Sunday, September 18, 2011

Abandonment and Dismemberment"Something Torn and New"

This weeks lecture about, Abandonment and Dismemberment:"Something Torn and New"; put several things in prospective for me. The lecture gave an understanding about the way African Americans were forced from their native lands to other places. From all the things that our ancestors went through our heritage still goes on. Even though our ancestors were treated badly they remained strong through it all.
One of the things that was discussed during this lecture was the dismemberment of our African American peoples. A basic definition of dismemberment is suffering of a person or a group of people. What Africans suffered from was the forcing of them from their native land. Many of the slaves would never see their homeland again. The reason why Africans were used as slaves because their bodies were immuned to diseases and they were much stronger. They new how to cultivate rice which was a major thing during slavery. Dismemberment makes it seem like everything was lost but it wasn't. Traditions were kept alive and their lives still continued only under someone elses authority. The moving of the Africans was known as the middle passage. The Middle Passage also consisted of the triangular trade in which millions of people from Africa were taken to the New World. This was organized by groups of investors rather than an individual alone. This was a loss of emptiness.
Although Africans were forced from their homelands they didn't lose everything. Their culture still went on. Their beliefs and behaviors stayed the same. Several of their traditions are still apart of the Americas now. Such as the modeling of families with the dad always being at the top. With out African Americans several things wouldn't be going on in America today.What if there wasn't a such thing as medicine men and women? The development of cures wouldn't probably have been in existence. From my own experiences with making baskets and chairs this still goes on in my family and has been passed down for generations. One of the important things that still goes on today is agricultural cultivation.
One of the ways that scholars have tended to explain African dismemberment is how Africans suffered but they remained strong through the rough times. Like I mentioned earlier about the medicine men and women they paid the way for other people. Now we have technology to help make things much easier and we also have research facilities to make the job easier. Back during the days of slavery people worked hard and wasn't able to have short cuts to get the job done. Now we have anything you can think of to help with cures and other things that help the nation.

Niesha Bush

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