Black surfers work to reclaim a historic African tradition
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- Опубликовано: 18 июн 2023
- Black surf organizations are popping up from coast to coast to provide a safe space for Black surfers who say that they still face discrimination and racism when they’re in the water. NBC News’ Niala Charles has the story.
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#surfing #sport #culture
Growing up in los Angeles never saw a Black surfer until i moved to the Caribbean. I was stun. At 43 yrs old. In the Caribbean it's natural to see black surfers.
Makes sense, all the ones I know are non surfers and terrified of the water, I dont think they even know how to swim.
Amerikkka is really evil.
Black here, growing up in Panamá 🇵🇦. We surf...ISLA GRANDE, Colón.
There are black surfers in Brazil, so I'm not sure what people are talking about.
University of California history professor Kevin Dawson knows a thing or two about the longstanding connection between African people and the ocean - he literally wrote the book on it, in fact, with “Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora”.
So it should come as no surprise that when African surf brand Mami Wata set out to make a gorgeous 300-page tome exploring African surf culture (called “Afrosurf”), they tapped Dawson to shed some light on just how deep Africa’s surfing roots go.
Excerpted from the book and the linked article:
"Popular histories of surfing tell us that Polynesians were the only people to develop surfing, that the first account of surfing was written in Hawai‘i in 1778 and that Bruce Brown, Robert August and Mike Hynson introduced surfing into West Africa. All these claims are incorrect.
The modern surf cultures currently developing along Africa’s long shoreline are not something new and introduced, they are a rebirth -- the remembering and reimagining of 1,000-year-old traditions. The first known account of surfing was written during the 1640s in what is now Ghana. Surfing was independently developed from Senegal to Angola. Africa possesses thousands of miles of warm, surf-filled waters and populations of strong swimmers and sea-going fishermen and merchants who knew surf patterns and crewed surf-canoes capable of catching and riding waves upwards of ten feet high.
Africans surfed on 3- to 5-foot-long wooden surfboards in a prone, sitting, kneeling, or standing position, and in small one-person canoes. Despite Brown’s claim that “The Endless Summer” (1966) introduced surfing into Ghana, if viewers shift their eyes away from August and Hynson, they will see Ga youth of Labadi Village, near Accra, Ghana, riding traditional surfboards, which can still be found at some beaches. The ability of Ga men, in the film, to stand on the Americans’ longboards illustrates their surfing tradition.
Africans also rode longboards, about 12 feet long, and used them to paddle several miles. English anthropologist Robert Rattray provided the best description and photographs of paddleboards on Lake Bosumtwi located about 100 miles inland of Cape Coast, Ghana. The Asante believe the “anthropomorphic lake god,” Twi, prohibited canoes on the lake. Keeping with divine sanctions, people fished from paddleboards, called padua, or mpadua (plural) and used them to traverse this 5-mile-wide crater lake."
More at the following link and in the book "Afro Surf"
www.surfer.com/features/africans-surfed-long-before-bruce-brown-showed-up
@@dimitrimerritt9039 Africa has 54 countries. Unless you live in one of the African coastal countries covered in the book (by a history professor), you don't have anything to show me or anyone else on the subject.
Just more black revisionist history. 🙄🙄 The older I get....the more wisdom I find in the ways and attitudes of the past. 💯
Visit Panamá 🇵🇦. Colón City Isla Grande and Maria Chiquita, the black locals would teach you a thing or two.
I have lived in Hawaii since 1957, only saw one black surfer in all my years of surfing.
Thats bc Blacks didnt invent surfing Hawaii did. Its Hawaiian Culture that blacks now want to steal and say they were first
and the govt only allowed whites to surf?
I love it there lol not a surfer
You live in Hawaii not many black people there
I didn't know the ocean was racist. I guess it is. I hate the ocean now for being so racist
Sharks don't Mind all they usually get is white meat .🦈
Many beaches in parts of the U.S. we're segregated and restrictive. Nice to see all kinds of people enjoying all kinds of
of sports.
commonsense101:
Blacks DONT surf, they chose not too... I have seen 2-3 in last 20 yrs here in Hawaii.....
ps a black man from Fiji/Samoa/Tonga etc. is NOT an African, he is a Melanesian by race and a Polynesian by culture.....
aloha
This video isn't about Melanesians or Polynesians
You guys are joking about this aren’t you you’re trying to tell me surfing originated in Africa thousand years ago you people are just too much
Apparently it did at least 400+ years ago.
It's a little confusing, why is an American who is black an African American, but an American who is white is just American not European American?
A white person is called “White” if a person is called “African American”. They’re both called Americans.
“African Americans” is just a more refined way to say “Black People”. That’s it.
@@blackout07blue And the need for any refinement is?
In black culture, power is in the words. If they can make the white man say what they want.....then they have won. That's why they use slang language and terms as a form of discrimination against other races. If a white person refuses to "talk black".....then they r labeled a racist. It's a form of black aggression.
It's no different than when your family pet tries to assert dominance. 💯
Culture appropriation huh
This is cool! But, it definitely seems like surfing was invented in Polynesia a thousand years ago spreading through the Pacific Islands? Is there any evidence of surfing in Ghana a thousand years ago? I found one singular source that was not super reputable that referenced a surfer in Ghana in 1640 but that is far from a millennium ago and also one single non-substantiated source. Share if you have anything!
University of California history professor Kevin Dawson knows a thing or two about the longstanding connection between African people and the ocean - he literally wrote the book on it, in fact, with “Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora”.
So it should come as no surprise that when African surf brand Mami Wata set out to make a gorgeous 300-page tome exploring African surf culture (called “Afrosurf”), they tapped Dawson to shed some light on just how deep Africa’s surfing roots go.
Excerpted from the book and the linked article:
"Popular histories of surfing tell us that Polynesians were the only people to develop surfing, that the first account of surfing was written in Hawai‘i in 1778 and that Bruce Brown, Robert August and Mike Hynson introduced surfing into West Africa. All these claims are incorrect.
The modern surf cultures currently developing along Africa’s long shoreline are not something new and introduced, they are a rebirth -- the remembering and reimagining of 1,000-year-old traditions. The first known account of surfing was written during the 1640s in what is now Ghana. Surfing was independently developed from Senegal to Angola. Africa possesses thousands of miles of warm, surf-filled waters and populations of strong swimmers and sea-going fishermen and merchants who knew surf patterns and crewed surf-canoes capable of catching and riding waves upwards of ten feet high.
Africans surfed on 3- to 5-foot-long wooden surfboards in a prone, sitting, kneeling, or standing position, and in small one-person canoes. Despite Brown’s claim that “The Endless Summer” (1966) introduced surfing into Ghana, if viewers shift their eyes away from August and Hynson, they will see Ga youth of Labadi Village, near Accra, Ghana, riding traditional surfboards, which can still be found at some beaches. The ability of Ga men, in the film, to stand on the Americans’ longboards illustrates their surfing tradition.
Africans also rode longboards, about 12 feet long, and used them to paddle several miles. English anthropologist Robert Rattray provided the best description and photographs of paddleboards on Lake Bosumtwi located about 100 miles inland of Cape Coast, Ghana. The Asante believe the “anthropomorphic lake god,” Twi, prohibited canoes on the lake. Keeping with divine sanctions, people fished from paddleboards, called padua, or mpadua (plural) and used them to traverse this 5-mile-wide crater lake."
More at the following link and in the book "Afro Surf"
www.surfer.com/features/africans-surfed-long-before-bruce-brown-showed-up
They found evidence that Africans have been surfing for at least the last 400 years. Multiple African countries developed surfing, completely independent of each other.
I can't imagine this occurs. I'm from San Diego. I've never heard of racial focused 'localism'.
Love this! Surfing is much harder than it looks.
Next up: Black skiers work to reclaim a historic African tradition.
OMG! U made me die laughing! 🤣🤣
Africans surfed in the ocean like 400 years ago.
lol.. sorry.. nothing prevented africans in africa or america for going to a beach (even away from whites) and surfing. you saying the native Hawianns were told not to surf? please .. Revisionism
@TVTruther All of that just to say how dimwitted and ignorant you are.
Its never the COLOR. its always the CULTURE.
Hope the sharks don’t like dark meat. I’m black
Polynesians invented surfing
Can you teach me to surf pls
This is wild. I just heard "surfing for racial justice" was a thing earlier today... now i have a bit more insight... its still wild 😂
Wow. Let's "colorize" every aspect of our human existence. Yes, that's the way to improve everything.
I know right?? Couldn't just make a piece of how everyone is surfing now?? No wonder we cannot move past race.
Its all a lie, Polynesians Invited Surfing . So idk how Blacks have been doing it for 1000 years
Evidence has been discovered that multiple African countries (independent of each other) have been surfing oceans for at least the last 400 years. It’s unsurprising, guys. I’m sure every coastline community tried to surf for thousands of years.
@@blackout07blue Indeed. And skin color and continent had nothing to do with it.
I guess two wrongs do make a right? It's this attitude of fixing discrimination with discrimination. It's revisionist black history. It's the "black people created and invented everything" viewpoint. And if u notice, at the end of every story on race/discrimination and some injustice that happened hundreds of years ago..... there's a call for reparations! Like another handout is going to somehow fix their cultural and structural issues. 🙄
Love your news channel! I love seeing young black youth in the water !! Your reporting is top-notch and keeps me informed. Thank you for delivering quality content consistently.
I thought ancient aliens invented surfing? 🤣
Yeah, bob marley
So they built the pyramids all over the world and invented surfing
There is judgement at the end of the day for trump! He don’t lead the country well and place our nation at risk ! He trump
Can talk about women but not economy safety etc our nation is facing 😂it’s hard for a president who never been in college 😢
Tomorrow will be...."Blacks reclaim their historical African flying heritage from 2,000 years before the Wright brothers!" 🙄🤣
The victim hood never ends.
Don’t act like you knew Africans surfed for hundreds of years.
@rojo01ful Here's the thing though, Black people will only continue to ascend for centuries upon centuries. You will take your last breath knowing that Black people are better off that date than the prior, as will your bloodline until it fade away.
"African tradition" lol
400 years ago. That tradition enough?
Race, Race, Race,…..
Surfing is now racist.
Surfing is racist too? 🙃
Horrid surf. No face.
The first Africans left on surf boards and boats and found the most remote islands like The Adamans, Fiji, Tasmania, Austrailia amongst manu others.
zero Africans found Fiji, Tasmania/Austrailia (NewHolland) etc. Zero!.. those were Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians.... NOT AFRICANS from Africa! know ur chit plz.. aloha
@@tamehamehaprints3604 they are descendants of the original people to leave Africa. They journeyed through various landmasses before they reached those islands.
Racist surfing!
commonsense101:
Blacks DONT surf, they chose not too... I have seen 2-3 in last 20 yrs in in Hawaii.....
We da victims! 😅
This is pure comedy! The push for racial supremacy is definitely entertaining!