Have We Abandoned Our Culture?

This week the class was graced with the intelligence and wisdom of Dr. Mario Beatty. In his lecture entitled Abandonment and Dismemberment: "Something Torn and New", Dr. Beatty raised three questions:

• Does a physical abandonment lead to a cultural abandonment?
• If you are culturally empty, what do you fill yourself up with?
• What did African culture bring to the Americas?

As I analyzed these questions I thought about my own creole heritage (not to be confused with Haitian créole), which is a mixture of the French, Spanish, African, Caribbean, and Native American culture. On my mother's side my, great grandfather was one half French and one half African American. My great grandmother was one half Native American and one half African American. In my family, we celebrate our creole heritage through food, song, and language. Exploring more into my culture I found that a lot of the food that my family prepares comes from both African and French cuisine. Also creole language that my grandparents spoke came from a mixture of African, French, and Spanish. Knowing this made me realize that African slaves located in Louisiana filled themselves up with the cultures of the French, Native Americans , and Spanish. Not only did they embrace some of these other cultures, but they incorporated some of their own traditions and ideals.

Dr. Beatty also talked about Maroon societies, which were communities, usually located in the Islands and Brazil, solely governed and occupied by runaway African Slaves. These societies managed to keep concepts of their African culture like the languages, even the way they practiced medicine.

These societies also existed in Mexico, Nova Scotia, and parts of the United States like Florida.

In present day America (even though we don't realize it) African culture is very prevalent , especially for African Americans, through food, our speech patterns /Ebonics, artwork, even music and dance (I'm sure you can trace the dougie back to Africa). It is almost impossible for African culture to be abandoned or forgotten.