What Name Do You Answer To? After Black people were kidnapped and brought to the Americas from Africa, they had to endure a number of brutal crimes against them, not the least of which was being stripped of the names they were given in their native countries. This forced abandonment of something so precious destroyed a vital link that tied people of African descent to their countries of origin and disconnected them from a heritage and history that dated back much further than that of their enslavers. Rather than being called by the traditional and beautiful names that recorded who they were and where they were from, enslaved Africans were given foreign names that presented them as property. If there were more than one slave with the same name in any given group, they were assigned various identifiers such as “little” or “big,” so each would know who was being called for when the slave master beckoned. Since slavery was officially abolished, some Blacks have shed the European names that were once forced upon them and have adopted African or new and unique ones. Still, most of us answer to the names that deemed us someone’s property and some even hope it will improve their chances for employment—the kind that pays.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 07:41:38 +0000
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