The anti-black hatred behind revisionist African history

African Americans had their history erased: at the point of a whip

How much do you know about the artistic representation of Shango, the lightening God of the Yoruba and Dahomey? Not much? How about the spiritual, medical, and cultural folklore behind ibeji? Maybe I’m being unfair; let’s go beyond Nigeria. What do you know about the Bantu? Chokwe, maybe? Shall we talk about Benin or maybe the elaborate trade networks on the Congo river? The regional interpretations of Salafism and Catholicism from missionaries? Or is your understanding of Africa, let’s be real, “illiterate noble hunters in huts”?

I’m not calling you stupid. I wasn’t taught this stuff in western schools either: even though I was taught about the Mayans, Aztecs, Ancient Egyptians and Indigenous Australians before I turned 12. No: the only Black African history I was taught, at all, before I turned 18 and decided I wanted to educate myself, was that slavery happened, and it was bad. That was my Black history. Yikes.

Did your ancestors know what this meant?

For me, that’s a bit irritating. But what about Black children in our schools? What must it be like being taught that your entire ethnic heritage, history and cultural contribution was passively being taken on ships to work on plantations for white people? How does that feel…