Another important contribution from the African Diaspora is the circulation of new African ideas and mechanism. They were able to distribute not only healing, or new philosophies, but also a variety of mechanism such as the rice agricultural system and the idea of symbolic interactions in the “Belly of the Frog” believe. Gilroy develops in his article, “The fractal patterns of cultural and political exchange and transformation that we try and specify… indicate how both ethnicities and political cultures have been made anew in ways that are significant… (15).
This demonstrates that the African Diaspora contributed to new perspectives in clashing with other cultures. For example, as Judith A. Carney mentions in her book, “This examination of Carolina rice history and African agency in its diffusion across the Atlantic uses geographical perspective focused on culture, technology, and environment to support the contention that the origin of rice cultivation in South Carolina is indeed African, and that slaves from West Africa’s rice region tutored planters in growing the crop (81).
This evidence and research shows that African slaves contributed to the successful agricultural system of the United States South. Although, at the time many white supremacists though that slaves were not the one who came up with the system, that it was actually a white people invention. However, the research proved them wrong. For this misunderstanding, the interpretive perspective in relation to their arrival in the South was misleading and challenging. They had to give up their idea of the rice system to people who just exploited the idea to their whim and did not even give credit to those who really shared their idea.
Although, it does shoes a circulation of ideas and new forms of working. A different connotation of ideas is the heard hymn in the movie Sankofa, “The snake will have what is in the belly of the frog. ” This is interpreted as the snake being the slaveholders consuming all the ideas of the frog, the African Diaspora. This relates to the rice agricultural system in that the whites are taking credit of the systems, when in fact is a system developed by the African Diaspora.
The African Diaspora brought new ideas and mechanisms that were all but embraced in the community in which they were arriving. This is important in understanding that the contributions were not always appreciated from the white supremacists’ point of view, which affects the way the African Diaspora interacts with their arrival community. The African Diaspora are always looking for ways to stick together at their arrival communities. They are always spreading knowledge and African ideas. Although, when they return to their inception place, they feel alienated from the rest.
The reason for this is that as communities developed and the African Diaspora adapts to their arrival communities, there is change of attitudes and perspectives because of their physical separation and lost of contact. As Saidya Hartman suggests, “The celebration of return actually threatens to undermine the work of mourning ‘by simulating a condition of intactness,’ rather than attending to the ruin and wreckage of slavery” (768). This means that a return home for the African Diaspora in despite circumstances of celebration in order to learn about their roots is actually a threat to their history.
They feel as if going back home would restore a lost sentiment of acceptance, however, when is a tourist place to visit, it turns in to a lost of connection and sympathy because they have a perspective from which the place they arrival from. For example, as the film Sankofa shows in the scene from which the model Mona first arrives at Cape Coast Castle she is not aware of her roots and has a disconnection with the castle’s history; she did not know that it was used for slavery. This shows how returning home for the African Diaspora is a dysfunctional process.
Mona was from the United States, she grew up not knowing a lot about her African roots, and that was her perspective about her life and race. However, once she stepped in Africa, she felt disconnected and lost from that place seeing that, when she reconnected with her roots, her perspective of home changed and she recognized that home is not a physical place but a state of mind. In the same way, as Maya Angelou concludes her book, “If the heart of Africa still remained allusive, my search for it had brought me closer to understanding myself and other human beings” (196).
This demonstrates that her stay in Africa helped her come in to terms with herself, in recognizing that although Africa is an inception for the African Diaspora, at the end, what home really is one selves. The search of identity and roots is all but within us. Since the African Diaspora dispersed throughout the globe, they grew up with different views on themselves. For example, someone from the African Diaspora born in Brazil might consider themselves Africans and see Africa as their home, however, someone from the United States might consider Africa a place where there is nothing of history and connection to themselves.
Thus, the different interpretive perspective in relation to their arrival communities of Africa is a disconnection with Africa itself and the lost of understanding of their own roots, because they are grown up with different ideas of Africa. There are different circumstances for the contributions from the African Diaspora to the world. Before, the African Diaspora for slavery contributed to new mechanism and spread of philosophies in the part of the health and healing systems from Africa. A great example is Domingos Alvares’ practice of a Vodun healing system in Brazil.
This generation of the African Diaspora allowed for a circulation of not only ideas but also of understanding sentiment for Africa by always calling their home. Now, a different generation of the African Diaspora are spreading their knowledge for the basis of not an obligated or forceful circulation but one for the desire to express and show their roots and their culture. As Taiye Selasi explains, “Afropolitans – the newest generation of African emigrants, coming soon or collected already at a law firm/chem lab/jazz lounge near you.
You’ll know us by our funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics, and academic successes. This shows that there are a new generation of the African Diaspora of thinkers who want to disperse themselves to the world to show the real Africa and the beauty that it has to offer. Although, they might not forcefully have been displaced from their motherland, they want to expand and contribute to society. They are contributing to society in a similar way of the old generation, but now they are being recognized for their effort to demonstrate their ideas and knowledge. Hence, this changes the way their arrival communities see them, and they are appreciated for their dispersion.
In conclusion, the African Diaspora dispersed throughout the world in regards of creating a contact zone, where different cultures clashed. This bang resulted in different contributions to their arrival communities and produced different perspectives in relation of how they view themselves as a culture. It also resulted in the spread of new ideas and mechanism to the world. This great circulation of ideas creates a continuum cycle of dispersion for diasporic communities. New generations to come will be able to continue this cycle and spread their ideas from Africa to the world in a global scale.
