Here Is What Africans Need To Learn About The New Black American Movement FBA 'Foundational Black Americans'

Black Cultures Around The World & It’s Impact

Over the years, since Africans and black people began to break away from the extreme colonial and oppressive grip of the European and American governments, we have witnessed many black cultures dominate the world. Primarily that of Black Americans.

From Jazz to Rock n Roll, to Hip Hop, to event the fragments within hip hop, east, West, and South Coast. Not to forget Ragga music, Reggae music, dancehall music, soca, and more from the Caribbean, and lastly jungle, garage, and grime from the streets of the UK.

Africa’s Time Is Now, Though

However, amongst of the Black and African cultures that have dominated the world, it seems this is Africa’s time. With African food, music, dance, and fashion going viral Africa, is definitely the most unifying pop culture at the moment.

Most of which can be attributed to social media, which allowed Africans to take hold of how our world is perceived, immediately charming everyone into the beauties of the vast variations of cultures on the continent, before social media placed algorithms that limit the reach we see today.

But the success of African culture wasn’t only a gateway for Africa to the world but also a gateway from the world to Africa. Especially for many black Americans that had held onto their African identities and wanted to disconnect themselves from anything Western.

Go Home To Africa Movement Comes To Life

In 2018 began a movement where black Americans began challenging their fear to rid their minds of the horrific Africa they had been taught about and start making trips and connections to their ancestral grounds.

This back to Africa movement is one that has been carried by Black Americans over the centuries, but only saw itself begin to manifest in large numbers in recent years. And actions heightened when African nations started granting citizenship to African Americans, specifically Ghana with its ‘Year Of Return’ programs.

And ever since this African/Black American love story started to develop ‘practically’, the tune of ‘African Americans Should Come Home’ became a song many began to sing across the continent.

A tune that believes, Africa has the resources and black Americans have the will and direction. And that is the story as many of us here in Ghana know it BUT….not for everyone.

A Crack In The Wall

As many sang that tune, some began to sing it wrongly, or out of tune to the point it became a menace to the ears of some black Americans.

“Come home! You Don’t Have Culture! You Don’t Have Land! You Don’t Know Yourself! You don’t know Your History” In one sense it might seem like a generous invitation, but to another, it comes across as condescending and demeaning.

Did Someone Say Black Americans Have No Culture?

This condescending approach raises questions for many. After all, who are these Africans to tell us we do not know our history? We have movies upon movies, documentaries upon documentaries, books upon books, dating centuries back to our ancestor’s arrival.

Say What?

Some Blacks even have proof that they are the descendants of the Native Americans, meanwhile the average African is unaware and clueless of any history beyond their independence within the past 60 years, something that even more than 99% can not answer basic questions about.

Who are you to tell us we do not know our culture when the culture of the whole world has been influenced by RnB and Hip Hop, political movements (of Black Americans) inspired the world, and their fashion and lifestyle also have?

Who are you to tell us we do not have land when we are just as much, or even more entitled to the soil of America than the whites? We are fine and wholistic as we are.

The Birth Of FBA

Well, the voice of these black Americans that align with this approach is now growing, and many of them can be identified under a movement called FBA that has been amplified, and possibly started by the prolific podcaster, movie director, educator, comedian, activist, singer, and all-round talented Tariq Nasheed.

For those unaware of Tariq Nasheed, his portfolio and countless amount of work done for black people and in the US communities is too much to outline in this article, and the article is already too long as it is. (you will just have to google that one).

Tariq Nasheed is the head voice currently behind the FBA ‘movement’. The FBA stands for Foundational Black Americans and represents ‘the descendants of the Black people who survived one the greatest atrocities in recorded history-American slavery. FBA are the descendants of the Black people who built the United States from scratch.’

FBA Is Not An Organisation But A Movement Of People Respecting Their Lineage

We can’t confirm if the origins of the FBA began simply for the clamping down on the cultural identity and pride of Black Americans, or if it was part of Tariq Nasheed’s effort to ensure the current fight for reparations is carefully applied to the blacks that were descendants of the enslaved blacks brought into America.

Nevertheless, the FBA encourages Black Americans to respectfully take pride in their position as Black Americans and their rich culture regardless of their limitations or disconnection to the African continent, nor having to feel they are less of an individual or lost based on this disconnection.

And that in itself is amazing. Why should a young black girl in America who might not be able to afford moving back to Africa be made to feel less of herself because she knows little about the African continent or even fears to come here, all whilst she already has an extraodinary rich history that has influenced the whole world where she stands.

FBA In Motion

Over the weekend on May 27th 2023, the organization held the first and most successful FBA Expo, which brought together various Black American businesses, talents, and speakers. The first of its kind.

Despite the importance and the good and essential intentions of the FBA, there is no telling how it will affect the growing relationships between Africans and black Americans, and we say this with great caution.

We (FashionGHANA) came across the FBA by browsing through a number of hostile threads by a few black Americans towards African people on Twitter. These were posts generally mocking Africans in questionable ways, almost that which one will commonly see from racist Europeans.

After reviewing deeper the profiles of these individuals more, to our surprise were individuals with red, black, and green Afrocentric pages. The term FBA was used often in their tweets and profiles and in their lingo. And most of them at some stage had retweets of podcasts of Tariq Nasheed.

FBA; Friends, Strangers or Enemies To Africans?

Being aware of the great works of Tariq Nasheed this was puzzling, so we tried to find the connection between the aggression of these users and such a prolific individual like Tariq Nasheed, and here is what we found.

Upon watching a regular cartoon on his channel, we noticed an African character (cab driver) that fed into all the mockery stereotypes of Africans. However, it’s comedy and we can’t fall into the ‘politically correct’ stranglehold white American liberals wish to place on the world. After all, it is just comedy.

We decided to research further and listen to his current podcasts. We later tuned into a podcast show and entered right at the moment he chastized an American black man for investing in land in Africa. The point he was making was, why invest in Africa and not invest in your people here, and shortly thereafter he hunged up on the brother during the conversation.

Although, when speaking to contributors from the African continent, Tariq Nasheed didn’t take any hostility towards Africans that called in on his show, in fact, he engaged politely, made jokes back and forth and it ‘was all gravy’ as they say.

However, he was consistent in raising the points about Africans not liking black Americans. His most recent podcast even welcomed Africans to his upcoming event and requested support just as much as black American do with African programs.

We are unaware if there were any more offensive aspects execute by Tariq Nasheed, maybe or maybe not as we have not following his podcast or page over the years, however from the little we recently tuned into his approach was fairly clear, nevertheless…..

Some FBAs Are Not As Disciplined As Tariq

The nonaggressive understanding by Tariq can easily be misinterpreted as a gateway for some black Americans with anxiety to easily pick enemies with Africans which we did notice.

This is not to let Africans off the hook, despite Africans welcoming Black Americans, there are always those that have found refuge with their European lovers and are quick to cast down the unity of Africans worldwide based on the insecurities that follow their actions.

Amongst these two bodies, it is easy to see how a cultural and national feud can be easily naturally fueled. And outside of that, these individuals risk the potential of this feud being dominated and fueled by the West with fake bots, fake trolls, fake media journalism, orchestrated murders and brawls, and much more. The west will have an orgasm over the back and forth, as we have seen them do in various African countries, as we have seen them do with America’s bloods & Crips, as we have seen them do with East/West Coast US conflict.

How To Deal With FBAs As An African

Despite how much you might be riled up by any of the rhetoric on Twitter, whose algorithms are set to push controversial conversations, Here are some dos and don’ts.
1. Avoid telling Black Americans THEY HAVE TO come home, THEY HAVE NO culture nor history. They don’t have to do anything. Know the difference between extending an invite and demanding, ordering, or demeaning someone’s position.

2. Avoid engaging in African vs Black American online beef. One consistent limitation to black people all around the world is our inability to work together. With the thousands of trolls on individual and organized levels, this rift could easily be taken on by the West and made to seem bigger than it is if you play into it. Sort of like the East Coast, West Coast American beef.

3. Do not follow through with whatever stereotypes you have been fed. Over the years, there has been evidence and rumors showing that a number of Africans, mainly East Africans are being taught the negatives of black American prior to visiting USA.

4. Let Them choose. Black Americans in this scenario are like the mixed-race child, some of them want to identify as black who are we to say no? some of them aren’t and claimed to be mixed, end off. If a black American doesn’t want to identify with Africa, no need to debate them, or challenge it. If they decide Africa is their home and chose to be pan-Africanist, they have every right to and should be more than welcome.

5. Learn to Accept Their Wholeness. Slavery was centuries ago, beyond any great great great grandparent any of us can remember. We can not deny them of not knowing their history beyond the 5 centuries if we do not have a clue of our history beyond 5 centuries ago. Accept the fact that they do have a history dating as far back as they chose, they have a culture that has dominated the world and within this, they are their own people just as much as the declining culturally driving and new generation of Africans are.

6 Challenge and discipline Africans that speak negatively of Black Americans in the wrong way. We can not allow distruction from the inside. We can not sit back idly and let people with personal issues and close ties to Europeans express their voices as though they are representing us. If we do not do so, we will wake up to a day where there and extrodinary numbers in this African/Black american debacle of which most might even be European trolls in disguies.

In Conclusion

With these basic principles, one should have a best progressive form of interaction and place progress over emotion. With greedy leaders heading the war in Sudan, Arabians denying black people of their role in ancient Egypt, Aborigines in Australia denied human rights, the US govt pushing LGBT in Africa all whilst extracting our resources, child trafficking in Haiti, mass incarceration and killing of blacks USA. There is too much at stake to be swindled into such emotional disputes. If you know better, do better.

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Here Is What Africans Need To Learn About The New Black American Movement FBA ‘Foundational Black Americans’