The Black Experience

Mar 02, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

A recent letter about the “European slavery of black Africans” brought to mind my visit a few years ago to Portugal, with a week’s stay on the coast of Lagos, pronounced “La Gosh”, some miles away from the capital.
The original slave market was still there, in the form of a concrete structure with an open door, where the slaves were bought and sold on. It is now an important tourist attraction. Fascinating as an excursion into social history. It afforded an idea why some Africans regarded themselves as superior to all Caribbean blacks. They argued that we were descended from slaves. Yet, while in Guyana in 1990, I heard people identifying with Africans in general, some actually wanting to visit their ancestors’ home.
I then remembered my Jamaican colleague, who had married an African chap. When his mother and sisters came to London to meet his wife, she invited her African colleague to join her, in case of language barriers. The family spoke excellent English, but at one stage, they giggled and spoke in their native tongue. Her friend told her later that they wondered why their boy had to marry “a cane field girl”. An innate feeling of superiority.
While in the workforce, I encountered them, and if you crossed them, expect unpleasantness. One told me that she “would fight to the death anyone who lied about her”! I kept away.

Geralda D.

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