How Tradition Has Kept A Diaspora Connected

To reminisce on our childhood is something as normal as learning your ABC’s. As we grow, we question the ways of our parents and how they raised us. There’s never been more time in history to reflect than now. In this forever changing world of ours, this current health pandemic has brought nothing but pure nostalgia. Our childhoods, what it feels to be 1st or 2nd generation in the UK, and even life pre-COVID. There’s nothing we miss more than the hall parties: naming ceremonies, an aunt's 50th birthday party, youngsters sprawled out on a cousins bed because Mum and Dad are still partying, and the throwing of money on aunty as her feet glides across the dance floor. Something we can all easily recollect. Something seemingly small but a part of something bigger. A part of a culture. 

Our sense of identity is (intrinsically) linked to culture. It is curated by many surrounding factors: language, religion, values, customs/rituals, and the arts. The music we listen to. Even our dialect influences our self-image and how that influences the connection we find with other people. 

Sadly, as a people, we have been conditioned to constantly look at what’s wrong. To point out differences between one another, rather than look at the similarities. Rather than look at what unifies us. It's much easier than we think to recognise the minuscule things that connect us. Rarely do we take the time to think or consider the behaviour that comes to us naturally. The eye-contact we make with one another in public after witnessing a particularly type of behaviour. The head nods Black men commonly greet each other with, in passing, albeit being strangers. Greeting an older Black woman with the title aunty whether she's Guyanese or Ghanaian. A heartwarming term that just flows off your tongue. 

These accepted mannerisms rest upon something more important. It is a part of retaining lineage and heritage. Repeated patterns of behaviour from one generation into the next symbolises continuity and plays an important part in our image of self. It helps keep the elders and youngsters connected in an inexplicable manner. That which builds bonds and keeps families together is what has helped keep the African Diaspora together. A term referring to all of us of African descent who are living outside of the home: Black Brits, Afro Brazilians, African-Americans. 

This brings me to question why we don’t use the term ‘African Diaspora’ enough. Diaspora originates from the Greek word, ‘diaspeirein’. ‘Dia’ meaning across and ‘speirein’ meaning to scatter. Historically used when describing the dispersion of Jews outside of their homeland Israel.  The term helps recognise us as fundamentally one. Some may deem it problematic to place all black people under one umbrella considering significant cultural differences as well as contrasting ways of living. We are not a monolith. Statistics show that the largest Black population outside of Africa are 55 million residents in Brazil, yet, our dispersion as a people isn’t appropriately recognised in a political or social context. Hollywood continues to perpetuate a singular 2D frame of black people; always American, lighter-skinned Black woman (sometimes even bi-racial), and two children who pass the paper bag test. The lack of representation for Afro-Latinx makes you assume that they cease to exist. There’s a lot to be unpacked and dealt with. Our forceful separation as a people has complicated things in an imaginable manner. A people separated by the transatlantic slave trade, rituals and practices of our ancestors taken away from us. A people separated by geographical location yet connected by something much more powerful. 

Beyond friendliness and acknowledging each other's presence when in the same vicinity. It is about tradition. Merriam Webster defines tradition as the handing down of information, beliefs, or customs from one generation to another. Easily overlapping with culture, tradition focuses more so on singular customs and beliefs rather than all the varied factors that culture defines and embodies. Acknowledging today’s society, the upkeep of tradition is more important than ever. A society where the migration rate around the world has nearly doubled in the last decade. More and more people are living outside of their homeland away from the land of their parents and all those that came before. Tradition brings forth unity and helps maintain links - to back home and with one another. It is what has kept us as a people connected. 

Why the brothers of Haiti recognise the same familiar head nod that the brothers in the streets of America will give one another. It's why second generation Jamaicans in the Bronx and second generation Jamaicans in Brixton can identify with the framed picture of Haile Selaisse or Bob Marley In their homes. Miles apart but still connected through good old tradition. Besides allowing for connectivity, tradition creates stability and continuity. A sense of identity. Recreating the one stolen from us. 

Far too often, we focus on the transatlantic slave trade amongst other traumatic events being that which connect us. Our heritage and culture is more than being held in captivity. More than lost identities and being in chains. We as a people are more than tears and protesting against injustice.The love we have. Our culture is innate rightfully so.

When talking about the Black-British experience, we don’t focus enough on its roots and creation. On those that came by and laid the path which we now walk down. The merging cultures of those of us directly from the continent and those of us from the islands. The entirety of the Black British experience is built on tradition. The birth of musical genres such as grime and Afroswing are influenced by the culture seeping in the lands of our mothers and fathers. By following tradition, we are always able to create something from it. We are a generation using the arts in a completely different manner than seen before.

Media platforms like this (BLK Brit) are one way the arts have manifested to help keep us connected and informed. Our experiences as Black people around the world has mostly been kept in privacy due to lack of access. Technology has opened a door that we have not finished walking through yet. Various technological creations allow for us to keep archives of our culture, to connect with creatives in Ghana as well as St Lucia. The accessibility we have now as a diaspora has never existed before. It is about how we choose to use it to educate and rid ourselves of the generational stereotypes that were rampant before us. It is always easy to conquer a divided people. Let’s allow the lines of colonialism and age-old stereotypes to be blurred, as we recognise and accept that which differs between us but most importantly that which unifies.