Gina Paige of AfricanAncestry.com (courtesy photo) 

For people of African descent, the establishment of a New World Order will require, in part, the relinquishment of sociopolitical designations (Black, Negro, etc.) that have marked a regal group for generations of oppression. While having a Black consciousness is of the utmost importance, African people are more than the labels Europeans have imposed on them for centuries.

Long before the Maafa dispersed African people and erased the mental remants of their heritage, they identified with the various African tribes and kingdoms with rich histories and cultures, that, though it had been forgotten, maintains a presence in the very customs, attitudes, and traditions people of African descent created in the Western hemisphere while under the thumb of chattal slavery and Jim Crow racism. In affirming that African identity, people of African descent, especially those determined to shape the politics of their communities, must dig deep to truly understand themselves, and the history they carry within their DNA.

For the last 17 years, Gina Paige has helped Africans in the Diaspora embark on the journey of self-discovery through AfricanAncestry.com, a genetic testing company geared toward Black people. As she explains in the video below, AfricanAncestry.com possesses the largest known repository of African DNA that geneticists affiliated with the company have used to trace the lineage of Africans unaware of their family history beyond enslavement.

Paige herself has used her services, tracing her lineage to the Hausa and Fulani people of present-day Nigeria. Along her entrepreneurial journey, she has also helped an untold number of people, including stars and public figures, discover their connection to a present-day African country, all while serving on diplomatic missions on the continent as a representative of the Diaspora.

With the Year of Return and other cultural phenomenons paving the way for cross-Atlantic connections beyond what the ancestors could have ever imagined, it’s imperative, now more than ever, that African people practically apply Pan-Africanism in a way that allows the Diaspora to counter the psychological effects of enslavement and colonialism.

Supporting AfricanAncestry.com in its prioritization of knowledge of self can — and should be — a start in breaking those unseen chains.

Keep in mind that the day may soon come when Africans, at home and abroad, will no longer identify with the countries demarcated by colonial powers. With the help of AfricanAncestry.com and other actors, they may instead work on establishing a new nobility through which Africans, speaking in terms of their tribal affiliation, can experience self-determination like what people of other cultural backgrounds use to exude their pride in their family. That’s not to say that African people should be ashamed of the crimes committed against them — that dishonor belongs to the perpetrators. It’s only to acknowledge that true justice lies in inimately knowing the ancestors, and the Most High from which they came.