VKY

Written by VKY/ Victoria Kabeya. All Rights Reserved

As often repeated in this blog, we can not talk about an African-American culture, as one should rather mention the existence of African-American cultures. Due to the great US territorial expansion, it would be totally improbable to reduce the Black American experience to the hip-hop subculture. As they have been manipulated by the standardization of “Blackness” through the overexposed Black American model, Black Europeans have been submitted to the US Black model since the first waves of African migrations to Europe, thus giving birth to horrific blends mixing the low African cultures from the capitals, to a hybrid Black American and ghetto facet inherited from the European capital they grew up in and as symbolized by the likes of Aya Nakamura.

The European elite never act out of innocence. In their disdain and racism, they always deemed the Black American heritage to have been much more acceptable than that of the African immigrants. Why? In their demise, the Black Americans were already shaped by capitalism and assimilated to an aspiration as they desired to access European elitism in arts, politics, education and social activities. As being the first minority living in the most powerful nation on earth, understand the United States, their political fate was always regarded as more important than the other diasporas. If Black Brazilians, Black Colombians, Black Puerto-Ricans or Black Cubans proved to be examples of great resilience as they fought for their rights and emancipation, their history is not promoted by the West at all. They belong to the despised southern sphere and have little to no importance. The Black Americans were promoted due to their assimilation, hence a tactique Western Europeans hoped to reproduce with their own African minorities they despised.

Due to the lack of representation and their social isolation following the 1970s massive waves of immigration to Western Europe, the Europeans of African and Afro-Caribbean descent followed the Black American model, as it represented a perfect compromise between Africanness through a cool and embraced European/White assimilation. In that regard, the international explosion of hip-hop in the mid 1990s helped millions of Euro-African men and women adapt and find their place in a racist world which was not crafted or designed for them. Most importantly, before the Nigerians made Africa interesting again with the international rise of Afro beat in the 2010s, the African-Americanization of Black European societies was also a good machine for the white elite as it went along with the dehumanization of African culture. Indeed, those who hoped to become more similar to the black Americans they deemed superior to Black Europeans as a whole, saw Africa as a desperate continent with no issue. As a consequence, instead of creating their own heritage by blending the authentic European and African cultures they belonged to, two generations of Black Europeans, beginning in the 1980s, failed to create their own culture which should have been distinct from that of the Black Americans.

As usual, the African-Americanization of these Black Europeans did not take place through elevation at all but rather through a constant dumbing down of their selves due to the constant exposure of black families to the sphere of entertainment. In reality, Black Americans have been used since the dawn of time by their white elite as the best group to dumb down the planet. A Black American poet or intellectual will be read and studied in white elitist groups while the black masses would rather listen to Beyoncé and place entertainers, hence political puppets, at the top of their worshipping altars. In a matter of fifty years, the entertainment industry has promoted Black musicians to encourage the black masses not to see beyond the prism of music and industrialized art. By worshipping celebrities they owe to turn into political figures, these Blacks are thus used to spiritual submission, for conditioned to wait for a savior,instead of standing up for their own rights and regard themselves as capable beings who can overcome obstacles. Black entertainers are promoted by the white elite for they lead their communities to a cultural void.

The 1990s would be the shift which marked the beginning of the end of the depth of black American culture as the singers and performers became much more interested in the idea of capitalism and power than other.

The dumbing down of the “black experience” by the forced African-Americanization is also due to one other major problem: African immigration. Most immigrants who moved massively to Western Europe in the 1970s were exploited as workers in poor industries. To the eyes of the European leaders of that time, these poor immigrants were nothing less than arms. Thus, by accepting them, the European elite clearly knew that decades would be needed to eradicate the systemic rooted poverty as the latter is reinforced by the lack of projection in the future. These African immigrants were used to serve, only and be dependent upon state’s money. As a consequence, few African parents taught their children how to own, build and possess. This explains the great lateness of the African French community with “political” figures such as Assa Traoré, Rokhaya Diallo or the collective SOS Racisme whose ideas are not only plain and late but truly lack intellectual stimulation. The arrival of the Africans in the 1970s was a trap they fell into dangerously as the European political clique knew their descendants would fall behind for unable to see ahead of time due to the lack of intellectual stimulation from their working and exploited parents.

The glory is always attributed to low Blacks, especially in the world of entertainment. Why? The Black communities living in the Western sphere do not realise that they have been under study for 400 years. Their constant exposure to easy money and capitalism helps their white leaders keep them behind. As they have been abused for hundred of years, the black communities never had access to the material goods unlike the prosperous Whites. After the revolution of the 1960s, the Black Americans were trapped again and granted the right to massively consume goods to take away their attention from the real black fight. As a consequence, the 1970s and 1980s saw the rise of a political hybridity where mass consumerism was mixed with a fraudulent political consciousness. Products such as Beyoncé are the prime example. And unfortunately, the real black American fighters who have been carrying the political struggle of their forefathers are silently being assassinated, as the case of Darren Seals from Ferguson proved it.

When it comes to dumbing down individuals or bring in political chaos, Blacks are always used by the elite to do the dirty job. If one dares to criticize it or question it, one would scream about sexism or racism. The oversexualization of the black female body which is similar to that of the enslaved African women under slavery and colonialism as illustrated by products such as Nicki Minaj, Meg The Stallion or Cardi B is one example. This constant dehumanization of the black group by black people themselves who remain blinded by the destructive concept of massive capitalism has been applied to the Black Europeans too.

In reality, the latter always had a feeling of inferiority towards their American counterparts when they were originally much more wealthy in terms of culture. They not only know their roots in Africa as they were lucky enough to have kept their lineages, but they also live in European countries with rich cultures. Despite their cruel colonial pasts, France, the UK, Germany, Spain or Italy have a rich intellectual, cultural, spiritual patrimony which deserved to be embraced, studied, read and appreciated. Way too often, the European cultures were rejected as a response to the social isolation and racism experienced by the Black Europeans themselves. But such reaction was wrong. Politicians exploit conditions for their own strategy but culture and arts can not always be politicized. What have Aleksander Pushkin, Fyodor Dovtoiesky, Alexandre Dumas, François-René de Chateaubriand to do with racial political strategies?

Plus, the European elite in their racism always claimed that the recent African waves of migration to Europe were a modern concept which did not exist before and that the immigrants are all desperate beings attracted to the Western wealth. In reality, history proved way too many times during Antiquity, that Black Africans were not only always present in Europe but also one of the main racial and cultural foundations of the continent. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Europa whose continent was named after, descended from a black Egyptian/Canaanite branch thus indicating that ancient Europeans knew that Europeans were originally mixed race. Africans also contributed to the creation of legendary musical styles such as Fado in Portugal, Flamenco in Spain, among others.

Therefore, Africans always had a place in European history and development even during slavery. Alexandre Dumas, the direct descendant of an enslaved African Haitian woman was acclaimed by white French people and regarded as one of the best authors of all time. Though racist, the same French people were also welcoming to the African-Americans who fled persecution in the 1920s to settle in Paris. While Africans were exposed in zoos, white French accepted the Black Americans.

The complex of inferiority displayed towards Europe and the lateness of Latin European countries whose leaders refused to integrate and accept their minorities to protect their old and dying white institutions contributed to a stagnation of the Black Europeans but also to a disinterest for European cultures. The varied, diverse African backgrounds of the immigrants should have forced the latter to spend their time exploring their selves rather than copying the black Americans.

The respect towards the Black American achievement is understandable and can not be condemned, but it should have never lasted as long, as it contributed to the cultural loss of our own. And judging by how the Black Americans have been presented as the only model of success, they proved to be a tremendous failure in everything, as they betrayed the fight of their ancestors for the joy of capitalism reinforced by their great desire to be embraced by the white elite.

It is, therefore, more than important to understand that, in our present cycle, a mark has been sealed forever as the Black populations either living in Western Europe or the US now belong to another category, whether they accept it or not. Indeed, the distanciation from Africa has been made and the groups became something else, belonging to an inbetweeness they will not be able to stay away from.