I don’t do personal attacks. It is a waste of time and especially when I don’t know you. We are both adults. There might be a generational issue, but that can be resolved by shared knowledge.
If I don’t refer to Grenadians of the past by their recorded names, how do you want me to refer to them? They never carried African or Indigenous names. To tell their stories you have to use the names they were known by. I just don’t understand the issue here with European names. I felt for some reason you believe I am trying to promote European superiority – or something, by referring to these individuals by the names in our archives that survived. That’s not true and unfair to me. I am very proud of my African roots. I don’t need to go overboard and create names and stories to prove that. If people want to rid themselves of their European names I am okay with that too. As long as they don’t go on a mission to bully everyone else to do as they did – just because. That was my reference to the global Left-Wing movement going astray because today you are either with them or against them if you have a different opinion of things. I think of myself sometimes as a bit on the left but not that kind of nutty left where if someone don’t see things my way I feel it is my duty to lecture them on how wrong they are and how always right I am.
The same people who Malcolm Little changed his name to be a part of Killed him because he had a different opinion of the leader who they claimed was infallible – Elijah Muhammad. So forgive me if I am not impressed with his name changing business. It got him an early ticket to his grave. We need economic development more that name changes. It is a cheap gimmick that appeals to the lowest degree of emotional dissatisfaction. In the end we still live in a world where we have no control over our economic situation.
“..Tell me, was that wrong of him to do so? And is that wrong for me to share similar sentiments by wondering if somewhere back there, my ancestors were probably Osakwee, or Nkrumah, or Zirimenya or even Amin? That's one of my fondest wishes…”
Come on. That will not work for the simple reason that records were not kept of the slaves African names. You don’t get to choose anything when you are a slave. That is what makes the institution so horrible. But then again that is the nature of slavery. I am not going to go look for something we all know does not exist. To me, that comes across as pretentious. I personally don’t like pretentiousness. But if someone wants to indulge themselves in it, I say whatever floats your ship – do it! God know I have been to many occasions with people of African descent in America where they dress in African clothing for a weekend event and the following week go to Harvard and Yale to honor their graduates. Make no sense to me. But then again no one made me upholder of African Values.
A lot of our African links are in our archives that survived. It is just a ton LOAD OF WORK to put the pieces together. Very few of us have the time and resources to commit ourselves to that kind of research. There are not African names, but there are links and hints as to who our slaves were. Not even the Africans who came to Grenada after the end of slavery got to keep their African names. Nearly all were baptized in the Anglican Church and given the surname of the plantation owner or manager they were indentured to.
