Hearing Africa in Mariachi

Recently, I learned that people kidnapped from West Africa contributed to what is known as mariachi music. It is a compilation of Indigenous, Spanish, and West African influences. How had I missed that? As I often say to others, it was intentional. When was the last time that I saw a mariachi band perform with members in Black bodies? Never.

My soul wants to weep. The United States of America is not the only nation in the Americas to bear the marks of colonization, racism and white supremacy. The peoples who colonized the Americas include the British, Dutch, French, Italian, Norse, Portuguese and Spanish. History acknowledges the intentional cruelty of western Europeans who intentionally gave infected blankets to kill Indigenous people, broke treaties with, and stole the lands of First Nations, while others kidnapped, enslaved and chattelized Africans.

The exile of people in Black and Brown bodies through the flawed construct of racialization is not confined to the past. The intentional cruelty is shameless and being manifest today as throughout human history. Racializing cruelty is an abomination against Our Relational Triune God.