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The 1619 Project and the Case for Black American Identity
How long does it take for a culture to emerge? 400 years seems to be long enough.
America is young, so if America has a culture, then so do Black Americans.
I am making a distinction between the term African American and Black American, not because I have a problem with the former. I will answer to both, and I do use them interchangeably, but Black American identity is rooted solely in the community and culture that formed in the United States amongst African slaves who were brought to the United States via the Transatlantic Slave trade.
This is not severing ties with African identity. It is, however, making a claim for a unique and distinct identity that descendants of slavery in the United States of America share. It means that our history, for all intents and purposes, is traced back to our time in the United States, and what occurred before, the part that is lost, that runs through our veins, is no longer seen as a reason to say our history is lost.
American Descendant of Slavery (ADOS) and Foundational Black American (FBA) are terms that are also used. I like both. ADOS is a name for Black Americans and it’s also a movement. The movement seeks to get reparations for Black Americans and “insists upon an historic, targeted allotment of policy and protections that…
