Let’s be honest. Some Africans look at us like we’re lost, like we should prove our lineage and show documentation of our African-ness before we can claim kinship. But that’s not just unkind, it’s historically blind.
Because many of them migrated, too. Modern Africa has skyscrapers, tech hubs, and high-rise cities just like ours. Colonization didn’t spare them, it restructured them. A lot of traditions they’re rediscovering were once stripped the same way ours were.
We may not know our exact origin point, but we know our truth. And just as they have the right to reclaim what was fragmented, so do we.
When they come online and speak, some get it, they talk with us, not down to us. Others try to gatekeep Blackness like it’s a passport they can stamp. But Blackness isn’t theirs to issue.
Because in America, Black is a classification and community. It’s a reality you can’t sidestep, even if your accent is different or your papers say “immigrant.”
We were born in the aftershock of dislocation. Our connection to Africa is not mimicry, it’s mourning and memory.
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