Do We As African Americans Have A Culture?

[4MYPEOPLE]

There is no such thing as an "authentic" or "original" group of people. It all came from somewhere and it usually didn't come from the group who's most known for it.

I would tend to disagree with you. There are definitely "original" people and original cultures in certain areas. The Native Americans are the "original" people of this hemisphere. Their cultural identity today is mixed as well because of the infusion of White America later, however they certainly have cultural aspects, religious, foods that are their own. Not borrowed. And even the cultural aspects that are borrowed in certain cultures were borrowed waaay more than 300 years ago..so it has been INFUSED as their culture..stolen or not. Many cultures have thousands of years of history.

I think its an unfortunate predicament of people who's identity has been stolen because of slavery, oppression etc.-therefore everything that makes up their identity is borrowed somewhat from SOOO many different cultures that the mix is often NOT embraced by the masses. And as I said earlier, this happened so recently (in a sociological sense) that it is not suprising to me that we do not have a firm "cultural" identity. I am sure in 500 years there will be one, that is formed of the borrowed culture, language, food, ideas, colors etc. but has become our own. right now, i dont think we are there yet.