While it goes unquestioned that African-Americans have ancestors from the slave-supplying regions of Africa, cheif among those being West Africa, going further than that in establishing cultural links between present day African Americans and present day West Africans enters the domain of controversy.

I grew up in a 50% black, 50% white American town known at that time for its liberalism and work towards racial integration (Evanston), and my k-8 school in particular had been established for that purpose (MLK Jr. Laboratory School). I spent my youth gravitating in and out of the orbit of House Music, Rap, Hip Hop, Reggae and their culture, spent my time in constant movement over a landscape of black/white bridges and barriers, styles and lingo, attitudes and acceptance, friction and fellowship around the mixture and non-mixture of African American and European American cultures, all of course with the best intentions on all sides.

Arriving in West Africa I could not resist looking around with an eye that said "hmmm, where can I see the cultural roots here of my African American brothers. For the most part (to my sincerely limited understanding) African American and West African cultures (which are cousins originating sometimes from a common ancestor) are quite different.

I did see some thing, however, that offered a glimmer of recognition to me. The following is a list of things I noticed about West African culture during my six weeks in Benin (nearly 100% of my time being in Abomey and Ouidah with the Fon people). I present them here in the hopes of illustrating some similarities to African American culture and American social issues in general. If there are similarities here (in your opinion) they might exist because:

A) they represent the flowering of African cultural tendencies which have flowered in both the environment of West Africa (slavery/colonialism ?) and of the USA (slavery/colonialism ?).

OR PERHAPS

B) these represent a cultural continuity coming from Africa to the USA with African Americans and the culture they brought with them despite the culturally eroding aspects of 400 years of slavery.

Here are some of the West Afican cultural points that stood out to me as revealing something about common social issues and situations at home:

* In general I have found the people to be very psychologically up-front, that is to say, they lay all of their mental cards on the table in many cases and in others even talk excessively about what is on their mind for as long as it is on their mind.

* Respect is the number one word in social interactions here. Respect, respect, respect. If someone is introduced to you they should be respected then and every subsequent time you see them on the street or anywhere. If someone enters the room they should be greeted with full formality and there is a very subtle play of relative social status in the way people greet each other, who rises, who remains seated etc. As a foreigner staying in Ouidah, Benin for over a month it requires a lot of patience, attentiveness and energy to correctly respect everyone as they diserve all the time. As the number of people I had been introduced to increased I felt the noose tighten as I should be able to identify, name and stop and exchange words with each and every one even when in a hurry. Fifteen minute errands turn into hours and the little city becomes a vast terrain of aqquaintences. This is also a great source of sweetness and social satisfaction when done correctly but for one such as me that is not used to it it require a LOT of energy.

* Prestige on a micro level seemed to come from family connections and the education level attained but on a larger social scale it seems uniquely to come from money. From having money or from having a long and current family history of having money. And this money must be shared for the respect to continue to exist. Having anything here seems like a real double-edged sword since there is no taboo against asking another person for money or posessions outright. The logic here being the very straghtforward one of "well, he has more than I do so I can just ask for some of his." Thus, any rich/prestigous person has only two options: earning people’s anger and jealousy by withholding and not dispensing his/her wealth to petitioners OR earning continued respect by regularly dispersing his/her wealth. I think that anyone who is financially successful here can only try to hide his earnings and poor mouth (which should be very difficult since everyone is very into everyone else’s business here) or make a constant public relations campaign of dispensing money to the community. Otherwise, many in the community will hope for and actively work towards his or her fall and ruin.

For men in Beninoise Fon society there appears to be two poles on the social spectrum :

A) the young man trying to come up, trying to get ahead, make good money and found a family and

B) men who are seen as having money (and even better if they have founded a stable family).

Men seem universally trying to pass from the former social status to the latter. The latter can be called ‘the cheif of the family’ and may later even become the Cheif of the collective (several families, neighborhood, quarter) and if he has a traditional regligous bent and the appropriate family lineage he may also be Cheif fetisher of a voudou covent. Men occupying positions of authority here expect grovelling from anyone needing anything from them and feudal demonstrations of respect when being greeted (the others can do anything from rise to greet them ; bow courtsy, kiss their hand, touch their feet, kneel or touch their heads to the big man’s feet). This is a very grand social position and as one might expect egomaniacs aren't rare here. Being openly proud, arrogant and dressing oneself up like some kind of storybook tribal king are all OK as long as the prestigous man continues to dispense wealth appropriately. Otherwise, he should try to appear humble.

* women are generally the businesspeople, doing much of the work in both the rural and city settings. Men are occupied with very external jobs that involve metals, woods, transportation, government functionary, construction work.

* The concept of private property is such that if the door is left open a neighbor may walk in and seeing something he or she needs borrow it without asking.

* Petty theft and grand theft are constant problems. Anything left unattended is at a high risk of quickly disappearing. This even goes for motorcycles and it does not matter if you are in a large village or the city. This does not mean that people tolerate or accept theft, however. Quite the contrary: most any adult that sees a theif at work will try to catch him but if that theif should escape or manage to seize the item unnoticed, even if that theif is seen running from the scene of the crime with the goods, even if that theif and his home are known by everyone, he will flee the village and not return for a long time until he has consumed the stolen goods and everyone has forgotten about the whole affair. But even as this is true at the same time there is the cultural concept that theives will be burned alive. I have not, thank God, seen this and do not know if it is true but that this is the mob justice punishment for theft is understood by everyone. I did see one theif caught at the grand marche of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso being beaten with wood planks by a mod of furious vendors. In an environment where the government generally perceived as extremely corrupt, slow, inefficient and ineffective for catching criminals and bringing them to justice the people take the law into their own hands.

* Many young Beninois spontaniously told me that Beninoise women are dangerous. They swear that they are systematically unfaithful and have the habit of consuming whatever a man has saved or can earn and then tossing him aside when his resources are finished. There is also the cultural concept that women frequently use voudou charms (called gris gris) to dystroy the men’s will to resist their charmes and demands for money and that they will use this same ‘black magic’ to kill a man who goes against them. I imagine that the social moral of this story is that only if a man is rich and can indefinitely maintain a woman in style can he live in peace.

* Sexuality in Benin is a paradox. It is considered disrespectful of the elders and society in general to be seen walking hand in hand on the street (a man and a woman: it is common for people of the same sex to do so) and public displays of affection are totally taboo. All sexual encounters of every type are completely hidden. However, at the same time it is easy to get the impression that casual sex is quite normal and there are few psychological barriers to having sex once the logistics of being together alone in private have been worked out. As one Beninese twentysomething told me (paraphrase) ‘when you arrange a date with a girl and finally pick her up after one drink she’s asking where we can go to be alone’, the idea being that ‘they see sex as the goal and don’t "waste time."’ Almost anyone we were in front of when the subject came up in conversation openly expressed enthusiasm for sex no matter the age or gender. If Elodie and I ever forgot ourselves and walked arm in arm on the road during the day we drew stares, hisses and castigation that quickly restored our decorum.

* Syncretism means the ability to culturally mix what seems unmixable : the church or mosque in the morning and a deep participation in Voudou rites in the afternoon. The most common combination in Ouidah is Christianity and Voudou. Although the practicioners have a foot firmly planted in each traditon (Voudou, Chistianity) there does not appear to be any mixing of the rites here like what I understand happens in Cuba, Haiti, New Orleans and Brasil (where the Christian Saints can represent animist spirits and orishas). My question is : ‘how is this different from Shia Iranian’s practice of Islam and tradtional cultural rites (now rooz, seezdah bedar, wedding rituals etc.)

* To sum things up a French sociologist studying Khouida funerary practices here told me‘No one dies a natural death in West Africa.’ Even though a man or woman dies with 80 years under their belt it is still a strong possibility that someone poisoned him/her or killed the deceased with black magic. At funerals oracles are regularly consulted and often the first question put to the oracle seems to be: ‘who did it ?’ It is not uncommon at the death of a family member to see one person publicly accuse another of having killed the dearly departed (this with a lot of screaming and hysterics if the accuser is female."