Next Year in Accra!

When I was abroad in London I would meet students at SOAS or random folk in the street and they would inevitably ask me where I was from. And I thought the answer was obvious (by my hard/nasal American accent), and I'd tell them, the States. Then they would ask where I was really from. Thats when things got a little sticky and I'm stumble through an, "Uh ummm... Brooklyn, Trinidad and Panama are where my mama and daddy are from. But we were slaves. Well not me, but you know what I'm saying right?"

The perils of being New World black.

Then one of the security guards from my school who would always greet my friend by calling her an Ethiopian princess (although she ALWAYS let homeboy know she is Eritrean) asked me where I was from. As I stumbled through my answer, he told me that I looked Nigerian and from then on would call me a Nigerian princess. And I was well maybe, who knows? But I secretly relished being included in his daily greetings of all the African students, although I've never seen the shores of the motherland.
In fact, I know more young white Americans than black who have been blessed with the opportunity to go to Africa. And yes, I'm more than secretly jealous. There is something to be said of seeing a nation in which people with brown/black skin run tings. My homeboy Jason said it best, reflecting on his trip to Ghana - "There were black faces on the money!" Going back to Trinidad brings about some of those emotions, but I yearn for the day to actually go to Africa and see the place where my line started.

Young black Americans need our version of the Birthright trip that young Jewish students from throughout the diaspora are entitled to - a fully endowed trip to their homeland. Oprah, Skip Gates, Bob Johnson and all other wealthy Negroes need to get on board with my idea for a Sankofa trip, the black American version of the Birthright Israel trip. The devil is in the details though, who is eligible? where will they go? how will we figure out where people go, we were enslaved, we don't know where we're from?! Thats where technology comes in! Courtesy of a DNA test a la African American Lives, we will figure out were the majority of our ancestry is from (for my Caribbean folk things will get a lil hairy, but UWI has resources and archives).

I want to see Africa not just for the safaris, and the kente cloth - I could go to the Bronx Zoo and 125th for that. I want to see where the music I listen to is from, the roots of our worship, how we dress, walk, talk and eat the foods that we do. I want to see the diasporic connections. I want to see, live with my own eyes, that while I am from the United States and my parents from the Caribbean, that my journey started elsewhere.

Then we will go home again.

Or watch me turn out like some Skip Gates, with little traceable roots to Africa, resulting in a trip to Ireland.

what are you gonna do with that?

When I tell many folks my major, the reaction is a look of mixed confusion, indignation, pity, astonishment, and amusement. "What in the world does she plan to do with THAT?", is the question their eyes reveal. Or, "I know her mother is not paying 45 grand a year so she can waste her time."

Well my response to the latter is, thanks to Amherst's very generous financial aid packages, my mother isn't paying the college tuition sticker price and I've been doing plenty with my major thus far, thankyouverymuch.

I declared a double major in Black Studies and History (with a concentration in the Caribbean and US history) in my sophomore year, and although my fam has had my back, the wider community has been less than receiving. From having to deal with people outright scoff, to having kindly adults attempt to move me towards more "scholarly pursuits" I've dealt with it all. However, I must ask - is the problem ethnic studies, a discrediting of the humanities or rather is it that the Black diaspora does not make for intellectually rigorous inquiry? I wish I knew...

After 18 years of learning about people of color as a footnote to history throughout primary and secondary school, I came to Amherst in large part because of the strength of its Black Studies department. And while its been bomb, I've also learned to code switch and simply tell certain people that I'm a history major. There is a fear that ethnic studies studies are uber-militant, race-baiting, and care only about their own racial group. These stereotypes can bear out for any student at any college of any major. However the minute you slap the world "black" in front of something it becomes a political statement. Something larger, threatening even.
Do European Studies majors ever deal with this?

One of the beautiful things about college is the open exchange of ideas. The willingness to try something new and to change your ways of thinking. My major has given that to me (hand claps for Profs. Moss, Redding, Ferguson and Alves). To allow a student to see themselves represented in academe is a great gift, too often denied to people of color. And I am so grateful to those who've come before me to make it possible for me to be a BA candidate in Black Studies and History. So all my Afro-American, Black Studies, Latin American, Caribbean, African Diaspora, Asian Languages and Civilizations, Native American Studies major stand up!

Besides, I heard that most employers could care less about majors anyway. Let that college degree speak for itself. punto