Another aside. I have a book on my shelf waiting for me to read about what white meant in America and how it changed over the years. Originally, Irish, Italians, Slavs and others whom we think of as white were not considered white. There was a case of a black man in Georgia on trial for violating the racial marriage laws. He had married a white woman. He was acquitted when they proved that his wife was Sicilian.
Ladyday "and in an attempt to integrate and assimilate into the "popular" culture many blacks denied themselves and their children their own african heritage hoping, i guess to put it into the simpliest terms: to be accepted by the white dominate culture", I'm a History/Polsci major (african studies concentration) and although thats not completely true it does have some basis. What you tended to find was africans taken from the same region (usually) ended up in the same area in the Americas. You have to understand that profit was the leading push behind slavery, so what you tended to find was (for example) a dutch company would set up trade routes between one or two ports in Africa with a specific port in the americas (lets saySouth Carolina), so what many researchers have found is a concentration of africans from certain regions in specific parts of the americas during slavery (that is from the limited data available). But you were correct to point out that once they were here the treatment recieved gave them little chance to keep their cultural identity....although we do have remnants, especially in music (and I don't mean rap)....If your interested on info on the African diaspora check out this columbia page...http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/africa/cuvl/diaspora.html
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