“I’d rather fill in ‘Black’ than ‘African American’ [on I.D. forms] because Africans don’t even f**k with us,” Cam’ron said on the episode. “[When] you go over there [to Africa], they call us ‘yankees.’”
Well, I haven’t been to Africa, so I can’t confirm or deny what they call us over there. Plus, I don’t mess with people who don’t mess with me, so I can’t make a blanket statement on if they f**k with us or not.
However, I do agree with Cam’ron’s stance on calling himself Black and not African American. For one, Africa is a continent and to state you from a whole continent is just plain ignorant.
Secondly, it is offensive to people who are actually from Africa, and who know what country they are from. Most of them do not call themselves African Americans, but Nigerian Americans, Ethiopian Americans, and so forth.
Not only do know their country, but they know their language. They know their community, their tribe, their food, and most of the aspects of their culture and subculture. More importantly, they know they are not us and we are not them.
This is something that Cam expressed while showing love to the people from Africa.
“Much love,” Cam’ron said. “But y’all don’t consider us real Africans. Y’all don’t!”
The truth of the matter is we are the only people in America who don’t know who we are and where we come from.
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” Hosea 4:6
That’s why it shouldn’t be a coincidence that we are the only people whose ancestors were on the plantation, and sold like cattle. The only people who were getting chased by dogs and having water hoses sprayed on us. The only people whose communities were flooded with drugs.
And they have not harken unto the Lord nor kept his commandments, so that’s why the curse is upon them. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: (Deuteronomy 28:15)
Our story is unlike any other group of people in this country. I’m not going too deep into Bible scriptures, but for more insight on the origins of Black people as it relate to the Bible can check out the section of Calvin’s Undisputed Truth.
What I will say to summarize this is that we are from the Lost and Found Tribe of Judah. We are a part of the twelve tribes of Israel spoken of in the Bible. We are God’s people, the original Black Man and Woman. When we don’t know where we are from as a people, then it’s unlikely that we know where we going as a people.