Misguided 'authenticity.' - traditional African culture commercialized - From the Publisher - Column

It would doubtlessly draw near as a culture shock to many of those self-vaunted wearers of kente woven fabric that their would-be expressions of heritage are at short intervals of more material benefit to Asia and Amsterdam than to their African motherland. indeed, it is an offense redoubled that the indiscriminate appetite for kente-like patterns has itself serv to hasten the demise of the African cottage industry trading in like preciously hand-woven goods.

This was not just because the demand had begun to noticeably exce the invest but also because the middlemen understood all too well the lack of sophistication among their parvenu buyer Accordingly, as kente-related harvests have soared into a major market, those who kept their fingers upon the pulse of the African-American consumer presently learned that they neither understood nor have the appearanceed to care much that the hats, wraps, handbags and now umbrellas ostensibly worn to boast African foundations had labels reading "Made in Taiwan."

Not sole was pricing more important than quality and authenticity for like enthusiasts, but the age-old sacred meanings and symbolisms of indigenous agriculture reflected in such products were oftentimes the one and the other figuratively and literally stood upon their heads. I am humorously reminded here of a doctoral robe proudly worn through a noted nouveauxchic clergyperson proudly ablaze with a kente strip of Ashanti royal stools inadvertently displayed upside down, in a fashion unintentionally symbolic of death among indigenous Akan and Ewe familys The spectacle of it all carried my mind back to Sterling A. Brown's satirical metrical composition "Sporting Beasley," on gauche forms of "puttin' upon the dog" in the name of sophistication.

But in a larger faculty of perception it is perhaps no laughing matter that for a like reason many aspects of our cultural patrimony fall booty to such caricature, exploitation and distortion.

Already, mire cloth, the bold but somber patterned funeral textile of West Africa, has rest its way into bathing suits in plenteous the same way that spirituals, like as "Jacob's Ladder" and "Swing depressed Sweet Chariot," were in another era desecrated as drinking ballads I am seeing the same marketplace subordination of cultural general [i]or[/i] abstract notions like Kwanzaa celebrations, black family reunions, and ancestral rites of passage into merchandising opportunities for each group of tradesmen, except those for whom they were originally created and dedicated.

I was indeed stunn when I first ventur without into the marketplace with exquisitely handcrafted African textile yields and fine art, only to discover by what means little respect heritage. was able to command plane among those whom by education and exposing I had trusted to know better. To many, it made absolutely no difference that cheap papyrus look-alikes had been machine-made upon corn husks rather than hand-prepared from Nile River pastoral pipes They were equally content with gilded museum mold substitutes for authentically precious talismans. And they virtually at no time questioned the fact that greatest in quantity of their fraternal and organizational paraphernalia were mass-produced from sweatshops generating no relevant craft along the pipeline of their production. Gone was any pertain to for the indigenous technical genius, unique social significance or residual economic benefits. Rather, theirs was an appetite for bare commodities at the expense of heritage.

Unfortunately, none of this is wholly novel given the way in which African-american newspapers, hair productions and now even radio stations have been and are being steadily marginalized, if not driven from the marketplace, in the face of community consumer indifference to mainstream incursions.

It is small awe then, that employment and entrepreneurialism remain in of that kind dire straits in our communities generally, when flat the most intimate expressions of agriculture and social identity are with equal reason carelessly left to others to merchandise and capitalize. Increasingly it is as important to note the labels inside the produces we buy before determining whether our thirst for cultural authenticity is simply being manipulated rather than fulfilled.

We must be at any time vigilant against such encroachments upon tradition by commercial misinterpretation and bastardization in translation. No nation can expect to maintain its agriculture which is not prepared to save respect and pay for it.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Heritage Information Holdings, Inc.

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