Afropolitaine

African parents

(via africanparentmeme)

denizen365:

76. Miranda Kuykendall
http://scribessword.blogspot.com/ 

What has being a Third Culture Kid taught you?
I’ve learned so much about different people, cultures, and languages. The world is such a kaleidoscope; all people have to do is look through it with different eyes.

Born In: Pennsylvania
Raised In: South Carolina, Texas, Mexico, Honduras
Lived In: Pennsylvania, Indiana, South Carolina, Texas, Mexico, Honduras, Georgia (U.S.)
Hope To Live In: China

“DREAD AND TREMBLING”

Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo from Nigeria, was just 11 years old when he was kidnapped into slavery. He was held captive in West Africa for seven months and then sold to British slavers, who shipped him to Barbados and then took him to Virginia. After serving a British naval officer, he was sold to a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who allowed him to purchase his freedom in 1766. In later life, he played an active role in the movement to abolish the slave trade. Olaudah Equiano offers here a first-hand account of his arrival in the West Indies in 1756.

As the vessel drew nearer, we plainly saw the harbor and other ships of different kinds and sizes and we soon anchored amongst them off Bridgetown. Many merchants and planters came on board…They put us in separate parcels and examined us attentively. They also made us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there. We thought by this we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us. When soon after we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us and nothing but bitter cries to be heard all the night from the apprehensions. At last the white people got some old slaves from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work, and were soon to go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This report eased us much, and sure enough, soon after we landed, there came to us Africans of all languages.

We were conducted immediately to the merchant’s yard, where we were all pent up together, like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age. As every object was new to me, everything I saw filled me with surprise. What struck me first was that the houses were built with bricks and stories, and in every respect different from those I had seen in Africa, but I was still more astonished to see people on horseback. I did not know what this could mean, and indeed I thought these people were full of nothing but magical arts. While I was in this astonishment, one of my fellow prisoners spoke to a countryman of his about the horses who said they were the same kind they had in their country. I understood them, though they were from a distant part of Africa and I thought it odd I had not seen any horses there; but afterwards when I came to converse with different Africans, I found they had many horses amongst them, and much larger than those I then saw.

We were not many days in the merchant’s custody, before we were sold after their usual manner…On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum), buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make a choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamor with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the apprehension of terrified Africans…In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again. I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over…there were several brothers who, in the sale, were sold in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion, to see and hear their cries in parting.

Source: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African (London, 1789).

noladarling:

swagggirlicious:

England’s Smartest Family is Black: We won’t hear about this in the news Meet the “First Family of Education” in England.

Peter and Paula Imafidon, 9-year-old twins from Waltham Forest in northeast London , are a part of the highest-achieving clan in the history of Great Britain education. The two youngest siblings are about to make British history as the youngest students to ever enter high school. They astounded veteran experts of academia when they became the youngest to ever pass the University of Cambridge ’s advanced mathematics exam. That’s on top of the fact they have set world records when they passed the A/AS-level math papers.

Chris Imafidon, their father, said he’s not concerned about his youngest children’s ability to adapt to secondary school despite their tender age. “We’re delighted with the progress they have made,” he said. “Because they are twins they are always able to help and support each other.” To Peter and Paula’s parents, this is nothing new. Chris Imafidon said he and his wife have been through this before: they have other super-gifted, overachieving children. Peter and Paula’s sister, Anne-Marie, now 20, holds the world record as the youngest girl to pass the A-level computing, when she was just 13.

She is now studying at arguably the most renowned medical school in the United States , Johns Hopkins University , in Baltimore. Another sister, Christina, 17, is the youngest student to ever get accepted and study at an undergraduate institution at any British university at the tender age of 11. And Samantha, now age 12, had passed two rigorous high school-level mathematics and statistics exams at the age of 6, something that her twin siblings, Peter and Paula, also did.

Chris Imafidon migrated to London from Nigeria in West Africa over 30 years ago. And despite his children’s jaw-dropping, history-making academic achievements, he denies there is some “genius gene” in his family. Instead, he credits his children’s success to the Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city children. “Every child is a genius,” he told British reporters.

“Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters [Venus and Serena] — they were nurtured. You can never rule anything out with them. The competition between the two of them makes them excel in anything they do.

By: PJ Dacas

Young, gifted, and Black.

(Source: sed, via fuckyeahafricanmen)

Monolatrie ou la recherche d’un dieu utile - statuette du Congo en bois et bille d’ivoire

Do you understand what I’m telling you?