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Slavery Disconnections from African Naming Practices |
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Since ancient times, “Name” inside and outside Ancient Africa consisted of a word or small group of words to designate or indicate a thing--real or imaginary--in its entirety.
If a name retains its original core meaning after coming into existence, this is its Denotation--the indispensible minimum of definition--the mental picture a root word conveys. If the meaning comes from the idea or feeling invoked apart from its primary meaning, this is its Connotation. Words get on the "wrong meaning track" or get the individual "off track" several ways. First, understand that there is an Actual Reality (God's creatures and creations) and a Perceived Reality (what people see and interpret of Actual Reality). The best words can only describe tiny pieces of Actual Reality (which is unreality) or Perceived Reality (which is even further away from reality). Second, there is no authority to say where ancient words originated. Thus, European experts rarely agree on the same etymology of a given word; tend to attribute wherever the word came from to different European sources; and typically fail to trace the most significant words back to their African origin. Hence, the best one can do is to get the consensus of experts' opinion or determine what makes reasonable sense from having a sound foundation of the fundamentals of the topic at hand and then get into its flow (called Contemplation) to discover its essence. Third, connotations are constantly changing throughout different time periods and in different parts of a given culture in the same time period. Fourth, when one attaches good or bad experiences to a given word, then one reacts with good or bad emotions to that word's connotation. Ones bad emotions would be attributed to the attributes which are not denoted but which are associated with it--things like poverty, disease, and crime for "Ghetto." Or, what is invoked can simply be implied or suggested by the name--and this is where problems occur with such emotionally laden words as the "N" word--a word carrying the worse of what occurred during African American slavery.
The processes of thought in each of these four categories take one far, far away from Actual Reality. For Ancient Africans--who deemed God's name as the archetype and original standard for all names--any name deviation from Actual Reality was blasphemy. Unrealities in dealing with God's name were carried into the Bible's third of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God” (Ex. 20:7). The reference is not to cursing but to any use that deviates from God being the sovereign source of all things. On a lesser scale the same pattern applied to violating the dignity and divinity of humans by improper naming--a violation exploded by the European naming and renaming obsessions and compulsions of whatever belonged to the Colored peoples of the world. They believed that to name it placed them in a position of outright possession, domination, or at least control.
Such was clearly illustrated during African American slavery by Europeans replacing the sacred names of Africans with demeaning European names--an effect so devastating as to be seen in today's struggling Black Americans. This is what European stereotypes of Black people are about--i.e. implanting self-demeaning labels in brainwashed minds and constantly reinforcing those labels until they are internalized. Then the implanted labels express as "second nature" self-defeating thoughts, feelings, expressions, and deeds. To stop being suppressed into being satisfied with the status quo of poverty and to stop being disconnected from naming practices of African Tradition, Black people must resist Europeans' defining them--e.g. by bad stereotypic names; by stereotyped careers (e.g. athletes or entertainers); or by being funneled into "special" classes, or "Negro" jobs, characterized by inadequate pay. |
