The Same  Ancestors???

By Sankofie | Published May 27, 2025 | No Comments

In recent times the words ancestor and ancestors have gained currency in Jamaica land we love.  Of course with the continued efforts toward reparations, improved access to genealogical information and resources to facilitate ancestral research, increasing awareness around family history and more, it is not surprising.  There also have been those Jamaicans who, since whenever, have held fast to being African by virtue of an African heritage.  Taíno ancestry was not anywhere in question as the mis-education system had buried them all, every last one.  Now of course we know better.  There are also those who have made themselves more visible in their practices of ancestral veneration and many in ‘high’ places are today using the word ancestors, to claim relevance and gain acceptance.  So the word ancestor and its plural are now most ‘smadyfying,’ with the capacity to lift one, and perhaps more, into the company of the ‘woke.’  

So now the words are victoriously in our language, but what of its meaning?   Are the ancestors you speak of in the context of reparation, who we claim were injured and abused and on whose behalf we claim that their enslavement was a crime against humanity the ones you mean?  Are the ancestors we speak of the ones we celebrate at Emancipation on fus a August?  The ones who did not ‘get up into their feelings’ an bun dung the whole Island for a promised freedom that was yet to arrive?  Are the ancestors you speak of the ones you trace back, as having coming from here and there in Africa?   Are the ancestors you speak of the ones you trace back in your own family, your lineage, your bloodline?  Are the ancestors you speak of the ones who welcomed, but were never discovered by the Europeans? Are the ancestors we speak of those who engaged in wars, revolts and uprisings so that African and Taíno peoples could live without pain and suffering on a daily basis? 

So are these ancestors the same ancestors we now vilify, villainize, personally disown, do not venerate and them to crown it all, join the slave masters in accusing them of something they, the British called obeah?    Are we now the new Masters of our own ancestors?  Will we keep them enslaved while we posture around Marcus Garvey and the grand plan for Reparation?  Just a thought.