vagabondaesthetics:

One last thing I will say though is that having actually listened to 1st Generation and displaced people from the continent of Africa is that being born isn’t an inherent right or invitation to their own culture. When people leave for the United States or somewhere in Europe for a couple of years and then come back they are treated as Westerns. What does that say for 1st Generation? What does that say about people who haven’t been there in half a millennium? You can’t address or talk about your existential problems regarding your identity as an ambiguously defined “African” without even realizing and acknowledging that people a couple years separated from their culture are not fully integrated into their own culture that they themselves spent years in. Don’t give me this “multifaceted” garbage when you lack the basic understand of what it means to function as a part of any of their culture and you are unwillingly to listen to their experiences and concerns.

What I find interesting is the struggle of the assimilation in the first place - how much does the African Diaspora have to give up of themselves in order to assimilate (and thus survive) in the Western World? The sacrifice is doubly hard and apparent when coming back home to visit family and loved ones to now be seen as “white” or “Americanized” 

Another question to consider: is one considered part of the diaspora simply by claiming one’s belonging to it?