The dispersion of African culture and religion has occurred as a result of both the internal and external migration of people and culture from Africa to many other countries around the globe. The external migration has happened largely as a result of trade, slavery and colonization. This external exodus continues as part of what has become the ôglobal cultureö of the twenty-first century as well as due to factors associated with economics, political turmoil/reform and repression, and the need to unite family elements that have become separated as a result of this activity (The African diaspora, 2002).
There is no common point of origin for this dispersion and as such, persons of African decent, fortunately or unfortunately depending upon your perspective, do not share any type of centralized historical connection as would be the case of the Diaspora of European Jews to Israel following the close of World War II. It does not require one to spend much time reading or viewing any form of media to conclude that discrimination still remains the biggest problem of this centuryùas it was in the last. While this writer would prefer to focus on discrimination as a function of color, other variables such as religion and ethnicity remain dominant factors as well. The reader only has to observe the daily happenings in the Middle East (the continuous deadlock with respect to getting the Arabs and the Jews to constructively live in harmony) to conclude that discrimination is not simply an issue of color.
It seems that basic human nature is such that in observing atypical (or deviant) human behavior (or one bad apple in the barrel) will allow the polarization of thinking such that broad and unfair generalizations will be made about a people and a culture. One example would be the conclusion drawn from the anomalous activities of one Emmanuel Ekezie, a dread locked African who preyed on victims while playing the drums at London tour...