Sankofa - Addressing the Past to Understand the Present

Jasmine Brown

Dorothy Smith-Ruiz, Ph.D.

Black Families in the U.S.-2215

1/25/17

“Sankofa: Addressing the Past to Understand the Present”

She finds herself chained by the wrists and ankles in a crowded room with other slaves and a group of white men restraining her as she declares “I’m not an African, I am an American”. She tries to run away only to run into overseers who rip her clothes off, hold her down, and brand her into slavery.  “Sankofa” by Haile Gerima is the story of a black model, Mona, who is sent to the past in the form of a house slave named Shola. The things Mona sees are not at all different from what the average black person sees in America today. Mona and other characters in the movie shows how easily it is to forget who you are. It shows how African-Americans are torn between what they are taught in a white ran society and the African ancestry they know nothing about.

The movie “Sankofa” is an illustration of where this identity crisis began, and is a great example on how we must go back and reclaim our past in order to move forward. This film shows us how important self-love is and why it is important to understand your roots to understand who you are. It explores the ideas and themes of loss of identity and racial consciousness; respecting and returning to our ancestral roots.  This paper analyzes how self-hatred, religion and mental abuse have manipulated the minds of African-Americans making them unconsciously aware of their identity. Acknowledging these three components helps one to gain a better understanding of how present day Africans Americans continue to be disconnected from their past and culture.

Self-hatred is one of the ways African-American minds have been manipulated. Intense dislike of oneself can lead to confusion, and desperation to be accepted, as seen in the character Joe.  Joe was one of the head slaves on the plantation. In the movie, Joe, is fathered by a white man who raped his mother Nunu on a slave ship. Joe portrays a biracial individual who feels like he is better than everyone else on the plantation because he is “half-breed”. Joe shows self-hatred when he neglects his African identity and considers himself a white Christian male. He felt that being black wasn’t good enough, and to be accepted he had to be white. This movie shows how African-Americans not only had a misconception of self-love, but also depicted a form abuse from their slave-owners that brain washed them forever.

Mental Abuse also manipulated the minds of African-Americans. It is defined as any treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self-worth.  This was shown in the way the field slaves, the house slaves and the head men had segregated into different sects on the plantation. The field slaves did all the back-breaking labor in the fields while the house slaves tended to the master and his family in the house. The head mean Joe and Noble Ali had the worse job of them all. They had to work as assistant overseers. This involved whipping the field slaves when they weren’t working fast enough, whipping the runaway slaves and running errands for the white overseers and the master. This segregation would of course cause antagonism on the plantation between the different sects. However the sect that it affected the most was the head men. The head men, however, had a psychological war raging in their heads. They had to deal with the fact that they were whipping, mauling and killing their own kind for the pleasure of their enslavers. This went two ways, they either had to mentally separate themselves from their peers or be eaten alive with self-loathing.  Religion is one way they chose to deal with it.

Lastly, religion manipulated the minds of African-Americans by using it to develop complacency. Christianity was a perfect belief system to push onto the slaves. It introduced the ideas of being tested by God to enter heaven and being good and nonviolent. It made the slaves think if they kept praying and kept doing Gods’ will their prayers would eventually be answered.  Unfortunately, many slaves absorbed the white man’s religion and did become complacent, even dangerous. Joe is a prime example of how absorbing a religion from a culture that looks down on you is psychologically damaging. He thought that if he could be the most pious slave on the plantation he would be set apart from the other, more lowly, slaves. All it did was shape into a tool that the master could use.  And eventually killing his mother.  Despite the history of Christianity being used by White people to suppress and oppress Black people, many Blacks continue to practice Christianity as their faith. The passivity of Black people allowed racism to flourish. While Black’s practiced the religion that had been forced upon their ancestors, the descendants of the owners of their ancestors continued to abuse them. The systematic division between Africans and their culture began with slavery and continues today.