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attax, and doesn't it start with residual memories of Africa from slave
times? The tribal is still with them when they arrive. You have your place in the tribe and it is pretty much fixed by the decades and centuries of tribal interaction. The plantation owners tried to give them the ability to gather together, but under their own white constructs, using church as its base. Church and state are not divided in tribal societies, but woven together to form one tapestry of life.
So, the church's teachings of 'acceptance of one's lot' were primary to peace and obedience and the 'hope for Heaven's Salvation' the only hope offered to them.
It drives not only the African American society, but many societies, including those of Islam. Wasn't it key to the rise of the embracing of Muslim teachings within Black America here? The feeling of 'community/tribe' being key, not to mention the joy of rejecting the plantation's Christianity.
It is only human to want to belong to something ( individuals want to belong to their chosen love, workers want to belong to a guild of fellow workers, etc. ) and slaves had no choices, they belonged to what they were allowed to belong to. Their first choices made in freedom, or perceived freedom, came from what they remembered of Africa and what they had recently been 'given' as slaves.
Just wandering, haven't eaten breakfast thoughts here. I could be way off.
posted by
benzinha
on May 19, 2004 at 9:57 AM
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