“Big up to the slave masters, without them we would still be in Africa...” Our response to a brainwashed Black American

Here is a sentence of the young singer Soulja Boy which made the Net vibrate. While there were many who rose up, others thought it was indeed better to be in America than to “starve” in Africa. This sentence reminds me of the one reported by the Afro-Caribbean specialist in African studies Ama Mazama who said that after a presentation, a young white lady asked her if she would have liked to stay in Africa to pound millet. I think you shouldn't blame Soulja Boy too much. He reacts just like those who brainwashed him intended. He knows absolutely nothing about Africa like many Afro-descendants. Fortunately not everyone is so ignorant. Singer Nas, in his song “I can,” has shown that he is very familiar with African history.

The distorted image that the African Diaspora has of the continent explains many behaviors today. There is such a loathing of Africa among some of the African descendants that many do not question their slave names and continue to wear them proudly. And this lie which says that Africans spent the time selling each other to Europeans goes a long way to putting more distance. I often see the energy with which some of my Caribbean brothers try to demonstrate that they are not African. Many believe that they ultimately won deportation and forced labor, and so are happy not to be associated with the savages.

But to answer my brother Soulja Boy, I will tell him that without the slave masters, he would live in a country where famine had never existed and his family would not be hungry because nature is generous and food would continue to be abundant.

Without the slave masters, he would be raised by a whole community and not by reality TV and a single mother like 70% of African American children.

Without the slave masters, his people would always have a roof over their heads because it is unacceptable in Africa for people to sleep outside like all homeless people in the United States.

Without the slave masters, he would live in peace among people who disapprove of warlike manners, and there would be no gang that kills every day in the black neighborhoods.

Without the slave masters, his people could study in Timbuktu or Ilé-Ifé without it costing them the eyes of the head.

Without the slave masters, he could dress in silk or brocade like in Mbanza Kongo, live in superb coral mansions like in Kilwa or in big cities like Koumbi or Dongola.

Without the slave masters, he would have boundless respect for women and his community would not have to pervert her like an object of consumption in rap clips.

Without the slave masters, he would live in a country where spirituality permeates every act and thanks to which respect for nature runs deep.

Without the slave masters, he would live on a continent that would continue to be the richest, most organized and most egalitarian in the world.

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