Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard

University

How to Be an African
Author(s): Binyavanga Wainaina
Source: Transition, No. 96 (2006), pp. 64-66
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African and
African American Research at Harvard University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204220
Accessed: 26-11-2015 03:53 UTC

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 Position

HOW TO BE AN AFRICAN

Being a Partial Account of theMeeting of theBrooklyn Association of

Pan-African Seekers and Thinkers and Queens (PANAFRISTQ)
PANEL II, presentation, hosted by Professor Brother (MC) Uhuru

Binyavanga Wainaina

My brothers, and sisters. gourd of the Gikuyu people?used to

We all know that Leo was an store millet wine. brothers, and sis
My

African, do we not? So was Tut, Cleo, and ters, we come from great people?look

Janis Joplin. Rock and Roll comes from how Ancient European queens wore

Bamako. wigs of afro; powdered white like our

My brothers, I lead you to the de ancient Africanist elders and shamans.

bate, held last summer in Boston, Is A My

sons and daughters, the twelve

Grain ofWheat a Eurocentric Title?Why tribes of Israel are: the Igbo, the Amhara,
not a of Or a of the Kalenjin, the Masai, the Baganda,
grain sorghum? grain
millet? But brother Ashanti made the the Venda, the Masai, the Swahili (in
valid point thatwheat is Egyptian. And Swahili, Juu
means
up?which
comes

in Egypt the wheat was black. from our to Israel,

people pointing up
For the translation of the Ancient where the the real came
Juus, Juus,

Egyptian symbol for wheat is "black from). The Kalenjin still speak
an an

that nourishes us." cient form of Hebrew. The Tutsi were

grain
We here know it all started with ancient Phoenicians and Greeks. No,
the calabash. In ancient times the no. Ancient Greeks and Phoeni
royal Sorry.
calabash became the tray, the plate, the cians were Tutsis.

saucer, and the Tupperware The nose of the was cut to

ultimately Sphinx

container, which comes from Guinea us.

spite
Bissau, and which to this day women Luo elders had the same pointy beard
talk about when they say: Oh! Go and as
King Tut.

some containers from Have you heard about the Black

buy Tupperware
the market, the one with a suction-seal Irish?
like our ancestors loved. We in was an African, you know.
top, Jesus
vented the bottle of wine?look at the We invented coffee.

64 TRANSITION ISSUE 96

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 3

Douglas Cushing.
L'histoire de l'art
occidental. ?2006

HOW TO BE AN AFRICAN 65

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 All of one of is Ashanti:
us, every single us, Everybody say Mamaaaaaa
descended from Kings and Queens. We Everybody: Mamaaaaaaa

allwore kaftans of gold and wraparound Ashanti: Everybody say

headscarves woven out of genuine Africaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Badu. Africa had no peasants. Africaaaaaaaaaaa
Erykah Everybody:
Pushkin's father was from Cameroon. Ashanti: OK, when I lift my hand in
Alexandre Dumas's mother was a black brothers, sisters, shamans, and
worship,
woman from Martinique. (She did not elders, Iwant you all to say, Mamaaaaa
call herself black, but what does she Africaaaaaa

know.) Everybody: Mamaaaaa Africaaaaaa

brothers and sisters, we need to Ashanti:

My
talk about Angelina Jolie. Look at the I am aNubian Queen
syntax of the lips, the linguistics of the SexGoddess of Pride
adoptions; notice the grammatical
ar Ride
rangement of the sarong, the Nefertiti Mamaaaaa Africaaaaaa
Everybody:
nose. She is an African. Ashanti:
All of this information can be found My hide
in the great African library of Alexan My black hide
dria, which burnt down. Ride
My son, my daughter, vault yourself Everybody: Mamaaaaa Africaaaaaa

to esteem
through these maybes; these Ashanti:
almost becames. Create whole univer Me to Bamako

sity departments of rejoinders. Take

Play my blues
ownership of all empires. In Cotonou

Now my brothers, a Doctor Brace, of Mamaaaaa

Everybody: Africaaaaaa
the University of Michigan, tells us that Ashanti:

Nubians and Egyptians were not black Call the anSISTERS

Africans. He says they had black skins You GOD, girl
and Danish craniums?and it is indeed Mamaaaaa
Everybody: Africaaaaaa
the cranium that makes the European.

We are told that their skin "eventually Professor Brother (MC) Uhuru: Let's
adapted to the harsh rigors of the tropi give it up for Ashanti andMamaaaaa Af
cal sun." ricaaaaaa!!!

They will find an Aryan in a toenail. Now, let's have a break for a Kentec

Professor Kwame Tut and Dr. Nefer cino before we listen to brother Kente
titi Dakar have agreed to draft a strategy dia Kente rap some Bamako soul from

to counter this, and at our next

gather his new album, The Nubian Soul of Ba
at the Kenteccino mako Griots. After that, our brother, Dr.
ing, again Chipotle
Coffee Bar in Brooklyn, we will discuss George Hannington Kibwana will de

this further. liver a lecture on the Oral Literature of

Now, let us take a break and listen the Maragoli.

to the beautiful words of Ashanti Nkru

mah, a and
praise-singer proet.

66 TRANSITION ISSUE 96

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