      I don’t know what makes the Western, predominantly White groups of people believe that they are superior to the world, but a common message sent out by them is that it was for the sake of “progress”. This is very circular logic; if a culture tells itself that it is somehow better than any culture less developed it is simply ignoring its own development cycle and then validating its opinions and prejudices towards their culture, their knowledge, and physical differences under the guise of objective comparison based on innovation. This ignores the context of these cultures, their geographic location, their available resources, surrounding cultures, and so many more factors that may tie into development.

      I will preface my discussion about The Thing Around Your Neck with some history, and a statement that I do not go that deep into the stories of The Thing Around Your Neck in order to help make a point.

      The use of Africans as slaves was started by the Portuguese in 1526, and continued for hundreds of years after, with the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch Empire joining in. The early practice of bringing them over as indentured servants and “apprentices for life” (as if they needed one) devolved into chattel slavery (slaves as property) by the mid 1600s. The “demand” for slaves was created by the booming plantations, their continued abuse, and the inhuman living conditions afforded to them. This increase in demand and thus, supply of slaves led to a very harsh racial caste throughout the world, as the Arab World had their own blossoming trade of slaves from Africa. We even tell stories about how most of the slaves in the Atlantic slave trade were sold to us by other Africans who had taken captives in wars despite the wars being supported and fought in by the countries that were buying the slaves. The European countries won both world influence and human lives that they were happy to destroy. The slaves were slaves forever, and their children were slaves from the minute they were born, their only culture and knowledge being that of a plantation or other workplace.

      The identity of these slaves was taken away and their cultures destroyed, not to be mentioned throughout history except for the few great empires like Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. It is interesting to look at the power vacuum created by the strife before and after the collapse of Songhai in 1591 and the way Europeans used that to solidify their hold on the African continent as a source of slaves and goods. We celebrate these empires as great, yet swooped in to gobble up the remaining previously conquered countries that were already trying to rebuild their identity. Historically, the reasons these empires were seen as great are quite shallow but telling. They were valued not only for their gold, salt, and other resources, but because they were told stories about these great civilizations, the empires were heard of as far as the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean then writing these stories down and allowing these stories of grandness to be divulged throughout history.

      These stories forced us to acknowledge the fact that there were African civilizations that had grand aspirations, that had large regional trade hubs, intelligence and culture. Since the arrival of Europeans to the continent we see a stark change in history about Africa. The nations that remained after the fall of the empires had no story told in the West other than the ones they invented for those countries, stories of international slavery and a focus on color of skin as a factor in that slavery. The modern stories told to us about Africa are drastically different, yet still have the same stigma. We talk about these nations we’ve as if they are worse now because of environmental factors, loss of resources due to their own trade, civil wars and constant fighting with other groups nearby; yet the stigma of their skin and genetics, as well as the toxic control by Europe poisons the pot with racial undertones and a constant feeling of condescending rhetoric and avoiding our own guilt.

      These stories of civil wars and other fighting, and warlords only serve to make us feel better about ourselves. We say that they are struggling because of their own faults much like we deflect the questions about the police brutality towards and murder of black people by bringing up irrelevant statistics about black on black crime. Or the way we still talk about the “ways that black children are worse behaved”, using statistics that may be true, but are completely influenced by racist practices in discipline, from preschool all the way to the Supreme Court.

      The Thing Around Your Neck is a collection of twelve stories that takes place in Nigeria and the United States, the use of both settings has a lasting impact on the reader, with the United States being used to show that the oppression and identity loss caused by colonization never ends. There is very long lasting damage from the modern racism that started from the Atlantic slave trade. Adichie’s stories don’t seem to want to criticize and belittle Americans or our culture, instead they serve as a sullen reminder that these people we oppressed are just the same as us at heart. They have dreams, family life, curiosity, technology, love, hatred, fear, sadness, politics, universities. It forces us to acknowledge these people as people, and as great civilizations (let’s face it, if you’ve lasted this long you’re a great civilization) just like the stories of the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, kingdoms I was taught were “ancient” despite them being a progression of civilizations that lasted from around 300 CE until 1591 CE. Maybe ancient at first, but the distinction of them as ancient is a fuzzy lie that seems to be used to amplify the idea that these countries were less developed than the European countries at the time.

      What we need is more stories. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck is the kind of stories we need. Not ones that focus on what the West thinks of African countries, but authentic and genuine stories that focus on what African countries think of themselves and the West, and that let them showcase their unique cultures, that let them be the heroes, that let them be whomever they want. Their culture has been suppressed for so many hundreds of years, why shouldn’t we let them teach us about their culture and how they feel about our oppression of it, we’ve certainly caused enough pain for them to get that liberty. Instead, these stories of civil wars and other fighting, and warlords only serve to make us feel better about ourselves. We say that they are struggling because of their own faults much like we deflect the questions about the police brutality towards and murder of black people by bringing up irrelevant statistics about black on black crime. Or the way we still talk about the “ways that black children are worse behaved”, using statistics that may be true, but are completely influenced by racist practices in discipline, from preschool all the way to the Supreme Court.

      The truth is, it doesn’t matter what these stories are about, the stories in The Thing Around Your Neck are not special stories because of special events happening or some incredible hero, they are special because they are exactly not these things. They tell stories of common people, of everyday experiences, even things that some of us can relate to. Stories about a son/brother in jail, of an immigrant nanny who falls in love, about two women stuck and scared during a riot, and many more. It doesn’t matter what these individual stories from the book are about (it does, but bear with me), it matters that this collection of short stories feel like it has identity/ies. It feels like a conversation with people from the country. You feel personally connected to them. In fact, the short story form is crucial to the book’s representation of Nigeria as a very different but very relatable country. The representation of these people, not as something ultra unique or anything special, is the kind of representation that leads to inclusion and understanding. They make us relate to people who we have possibly not even thought about before. That is an important realization for people to come to, and I believe that it is at the base of stopping racial prejudice that these stories of oppressed or even simply different people are told to our children along with true and non-covered-up history. It would much easier to create equality, understanding, and healthy communication if everyone had these concepts given to them in their formative years. If not exposed to the cultures enough in that time one might end up being the most powerful man in the world and still believing the childhood prejudices given to him by his parents, notably his father (along with that sweet “small loan of $1,000,000).

References:

Ghana, Mali, and Songhai - a lesson from a GMU professor I know - http://chnm.gmu.edu/fairfaxtah/lessons/documents/africaPOSinfo.pdf

Atlantic slave trade -

Deborah Gray White, Mia Bay, and Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013), 11.

Weber, Greta (June 5, 2015). "Shipwreck Shines Light on Historic Shift in Slave Trade". National Geographic Society. Retrieved February 22, 2017.

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