How Can I Forget Something I Have No Knowledge Of?

Family Tree
Originally uploaded by Victor Papaleo

As we all inch closer to Kwanzaa (oh yeah and Christmas) I've been thinking a lot about family. Kwanzaa is all about the coming together of Black family and black community to celebrate the seven principles which we live by and a chance for Blacks (non-Africans), to connect back to their roots. But for most Blacks (like 97 percent) the roots of the family tree don't run that deep.

Like, for me, I can only go back to my great grandparents. MAYBE great-great grandparents, but that's it! It makes me SO FRUSTRATED! I'm at this point and time in my life where I wanna know who I am and what my identity is. All I can think about is the notion that a majority of who and what I am got washed away in the Atlantic Ocean and the rest is literally history. To all my friends who have some recollection of their ethnicity who are able to say, "Oh my parents and grandparents are from such n such and we're such n such!" I envy the shit out of you. I really do. I just want to be able to say in response, "Oh well, I'm African American and my family came from the Ashanti tribe of Western Africa in Ghana."...I feel like my African heritage is nothing but a mystery and hell...I'd be niave if I said it wasn't gonna be that way for maybe the rest of my life. But even when I look to my mother's side and see the little bit of Bajan & Panamanian side of me, it's just as deep as a mystery. At least I have names (and maybe faces) to put to those family members.

So my thing is this. If Kwanzaa is about celebrating one's roots, how can I celebrate something that is so intangible to me? How can I forget my roots if it is something I have no knowledge of? I have no problem with sitting down, lighting the symbolic candles, drinking from the unity cup and reciting words in a language I don't know. I mean has it become so ritualistic that it's secular (despite the non-religious roots) like Christmas? (I hope I don't offend anyone just then).

After Christmas, I'll light the candles, recite the words and I will bask in the glory of Pan-Africanism, uniting with my people and celebrating how far we've come. But still. Even then in the back of my mind. The questions will linger.