I should have been bouncing to the music. Instead, I got wrapped up in a surreal moment.
 
As artists like Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder performed during the Live 8 concerts in 10 cities on July 2 to drum up awareness about Africa’s woes, it struck me as ironic that  it was driven by the passion of an Irish rocker, U2 frontman Bono, and not a black megastar like, say, P. Diddy.

But I’m not here to hate on P.Diddy –- or to saddle any black celebrity with the cause of rousing black Americans to become more front-and-center when it comes to the fate of Africa. There are, after all, reasons why the Motherland’s destiny doesn’t rate at the top of our “to-do” list of human rights causes.

We need to get at the bottom of those reasons –- and then, we need to get past them. Africa needs us.

In fairness, I have to say that our awareness of Africa has increased over the years. Groups like the Constituency for Africa, TransAfrica Forum and Africa Action have seen to that. Still, I don’t believe that Africa is discussed as frequently at black dinner tables and from black pulpits as it ought to be.
 
Yet I can see why that doesn’t happen.

One reason, I believe, begins with the fact that when it comes to understanding and empathizing with Africans, black Americans don’t have the same familial advantages as do people whose ancestors were never enslaved. Unlike Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans, people who immigrated here and who kept their names and their family connections to their native lands, black Americans’ ties to their native African countries were obliterated during slavery. It is one thing to be able to say you’re an African-American, but quite another to be able to say that you’re a Ghanaian -American.

In fact, whenever I hear a white person try to compare the suffering of their Irish or Italian ancestors to those of black people, I think about how they’re lucky to simply know which country their ancestors came from.

Most of us don’t know that.

And then, unlike Bono, most black Americans aren’t able to travel to places like Africa. In a 2002 Time magazine piece, for example, Bono talks about how he and his wife spent six weeks working at an orphanage in Wello, Ethiopia. He talks of walking out of a tent and counting the bodies of dead and abandoned children and of a father who tried to give them his child because if the child remained with him, he or she would die of starvation.

Now, it’s true that such images of African suffering are all too prevalent on the nightly news. But the problem is that through the prism of the mainstream media, many of us don’t see humanity and potential in Africans. Instead, we only see desperation -- a desperation that often overwhelms us with a sense of powerlessness. Me, I believe that if more of us were able to take humanitarian trips to Africa, then more of us would be inspired to see our brothers and sisters over there as humans who, at least, deserve to have us not give up on them without a fight.

The Live 8 concerts are history now. So is the G-8 summit, a meeting of the world’s greatest economic powers. And the reviews of both are mixed.

But it’s not too late for us to do some heavy lifting on behalf of the Motherland.

First, become informed. If you can’t afford to travel there, make it a point to read a book about what’s going on there. I’ve already put in my order for “The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair.”  The book, written by Martin Meredith, gives a comprehensive look at Africa and how it has struggled since it threw off the bonds of colonialism years ago.

And Melvin Foote, director of the Constituency for Africa, can suggest more reading. His e-mail address is mfoote2420@aol.com. Websites such as www.allafrica.com are also full of information.

Secondly, fraternities and sororities that have annual luncheons and banquets should make it a point to get keynote speakers who can talk about Africa. Thirdly, every black church ought to organize an Africa committee or an Africa fund, along with its building fund and the like.

Bono is a great guy. God bless him. I thank him for what he’s doing for Africa.

But now, we need to take it from here.