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But no living Black American was directly affected by Slavery, and very few old enough to have been directly affected by Segretation.
The black Boomer generation was directly affected by segregation, and the Boomer generation is still very much here.
Many of us remember "white" and "colored" signage. Most of us attended segregated elementary schools, at the very least. I remember my mother first taking me to Franklin Elementary--the closest school to my house--and being told, "Oh, no, he can't attend here, he must go to Carver"--which was a mile and a half walk away.
I remember the Freedom Riders, I remember the Birmingham church bombing.
I remember a cross country trip from Oklahoma to Florida where my father had to get out first at every gas station or restaurant to check whether we'd be allowed to go in...and often we weren't, so he'd have to drive on.
The last time I sat in segregated movie seating was July 20, 1969.
As an African-American, I've always been curious if I went to (sub-saharan) Africa, would I be easily spotted (putting aside the linguistics abilities) as a foreigner/African-American or would I blend in as a local? I assumed I would blend in well since the only difference I thought was my skin colour
I remember my sister telling me a mate of hers at university, who is Nigerian, was telling her that no one back "at home [Nigeria]" believes he's Nigerian because of his skin colour, which my sister described as being slightly darker than mine and mine already is about the same shade as, say, Jay-Z.
I also remember talking to this Kenyan guy and I can't remember the subject, but I showed him a picture of Bryshere Y. Gray and his first reaction was that his skin is so light
I would say yes, in terms of body language and dress, as far as skin color and features as a AA you would probably stand out
but that can be tricky, even though most West Africans are dark-brown to blue-black, there are some who are medium-brown
like Will Smith, but they are in the minority...
As far as the Fulani people, you might blend in as far as color or features, and some Ibos as some are more brown than black.
As an AA, Africans from Nigeria and Sierra Leone told me I look Fula. I am about the shade of Nelson Mandela medium-dark
brown. They said a lot of AAs look Fula probably because most AAs are mixed with White and Indian and Fulas are sometimes
mixed with Arabs.
I was told in Sierra Leone they refer to light-skinned people as "bright". From living with West Africans, most dark AAs are
not as dark as many West Africans they usually have a brown tinge to it and the facial features are more diluted from West African features. One a few occasions I have been fooled and thought someone was AA when they were African, but most of the time no.
As an African-American, I've always been curious if I went to (sub-saharan) Africa, would I be easily spotted (putting aside the linguistics abilities) as a foreigner/African-American or would I blend in as a local? I assumed I would blend in well since the only difference I thought was my skin
It won't be just language. It will be the very way you walk, the way you stand, the way you put your clothes on that morning, the way you glance at other people, the length you hold eye contact and with whom you hold it for that length. It will be the way you hold your head, when you smile, who you smile at, how long you smile.
Africans haven't even been here that long and they already forgot where they came from. The worst social problems in the American black community pale in comparison to those that exist in Africa and the West-indies...
The point that you don't get is that Africans and some Caribbean people see that the USA offers much greater opportunities than do their 3rd world countries, and they just cannot understand why a significant % of the AA population just fail to take advantage of this. They wonder why they, from backward nations, can fit into the middle class while so many AAs, whose ancestries go back up to 400 years, cannot.
Now there are a whole host of reasons for this but then AAs must also understand why immigrants (black and non black) wonder about them. Why for example do AAs score as badly in English tests as do Hispanic and Asian immigrant kids, many coming from homes where English isn't spoken? .
If one looks at most racial groups in the USA the foreign born have lower median household incomes than is the case for US born. Not so with blacks where black immigrant households have higher median incomes. Now this can be explained for African immigrants who are among the most educated groups living in the USA, so this is a highly selective group. But Caribbean immigrants have similar levels of 4 year college attainment as do AAs and yet their median household incomes are higher. This largely because their labor force participation rates are higher.
The reality is that past racism has done severe damage to the psyche of a significant % of the AA population. Contemporary racism impacts all black groups identically as I see no proof that black immigrants are given preferential treatment, except for jobs that no one really wants.
.If we compared statistics of education and achievement of black Americans vs. Jamaicans in Jamaica, for example, we'd see a much different story.
And yet Jamaicans living in the USA have higher median household incomes than do American blacks. It is total nonsense to claim that West Indian immigrants are middle class. They represent as diverse a spectrum as in fact does the African American population. A mere 20% have 4 year college degrees upon arrival, in line with that of AAs. A full 40% arrive with LESS than full high school attainment, LOWER in fact than is true for AA, 85% of whom complete high school.
I know that you aren't comparing an impoverished nation with the wealthiest country in the world. You will concede that people living in the USA have vastly more opportunities available to them than do those living even in the Caribbean. If you don't then you sir are part of the problem which traps so many AAs into a sense of hopelessness.
Jim Crow has had a legacy and folks (black and white) need to admit to this. I suggest that people also need to stop blaming slavery and focus instead on the de jure Jim Crow of the South, and the de facto Jim Crow of the North. Its impacts are very much with us today.
Various studies have indicated an inverse relationship in comparable median incomes earned by Caribbean and American blacks. Among the high school drop outs Caribbean immigrants considerably outperform, as most are economically active, this being especially true for the females. The gap persists at the high school graduate level and at the 2 year college level. At the 4 year college level AAs and Caribbean migrants perform at about the same level. At the graduate school level AAs leave Caribbean blacks and ESPECIALLY African immigrants in the dust.
The issue therefore is that a combination of Jim Crow legacies and humiliating social support systems have damaged the psyche of many of the AA poor, so they lack the "hustler" mentality of the equally poor and uneducated black immigrants. One need only walk down certain sections of 116th street in Harlem to see the economy which the poorly educated Francophone Muslim Africans have developed.
As far as how someone would stand out in Africa. How does this apply to Caribbean Blacks who visit African countries?
1. Caribbean blacks come from majority black nations so don't have the same psychic need to see Africa as the homeland. They don't make a spectacle of themselves by pretending to be "back home", nor do they insult Africans by asking them why would they want to migrate to the USA when they are at "home".
2. Caribbean black retain far more African aspects within the culture than do AAs. This because of the different patterns of slavery. In fact the USA was the only slave society in the Americas where the slave population at emancipation was higher than the total numbers of slaves brought to its shores. So early on in its history the vast majority of the enslaved peoples were US born and with no direct connection to African born peoples. In the Caribbean there were continues flows of enslaved peoples from Africa so upon emancipation there were still a large % of African born people, or people raised by Africans.
3. Both Caribbean and African nations are 3rd world societies emerging out of colonialism and having to figure out how to survive in global economies. A Caribbean person confronted with electricity black outs, water being cut off, having to bathe in a bucket, etc., will be less put out than an AA coming from a well organized 1st world country will be.
So while an African will also see a Caribbean black as a "lost soul" they will see them more as a "de-tribalized" African. In other words some one who has lost the ancestral languages and traditions, but who still maintains some recognizably African characteristics.
So yes a West African, especially from Ghana and Nigeria, will feel more comfortable and be more accepting of Caribbean blacks than they will be of American blacks.
And yet Jamaicans living in the USA have higher median household incomes than do American blacks. It is total nonsense to claim that West Indian immigrants are middle class. They represent as diverse a spectrum as in fact does the African American population. A mere 20% have 4 year college degrees upon arrival, in line with that of AAs. A full 40% arrive with LESS than full high school attainment, LOWER in fact than is true for AA, 85% of whom complete high school.
There is, however, a filter you are not considering: They left Jamaica.
I call this the "Frontiersman Filter." The willingness to leave "home" for a "chance of better" is a distinct advantage of adaptation that is proven time and again over human history. I count it even in my own family history, when my great-great grandparents left a Mississippi sharecrop plantation to join the 1889 Oklahoma land rush. Why didn't everyone do that? Why didn't everyone leave Europe for the New World?
The psychological ability to step out of a settled environment into an unknown is an adaptive benefit in itself and is part of the equation of that person's success.
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Jim Crow has had a legacy and folks (black and white) need to admit to this. I suggest that people also need to stop blaming slavery and focus instead on the de jure Jim Crow of the South, and the de facto Jim Crow of the North. Its impacts are very much with us today.
I agree, and that is the major difference between Caucasian immigrants such as the Irish and the Italian and post-1964 immigrants compared to African-Americans. It really isn't slavery, it's Jim Crow--which is a 20th century phenomenon that was still in full force in my early childhood and is only now on the ebb. As I've said before, it will take at least the death of the Boomer Generation to assert that Jim Crow is gone.
My grandparents and great aunts and uncles who were adults before the end of segregation are still living and speak about it like it was yesterday. They haven't changed since then.
The big difference between black Americans and black immigrants is Jim Crow. Even in Africa one can see the same problem when comparing black South Africans with West African immigrants who have arrived in that country since apartheid ended. Apartheid did some serious damage that will not end just because that odious system is finished.
I know some one married to a black American whose family comes straight out of the "Color Purple" scenario. It is to the credit of this woman's family that they done as well as they have. Even they know picking cotton (as kids) as semi share croppers and this is a person who is just 50.
So when whites come with this, why don't they get over it nonsense they need to stop. In fact Ireland only just got over the damage of their disastrous history with the British and oppression of the Catholic church a few decades ago and they have been independent for 100 years.
So why do people think that AAs will get over it when de facto Jim Crow really ended in the early 70s, and its really only since the 90s that one can argue that they have some semblance of equality in how they are treated when compared to others.
I suggest that people research the role that the Federal gov't played in creating the ghetto, with all its negative qualities. Contrary to popular belief segregation in the North is very much a mid 20th century phenomenon. Harlem prior to WWII was a diverse community.
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