The Discovery Of The Dark Races

The Kenyan feminist and environmental activist, Wangari Maathai, explores the legacy of colonialism and oppression in her native country through her moving 2006 memoir, Unbowed. Maathai explains that over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Africa experienced a massive influx of white settlers. In an effort to solidify control over recently acquired colonies, many European powers had encouraged large numbers of their ethnically white citizens to make a new home on the African continent. As a result, thousands of native Africans were displaced. Maathai’s ancestors, the Kikuyu and Maasai peoples were among them. The majority of these forced dislocations took

In Basil Davidson’s video “Different but Equal,” he outlines the European perception of Africa upon their discovery of the continent. Claims that the Europeans were making about African culture, however, were far fetched and did not depict Africa in a positive manner. History according to pre-European Africa was rich and diverse, but once Europeans saw for themselves how different their continent was from Africa, they began to make up their own version of African history.

Imagine for a moment that you are a fourteen-year old boy and belong to the Ibo tribe in Nigeria, Africa. Your father is a yam farmer and holds an important tribal position in your clan. Your mother is one of five wives to your father, all of whom treat him with respect and serve his every need. You are content with your life and your future looks promising. Your days consist of aiding your father in farming his crops and learning the culture and traditions of your tribe. Then, suddenly, the Europeans come and everything starts to fall apart. At first they seem kind and only want to help those in need and share their religion. Overtime, however, they strip you of all your beliefs and make you change your

This essay introduces the reader to some of the different tribes, and cultures that resided in early Africa. Three of the tribes that are explored in this paper are the Bantu, the Twa, and the Khoisan. Two different cultures are also discussed in this paper. Them being the Nok, and the Kushite’s. The first tribe that is discussed is the Bantu tribe. The Bantu tribe originated around Nigeria. Because they were nomadic people the eventually migrated to Uganda. The Bantu people were polytheistic. The second tribe that is discussed is the Twa. They were a group of pygmies who were known to have inhabited Rwanda. The third tribe that is discussed is the Khoisan’s. This tribe were descendants of two different tribes. They were a polytheistic tribe.

The British colonization of Kenya destroyed the culture and economy of the native people, but it established a democratic government and left Kenya a more modernized country.[1] During the 1880’s through 1914, the start of WWI, was an age of imperialism. One place that felt victim to this imperialism was Africa. At this time Africa was a wholly unmodernized continent. The reason the Europeans went after Africa was the introduction of the idea of social Darwinism and the “white man’s burden”. Social Darwinism is the belief that only the strongest and the most cunning can make it to the top of the social ladder, and it was the White Man’s Burden to step in for these undeveloped countries

Davies here highlights the issue of identity which has been central to the colonized who have suffered the effects of colonization. The loss of cultural identity as a result of colonization has made remembering and recovering of lost—sometimes stolen— culture one of the central issues of Africana academia. This issue is brought to light in Kincaid’s

This essay focuses on the various theories to develop a unifying utopia despite revisiting the past. “One cannot study Africans in the United States or Brazil or Jamaica without any appreciation for the historical and cultural significance of Africa as source and origin.” In the case of Mary Prince, the Europeans appreciated the fact that they could enslave Africans and separate them through the social concept of race by the skin color. The Europeans appreciated the fact that they could steal resources and dominate a continent with their own culture. Evidence shows that Africans had culture and appreciated nature; therefore, how did all of this begin?

Africa is a different continent thanks to colonization, mostly thanks to shifts in culture caused by the direct control, cultural examples, and technological temptation. Resnick examines this phenomenon and truly shows just how much we can leave behind while looking for the

The writer goes to explain that this type of cultural contact negatively affected the individuals, because speaking in Gĩkữyữ represented his culture. When these two items came together, language and culture, it represented the individuals' identity and self-image. He illustrates that he believed that language, rather than history or culture, was the key explanatory structure for human life and the enabling condition of human consciousness. In the essay, he presents the choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to people's definition of themselves in relation to the entire universe. He portrays to the reader that when Britain attacked Kenya physically to take control, it also attacked the cultural root of Kenya. Thiong'o makes this clear to the reader to demonstrate that alienation of Kenya's own culture resulted in the loss of the language and culture in Kenya. He also argues that this situation caused a disharmony in Kenyan's self-image.

When analyzing world history, one can conclude Africa seems to always have benefitted the least regarding economic and social development. Many believe the uninhabitability of the continent has always instigated turmoil among people groups due to the difficulty of simply living on the land. Others insist that the institution of slavery throughout the world, mainly fueled by Africans, debilitated the region to the point of no return. Arguably, what truly murdered Africa, was the implementation of colonialism and the destruction of cultures. Through oppression, colonizers destroyed identities and erased hundreds of years of self-worth and progress. Through their artistic works, Tadjo, Kobhio, and Mokeddem outcry the suffering of Africa, pleading for a call to action. However, the purpose of their art emphasizes how the responsibility of the fall of Africa falls on the shoulders of all and how every person is responsible for such acts to never be repeated.

This acknowledgment is exactly the snippet of withdrawal, estrangement, and vexing hybridity for a dark pilgrim subject whose brain, feelings, and soul crave an arrival to Africa (Ramesh & Rani, 2006). Be that as it may, dark skin and corporeality will stamp this arrival as truly and transiently unthinkable. Both Fanon and McKay are fit for comprehension their racial inadequacy and estrangement as inevitably bound to the historical backdrop of white western imperialism.

Colonialism constructed a sense of hybridity among the colonized and the colonizers — reflecting that homogeneity is nonexistent in post-colonial societies; yet, homogeneity

The desire to conquer land that was previously unexplored has existed throughout history. This desire forced many indigenous societies, who were usually dominated technologically, to adapt to the teachings and overall system of the ‘superior’ conqueror nation with destruction as the only alternative. This causes a major impact on how a certain society functions, even after seeking independence from the foreigners. The rise and fall of indigenous societies can be analyzed through various media. Chinua Achebe is a novelist specializing in African literature, and this essay deals with the themes regarding colonialism in one of his many novels. In

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, colonialism swept across the globe like a brush fire engulfing the African Savanna on a dry summers day. Long since colonial rule has seised though, the detrimental effects left by the imposed structure and influence have charred and damaged the identities of the indigenous populations of the world. To this day, the collective identities of the indigenous populations are being regrown and transformed, but the barriers left by colonialism ensure a painstakingly slow process and recovery to local indigenous identities based on cultural tradition and heritage. The specific colonial rule and influence over the indigenous populations in the areas of Africa, North America and Latin

To comprehend the effect that British colonization had on the Kikuyu people, first we have to examine the pre-colonial Kikuyu society. The ancestors of the Kikuyu participated in the Bantu expansion, a millennia-long phenomenon during which Bantu speaking peoples migrated from Western Africa to various regions in Southern and Eastern Africa (The Bantu Migrations). Prior to European intervention, the structure of Kikuyu society was relatively egalitarian. The people of the Kikuyu did not practice slavery, and made no attempts to garner prisoners from neighboring tribes or villages. The political structure of the Kikuyu tribe was divided among nine separate clans. These clans were all related along maternal lines, and oftentimes lived in very close proximity to one