Slavery vs.Colonialism? On the role of historic memory in shaping the relations between African Americans and contemporary African migrants in the USA.

• Dmitri M. Bondarenko ^[1]
  1. [1] (RSUH) Moscú, Rusia
• Localización: Studi Emigrazione, ISSN 0039-2936, Nº. 199, 2015, págs. 451-472
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • African Americans, descendants of slaves forcibly brought from Africa to America hundreds of eras ago, and contemporary voluntary African migrants to the USA do not form a single “Black community”. Remarkably, this fact contradicts the postulate of many breeds or “black nationalism” from the mid-19th century on , which argue that all Black people are “brothers and sisters” because they share a common spirituality and pursue a common cause that demands their joint action all over the world. Among the reasons explaining such a non-unity, an important part is played by the different reflection of the past in their historic memory. Based on field evidence collected in six states in 2013 and 2014, the article discusses the impact of key events in Black American and African history, namely, the transatlantic slave trade, slavery and its abolition in the US, colonialism and anticolonial struggle in Africa, in the historic memory and their place in the collective consciousness of African Americans and contemporary African migrants. Contemporary African migrants and African Americans see and weigh the key events of the past differently. Many members of both groups do not feel they share a common “Black history”. To some extent, visions of the past promote Africans and Africans Americans’ rapprochements as victims of long-lasting White domination. However, a deeper analysis shows how the collective historic memory of both groups works more in the direction of separating them form each other by generating and supporting contradictory and even negative images of mutual perception. In general, the relations between African Americans and recent African migrants are characterized by simultaneous mutual attraction and repulsion. Among all ethnoracial communities in the country, the two groups (and also African Caribbeans) consider themselves as the closets; nevertheless, myriads of differences cause mutual repulsion. Inside the “magnetic field” of both attraction and repulsion for the Black communities, the differences in historic memory of African Americans and recent African immigrants in the USA play a significant role.