sugashorti - well I identify myself by race first, nationality second, culture third making me African (diluted/even mixed but not by choice), British Jamaican as for me Caribbean isn't a race neither a land my forefathers asked to be taken so in some ways I reject it as my home as much as I reject the names and religion ingrained into slaves as if that's where their history as a people begun. If Africa is the root, nationality the trunk, culture the twig and personality the leaf then there are certain fundamentals like names and marriage where you have to look to your roots for reference.

I see myself as African of caribbean decent born in England, Africa is the root and I generally work from the root up....which is why my opinion on what marriage is and many other things goes deeper than the here and now.

Now if you said you were British of Carribean-African descent then you might have some consistency but this need to say you are Caribbean first speaks volumes...especially when most Caribbeans would call you english.

Can I ask what race of people you ascribe to or is accepting history started from slavery an admission we are of no race or even unworthy of one.

By identify I mean this with respect to those who chose to disassociate themself from Africa, they look no further to how they are represented than where they were enslaved...why do you think this is, why does the buck stop there, because that's where their parents are from? I had a similar argument with a bod who insisted his son who was born in the UK was Jamiacan yet the boys mum came from Barbados

Africa is indeed diverse which is why I don't understand why people always run away from it citing the bad bits, I say again, why don't people align themselves to the good bits. Believe me I have similar debates with continental Africa and regular tell them they have lots they can learn from others...indeed many African conflicts were based on differences in values.

There are values I wanted to instill into my children but the babymother had her other anti-african ideas and thought she could use my Afican marriage values to raise them in front of my face like grey boys and not expecting to get knocked out.