Ode to My Ancestors

In my travels across the internet, the vast expanse of nothingness that it is, I stumbled upon something very interesting. The following names:

Burt Reynolds, Cher, Kim Bassigner, Jessica Biel, Benjamin Bratt, Rita Coolidge, Cameron Diaz, Shannon Elizabeth, Ava Gardner, Val Kilmer, Della Reese, Maria Tallchief, Tina Turner, Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Tommy Lee Jones, Heather Locklear, Chuck Norris, Demi Moore, Elvis Presley, Della Reese, Quinten Tarrantino, Billy Bob Thornton, Carmen Electra, Buffy Sainte-Marie, James Earl Jones, Wayne Newton, Mykelti Williamson…

All of these celebrities are known to have Native North, Central, South American, Alaskan, or Hawaiian ancestry.

And it got me to think about my own ancestry and exactly where I come from. I think that 2008 will definitely be a journey into the past for me, a Sankofa trip if you will. For those of you who may not be familiar with the term Sankofa, it means “go back and fetch it,” basically retrieving the lessons that you need from the past in order to move forward into the future. I, in addition to being African-American, am 1/8 First American (No Indians ‘round here y’all), Cherokee being the tribe. For me, I’m realizing more and more how important it is to be connected with your roots and to realize the greatness upon which you stand.

At the 2008 Young People For (YP4) Conference, my eyes were truly opened to the types of ethnic and culture diversity that this great land known as America houses. I have never before met such a unique group of people that I almost instantaneously bonded with. By the highlight of the whole conference for me was the last night where we got to kind of hang loose and relax and really break bread and talk. Before this conference, I had never met any First Americans (call me sheltered or call us scattered, yeah I said us); but now, I had the opportunity to sit down and break bread with a small group of them at dinner. As we talked and conversed, I felt like an inner glow of sorts that I had only felt one other time and that was during my trip to Africa. We dialogued about First American issues and what happening on the reservation and inter-tribal relations and First American history. Just about everything they told me about, I saw a parallel to in African-American history. And I was like, “WOW!” Have you ever felt like you could’ve cried but you didn’t. Well that’s what I was feeling. Even though they weren’t from the same tribe as my ancestors are from I could definitely feel the connection between us. I think that for a lot of people, African-Americans especially, we have become so disconnected from our roots that we don’t understand ourselves anymore and we don’t understand our place, as W.E.B. DuBois would put it, as “global citizens.” My issues do not only affect me; they affect you. Your issues do not only affect you; they affect me.

I’m a member of Union Temple Baptist Church in Southeast Washington, D.C. This is where I grew up. In a lot of ways, it is me. I’ve been a member since I was 9 years old, like 12 years of commitment. But anyway, at the church there is a Manhood Training Rites of Passage program. My father asked me did I want to do it. I hemmed and hawed about it. Eventually, he just decided it was something I needed, that I no longer had a choice, and that dammit I was going to do this program. So, essentially, the program is about teaching you to understand self and understand how to harness your God-given power into something manifest in the world. And how to be a Black man.


Anyway, I did the program for about 7 years and at the end of the program is the big crossover ceremony which takes place in Ghana. I was excited to go and they put us through a lot to get there. So, me, the Babas, and the other four gentlemen (down from at one point 6) that I was crossing over with, and other folks from the church, said our goodbyes to friends at family at Dulles Airport in June 2005 and boarded the plane for Africa.

The trip lasted about 12 days and we ended up in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Nigeria (it was just a layover though). The actual physical crossover ceremony was on the beach in Ghana. It was dark but beautiful. The surf pounding. The waves crashing. The moonlight gently skimming across the waters. We were lead blindfolded around the beach up, over, through, and around many obstacles. During this exercise, all we had was each other and all we needed was God. As we marched along the beach and eventually into the water itself, we continued to chant aloud, “God is in me, through me, and around me. And where God is there can be no imperfection.” And we made it through. We crossed over into manhood. And at first, I was like, “Yeah, we made it!” But I realized that I still didn’t feel like a man. There was part of me that still hadn’t quite crossed over. A part of me that didn’t truly realize where I was or what I had done. Throughout the trip, there were many emotional points for me- visiting the El Mina slave dungeons, seeing the churches in Lalibela, interacting with the youth; but, honestly, nothing hit me more than coming back home and looking around and really seeing how blessed and fortunate I am to have had the experiences that I have had.

One of the things we discussed at the YP4 Conference, ad nauseam, was the concept of privilege and how many kinds of privilege there are that go unnoticed. Most of the things that we listed were material or physical qualities, such as wealth, status, whiteness, maleness, stuff we had no control over; but, the most important privilege is that of experience and first-hand knowledge.

The Creator, whomever you pray to when shit hits the fan, has a unique design for each and every one of our lives that is inescapable. The uniqueness of each of us gives each of us our own culture lensing and vehicle through which to attack to the ills of this society. The things that I’ve experienced, no matter how much I tell you about them, will never be your experiences, and vice versa. No two people have done the exact same activities in the exact same way ever. I think that that individuality gets lost in the overall sauce, and that’s one of my biggest gripes with global society. It’s not that there aren’t enough cooks in the kitchen, there are bit too many if you ask me, but there aren’t enough spices being added to get the real flavor. America is too worried about its cultural stew tasting bad, so it chucks a few seasonings, such as poverty, homosexuality, racial tensions, and domestic violence, to make it palatable to the world. So they can say, “Hey, it’s working for us over here. Why don’t you try it our way?” What America needs to realize is that the reason the stew tastes bad is because you stir it with deceit and hate. It has nothing to do with the spices.

But we as the seasonings need to be aware of each other and how each of us affecting the pot. I was conversing with both another YP4 fellow and my supervisor about Asian American issues, which I barely was aware of. As we conversed, I brought up elements of what the other had discussed just to make sure that the information I was getting was consistent. And I came to realize that there is a lot more oppression out there- socio-economically, sexually, cultural, emotionally, intellectually, and psychologically- than I had realized and honestly cared to realize. Ignorance is bliss. Whoever said it was absolutely right. If you don’t know it’s there, then you can’t be concerned by it; but the moment, the tarp is pulled off of what you thought was that shiny Bentley GT Continental only to be revealed as that ‘72 Gremlin you had been dreading, you can’t unsee it. You can’t undo this disappointment. You can’t leave it unnoticed anymore. You will always see it for what it is, no matter what someone else tells you.

(I know this has been a long, long, long message. And you’re probably tired of reading, but bare with me for another paragraph please. )

The message is entitled “An Ode to My Ancestors” for a reason. I know I went off on what appeared to be tangents several times; but it’s all interconnected. If you don’t get anything else out of this please realize that every action in the world is interconnected on some level and in some form or fashion. I just want to give sincere honor and thanks the Creator for bringing me into this moment to be the man that at I am and leader that I am becoming. Your lineage, your ancestry did not happen by happenstance. It took all those generations of people to create you, to create this moment.

I am thankful to all of my ancestors for giving me the gifts that I am able to share and express to the world. Yes, I know this is just a small little note or blog on a website; but this is an expression of who I am and what I was born to do and I am so thankful for the opportunity to do it. We don’t take the time to truly be thankful for the gifts we have been given. And if I never type another word, breathe another breath, I am thankful. I am just so thankful to everything that happened and didn’t happen in my life and my ancestors’ lives to make this possible. If you keep that spirit in your heart, there’s no room for hung heads or sullenness, only for excellence. Thank you!