Franck Zanu is a Benin-born naturalized American citizen; he lives in Connecticut. He speaks common sense about the problems of Africans and African-Americans.
For instance, here are some formerly colonized countries: Brazil, Canada, United States, Singapore, Malaysia, and Korea. What is the difference between these countries and the formerly colonized countries of Africa? Well there may be many reasons for the disparities, but obviously colonialism is not one of them. Rather than something that happened a hundred years ago, Zanu blames a lack of curiosity and other aspects of African culture.
It is interesting; I have mentioned the lack of curiosity in the third world before.
His critics blame everything except culture, and their claptrap, er...measured language, has long dominated the argument among scholars and diplomats. But to what end? What is the result we see today? Africa is a mess. At some point we have to ask if this is intentional? Who benefits from the mess that is Africa?
Likewise, who benefits from the mess that is the urban black family in the United States today? In contrast to the problems of Africa, what I see in black America is a people who have lost their culture. Just look at black families back in the forties and fifties. Even with poverty and pervasive racism, you found intact families making their way. What happened to that? But that is my perspective as a middle-aged white man.
Zanu argues that in the forties and fifties, black Americans were not free, they lived under duress, and therefore attempted to operate within the system. He argues that they did not lose their culture. Rather the freedom that came about after, say 1965, allowed them to, finally, discover their culture. He argues that you can only find your true culture once you have freedom. And since black people never before lived in freedom, not in the US and certainly not in Africa, they do not know how to behave and self-regulate within it.
Zanu says: Freedom is responsibility. A man's true essence, his true capabilities, are observed only when he is free. It is an interesting observation, because I have always thought that a man's true essence is observed only when he is under duress. But Zanu seems to be saying that a man can only be his true self when he is free to be his true self.
It is a provocative argument. Is it correct? I do not know. Is he saying that two-parent black families with no out of wedlock children are not part of black culture? That the two-parent families of the forties and fifties were only the result of the systemic oppression of the time? I want to think that is a stretch. But of course, I do not know any today.
It is interesting. I did know some growing up in the seventies and eighties. But not today. Does that prove his point?