Opinion: Black Americans must embrace true colorsPosted in Articles, History, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, Social Science, United States on 2013-01-12 20:45Z by Steven |
Opinion: Black Americans must embrace true colors
In America: You define America. What defines you?
Cable News Network (CNN)
2012-12-15
Tiya Miles, Professor of American Culture, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Native American Studies
University of Michigan
Editor’s note: Historian and author Tiya Miles is a professor at the University of Michigan’s Afroamerican and African Studies department and a 2011 MacArthur genius award recipient.
(CNN) – In the documentary film “Black Indians,” a man who appears to be African-American recounts his delight at eliciting shocked looks from strangers when he launches into a conversation with his wife in the Cherokee language.
The man who tells this story is Cherokee as well as black and a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. His is just one among thousands of examples that show diversity has always been a core aspect of African-American identity.
That diversity has been rich – from the moment when Africans from different tribes, cultures and language groups were captured as slaves and transported to North America to the present day, when African-Americans live in various regions and intermarry with members of other ethnic groups.
The evidence of this diversity is so obvious that it may seem at times invisible.
Read the entire opinion piece here…