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In Graduate School, I had many friends from various African countries who came to US for Master's Degree or Ph.D. They hardly interacted or had any close friends with local African American students of University. All their friends or room-mates were other international students from various countries.
Not surprising. That’s usually the case with international students...
[b]This is about you and no one else. Stop attacking people who have helped victims of natural disasters. Again, this is about YOUR comments. Other people who have helped the USVI and other Caribbean nations are not attacking others who give and I commend them.
I live in the USA and I am aware of what happens here and the fact that until voices begin to demand that attention is paid to other Caribbean islands PR gets 100% attention.
Yes voices which said that mention must be made of the USVI and other Caribbean territories with and NOT just PR, which has a huge and powerful lobby backed by millions of potential voters so gets exclusive attention when hit by a hurricane.
Understand this. Politicians respond to voters and to lobbying interests. PR has loads and the USVI almost none. If you think that what you got was someone being nice, think again.
But maybe next time we should remain quiet. The huge PR lobby will then get 100% of what is available. You will then get what ever they have left after they have fully satisfied their needs.
I live in the USA and I am aware of what happens here and the fact that until voices begin to demand that attention is paid to other Caribbean islands PR gets 100% attention.
Yes voices which said that mention must be made of the USVI and other Caribbean territories with and NOT just PR, which has a huge and powerful lobby backed by millions of potential voters so gets exclusive attention when hit by a hurricane.
Understand this. Politicians respond to voters and to lobbying interests. PR has loads and the USVI almost none. If you think that what you got was someone being nice, think again.
But maybe next time we should remain quiet. The huge PR lobby will then get 100% of what is available. You will then get what ever they have left after they have fully satisfied their needs.
No, not all other voices. We appreciate them. Just your voice that criticized people who have given to others.
This is anecdotal, but you do not hear many of these, so I'll relate it. Recently I met an African American who had traveled extensively in Africa. He said AA's are treated pretty much the same as any white American when traveling. He was even denied entry into Guinea by an immigration officer who said his visa was incorrect and sent him back to Dakar to have it reissued. He was quite angry, and talked bitterly about how he was treated in West Africa. But I don't know if that was because he was targeted, or if he didn't get some measure of favoritism he expected.
As an aside, has it occurred to you that Barack Obama did not spend one single day of his childhood living in an African-American household, society or neighborhood, and cannot know from personal experience that that would be like. He is the 44th US president to be raised as a white child by a white family in a white social framework. It would be "unnatural" for Obama to assume that he has anything in common with even a Black American, much less a Black African.
He was attacked and patronized by a White man (Bill Clinton). Indeed, that appears enough for Obama to get 90% of the Black vote in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
This is anecdotal, but you do not hear many of these, so I'll relate it. Recently I met an African American who had traveled extensively in Africa. He said AA's are treated pretty much the same as any white American when traveling. He was even denied entry into Guinea by an immigration officer who said his visa was incorrect and sent him back to Dakar to have it reissued. He was quite angry, and talked bitterly about how he was treated in West Africa. But I don't know if that was because he was targeted, or if he didn't get some measure of favoritism he expected.
Fun fact in Apartheid South Africa, African-Americans were deemed "honorary whites" as were the Japanese. They avoided most of the restrictions and stayed in white hotels or spaces with minimal issue. The thinking was that since they've live around white people for centuries they were effectively white.
African-Americans in Brazil are treated in a similar fashion, although darker skinned AAs in Dominican Republic have reported being treated harshly as they are often mistaken for the hated Haitian.
Fun fact in Apartheid South Africa, African-Americans were deemed "honorary whites" as were the Japanese. They avoided most of the restrictions and stayed in white hotels or spaces with minimal issue. The thinking was that since they've live around white people for centuries they were effectively white.
African-Americans in Brazil are treated in a similar fashion, although darker skinned AAs in Dominican Republic have reported being treated harshly as they are often mistaken for the hated Haitian.
There are many Dominicans who are as Black as it gets, and Dominicans themselves, by sight, cannot tell the difference between an African American, a Dominican, or a Haitian.
Though by what language you speak or what accept you speak, they'll know. A stranger might ask you what language you speak or where are you from.
This is anecdotal, but you do not hear many of these, so I'll relate it. Recently I met an African American who had traveled extensively in Africa. He said AA's are treated pretty much the same as any white American when traveling. He was even denied entry into Guinea by an immigration officer who said his visa was incorrect and sent him back to Dakar to have it reissued. He was quite angry, and talked bitterly about how he was treated in West Africa. But I don't know if that was because he was targeted, or if he didn't get some measure of favoritism he expected.
It should be realized that overseas, a "Black" or "White" American will be seen as an American first and in
many countries, Americans are assumed to have money...The AA in question was probably targeted for
economic reasons and he might have been angry and assumed because he was black he would be treated
more favorably or given more of a break.
Being black does not mean anything in West Africa, since everyone is majority black. I have read of cases
of immigration officers and government officials giving other blacks and Indians a hard time, but not giving
such a hard time to Europeans or Japanese or Chinese at country entries. Ethnic differences are an issue in West Africa as opposed to racial differences in the United States.
In Ghana, some AAs are dismayed at being called "Obruni" it means "foreign, white or not from the area".
When Americans go overseas, they should forget about American racial classifications.
Location: Wherever the are junk homes: Lawrence County Alabama, Huntsville Alabama and Birmingham Alabama
69 posts, read 267,679 times
Reputation: 47
Quote:
Originally Posted by Motion
Do any of you live in places where the two meet? If so what have their interactions been like?
This is a very good topic, very difficult to explain or describe the relationship between us, the two Africans. In my family we call all of us black people Africans, as opposed to African-American. First of all why should we call black American African-Americans when the white people are never called white People Americans, wherever they came from? The separation itself is a discrimination already.
Its a strange feeling when we meet, both in Africa and here in the USA. There is some hidden sort of tension that is strange and hard to describe at first, until a while later when the ice has been broken then the feelings level down to pleasant, most times. I would say, there may be some kind of a mistrust of the Africans by the American Africans. Somebody has to explain the sources of the tension to me; like a heavy wind happened to blow a brunch of a tree on our neighbors yard and the young men rushed to my car yelling at me to go back to Africa, implying that I was a piece of filth. He was right, in fact most regular Africans come to the USA to work in filth and they have a word for it meaning the kind of filth that makes one wealthy. As in my case working with junk houses of abandoned home to rehabilitate them means a lot of filth that could turn out a true real estate that makes money. That one in Decatur Alabama was one of our filth houses.
My wife who happened to be a white USA_an, is more outgoing in her personality and gets along easy will all people, of course assuming and accepting people are people. She doesn't even notice the colors of people. Sometime when we get home and talk about things and somebody say that black woman she doesn't even remember that the person we have been talking with is black. She lived in Africa for too long.
My senses tell me that my neighbors don't' want to associate with me for some reason, and I mostly believe they think there wouldn't be any topic of common interest based on our two different histories, as some one has said. Sometimes I believe its my English is different. I don't think its a bad English as such, but may be I can't relate to the various slangs that are common in the neighborhoods. We work in various black neighborhoods doing our "Habitat Rehabilitation Projects".
Location: Wherever the are junk homes: Lawrence County Alabama, Huntsville Alabama and Birmingham Alabama
69 posts, read 267,679 times
Reputation: 47
Quote:
Originally Posted by Motion
^
The reason I emphasized the role of media images is because I've read other articles like the one I posted where many Africans coming to the U.S would often get asked questions that they felt were weired. Like:
"Do Africans live in trees?"
"Do you keep lions as pets?"
"Do you live in the jungle?"
"Do you speak "African"? etc
I guess the question is what are Americans learning about Africa that would cause them not to ask questions like these?
Yes I love the jungle , so I bought one in Northern Alabama where we live now, 40 acres of forest and little lakes, I call them, beaver lakes. Much better place than the cities, so yes Africans love Nature and Eat well out of nature so live longer and healthy beyond 90s. 75, 78, 81 and 89 are us siblings, uncles 99, 106 aunt 116, grand mother 125 believe it or not, in Africa eating grains and veggies. Trees are good, lions have their space in the jungles and we speak Africans 1000 and more languages and yet we get along, some how except for the new greed of power and money by dictators.
Strange my close neighbor 3 miles away calls me Mr. Black and I don't consider it anything I like it. The confederate flags fly in the corner of the my driveway which is half a mile and I like it. It is considered a recognition of me living in the neighborhood, all white, but leave me alone and appreciate me for some little money that I spend on produce in the community. I feel very special, leave alone the strange feeling I get in the cities from African Americans. I am happy being me, indeed. It has been 3 years since my neighbor who called mr. Black died. I miss him. In the little shopping center they struggle to call me by my African name. I am not religious so no foreign names at all. I love it where I live away from America into Alabama, my sweet home Alabama! I lived in California and America before I got home, Alabama! Sound illiterate? No I mean it, my Alabama is different, you say than, I say from.
Last edited by Suliniber; 02-27-2018 at 10:01 PM..
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