Abandonment and Dismemberment

Summary:

Thursday's lecture hit numerous concepts and key points. The lecture was titled 'Abandonment and Dismemberment'. Not knowing what Dismemberment meant, I was utterly confused on what we were going to cover in class. Soon, I was taught that Dismemberment was an African term for 'middle passage' which was the making of the African Diaspora in the Americas. It was said that between the time period of 1492 and 1776, there were about six and a half million people in the New World; 5 out of 6 being African. This opened my eyes to what exactly Dismemberment was. We also cover a topic of Social Structure. This is the creation and modeling of family patterns, social and political culture, roles, traditions, and rituals, i.e. the prominent role of mother, king/ chief/ minister, sage, elders, ancestors, priests, diviners, and blacksmiths. I think that everyone could relate to this because we all have traditions, rituals and religious beliefs within our families. One last concept that I want to share is the NY African Burial Ground. I found this cemetery to be so interesting. The African Burial Ground was discovered October 1991 and it is earliest and largest African cemetery in North America. This burial consists of Africans who lived from the 1600's to 1794 and has 408 excavated remains.

Reflection:

Overall I thought the lecture was phenomenal. At least one of the three ways scholars tend to explain African dismemberment is historical narratives of loss and emptiness. This means "knowledge acquired by investigation" and "the study of the human past" of loss and emptiness. Dr. Beatty asked, if we were empty, what would be filling ourselves up with? My answer was faith. With faith and hope, I have no doubt that I will be okay. There was an excerpt in the lecture about Self Governance. I didn’t know what a maroon society was until it was brought up in the lecture. A proper definition would be "peoples of the African Diaspora who escaped from enslavement and lived independently of plantation societies in the Americas." I gather that there were quite a few of these throughout the world such as in Brazil, Jamaica, and the U.S. I am from Florida and apparently there was one there as well. I thought that was quite interesting. As far as the lecture itself, Dr. Beatty did a great job teaching the lecture, he was interactive with the audience and loud enough for everyone to hear. My learning experience was a fascinating one.

 'Ndyuka maroon women washing themselves, 1955'

Resources:
         Discipline. "JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie." JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2011. http://www.jstor.org/pss/25616528.

"File:Maroon women with washing. Suriname River. 1955.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maroon_women_with_washing._Suriname_River._1955.jpg>. 

"Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2011. <http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=historical+narrative&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa
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