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I'm talking about concepts such as "good," "evil," "honor," "justice," "love," "hate." For instance, black Americans can't maintain Korean keh any more than white Americans can.
I've never seen white teens dress like that unless they're rich.
But that is idealized "white teen dress," while the ideal today of black teen dress...derives from prison style.
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As for black country or rock.......you've never heard of Charlie Pride, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix etc. Country music is literally a marriage of African and Scottish/Irish instruments and culture. As for rock, most would say that the first rock and roll song was Rocket 88 by Ike Turner. Just because DeAndre doesn't sing country music or jam out on a guitar NOW doesn't mean that the origin of country or rock is a purely white experience. Black culture evolves quickly so we often help start something and then move onto something else.
Real culture doesn't "evolve" so much as it grows. A culture respects the past, protects the present, and cultivates the future. If a group does none of those things, they no longer have a culture.
I can't remember where exactly I read this. But I read where someone had pointed out that many of the Blacks they saw in Mobile Alabama were probably descendant from the Ibo people of Nigeria. They said that they could tell by the body language of some of the Black residents there.
Purely nonsense given that alone of all slave societies the USA was the only one where there were hugely MORE freed people than there were enslaved people brought in from Africa. Less than 500k were brought directly from Africa and yet by 1865 there were over 4 million blacks in the USA. So by 1865 the ancestral memory of Africa had been lost several generations before.
In addition most of the enslaved peoples were brought into Charleston, NY or the Delmarva area with some into New Orleans. The vast majority of blacks in the Deep South are descended from enslaved peoples who would have been brought in from the Mid Atlantic as slavery began to decline in that region.
So to say that the blacks in Mobile were descendants of "Nigerians" is pure folk tales. In fact there wasn't even a concept of Nigeria in the 17-18th centuries when most enslaved peoples were brought into the USA. And in fact Congo/Angola and the Senegambia/Guinea area contributed more peoples than did the Bight of Biafra, which was the 3rd source area, with the Liberia/Sierra Leone area being used to source those who were sent to the rice plantations in coastal SC.
The issue is that the black cultures of the South will retain marginally more Africanisms than those of the Mid Atlantic and the North East, and that's about it. This being especially true of the Gullah communities and those of Louisiana.
The Bights of Benin and Biafra, which can be used to approximate Nigeria today, sold off peoples mainly to the Caribbean and Brazil. Less than 10% were sold off to planters in the USA.
What you're speaking of is called social marginalization. Marginalized people are people who are pushed literally to the fringes of society, if not pretty much out of it altogether. Whether it's Blacks on the South Side of Chicago, the descendants of poor white coal miners in the UK, or poor whites in rural areas with limited opportunities.
You're forgetting as many people do, the prime reason why African Americans left the Jim Crow south. Immigrants and Northerners today assume it was to escape oppression. I don't think so.
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In fact I am saying exactly that, which is why I also cite the plight of the white working class of the UK< who arguably underwent similar levels of social exclusion as have blacks who were present in the USA prior to 1970. The ghetto didn't arise from some defect of black Americans. It was created by the larger society and unfortunately too many continue to suffer the consequences even today.
And I use it to refute any argument that Mexicans in Chicago's ghettoes are not as prone to social pathologies, so that we can lay the problems of the inner city by blaming those who were themselves victims of one of the most cruel forms of social control in the Americas. I also use this to refute those who will point to poor Caribbean/African people who will run dollar vans or livery services rather than succumbing to hopelessness.
The reality is that the impoverished whites who migrated North benefitted from the GI Bill and other post WWII programs which specifically excluded blacks. Another cruel fate was just as blacks began to enter into better paying jobs in the industrial sectors of the Midwest those jobs were shifted to the suburbs, then to the non unionized South (in regions where the black population was small) before being shipped overseas or automated.
Yes farming mechanization did eliminate many jobs but it is indeed a fact that white employers still didn't want to lose their labor force, or to see them empowered out of a notion of better opportunities elsewhere. It isn't as if they didn't have other uses for labor and that they didn't want such labor to be as cheap as possible. They happily told tales of all of the problems of the Chicago Southside or of Harlem. Negating of course to admit that many blacks did indeed eventually establish themselves and that blacks in the Midwest and the Northeast were considerably better off than those who remained in the South, despite the urban blight and oppression that they encountered.
Remember that even though large numbers left the South that region remained the home of the largest black populations.
Often times we focus on the blacks who left the South and what their lives became in the Northeast, Midwest and in CA. We often forget about those blacks who never left the South.
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Second, this is the first period in over a hundred years that white teenagers have been more fly than black teenagers. <sigh>
Black kids fell for the corporate media moguls and ceased to be innovative. Now its pants hanging off the ass which is their fashion style. Even white kids have moved on, so why are black kids dressing the same was as their daddies did in the early 90s? Of course their daddies did all of that with style, unlike their sloppy sons. When I watch "Unsung" on TV ONE I see your point.
.. Both have cultures steeped in Native American, West African and Scots-Irish/British traditions that have been blended over 400 years. ..
Please don't tell the folks in the Appalachians that they have incorporated African elements in their culture. Certainly hillbilly music has more syncopation than does the music of Ireland. And African influences in Southern cooking is well known.
But tell that to Trump supporters and one is likely to be lynched. It is indeed a fact that Bill Clinton can integrate with blacks in a way that Hillary never will and that is because he grew up in a culture with all of those elements as you describe so feels quite comfortable.
Some would argue that legally sanctioned Jim Crow had to be implemented in the South for reasons of social control (separating the black and white poor from each other and keeping blacks marginalized). This because of the significant cultural overlap. It was less needed in the North as the white immigrants were radically different from the blacks and didn't need to be told to keep away from them.
Even as a Caribbean black person I did one of those tests where they use phrases and words to identify which region in the USA one is from. I had a concentration of NY (no shock as I have been here for almost 35 years) but interestingly enough also the Southeast, including the southern Appalachians. This showing the rough parallels in how the enslaved peoples were incorporated into the British North American and Caribbean colonies.
When a Southerner use the term "poor mouth" to describe some one who is bad talking some one behind their back they will be shocked to learn the possible West African origins of that phrase.
People have to remember that most blacks in the USA are descended from peoples who have been living on these shores for over 200 years and so this is one of the most AMERICAN groups that one can find. Even the periodic xenophobia that crops up when a non English speaking person is holding up the line at the supermarket.
But that is idealized "white teen dress," while the ideal today of black teen dress...derives from prison style.
Real culture doesn't "evolve" so much as it grows. A culture respects the past, protects the present, and cultivates the future. If a group does none of those things, they no longer have a culture.
That "white style" is Abercrombie. Marketing to Preppies.
I don't even know if the average white kid identifies with it. Bereft of the usual input from young black males they too have gotten a bit sloppy, as they have being copying the black style since the Jazz Age. They are basically the T shirt and worn jeans.
Henry Louis Gates did those "Who Do You Think You Are?" shows. Don Cheadle is almost 20% European and Dave Chappelle is like 1/4 white. I remember George Lopez had Snoop Dogg's DNA test versus Charles Barkley and it showed that Barkley was BOTH blacker and whiter than Snoop because Snoop was like 22% Native American (despite Barkley being relatively light skinned compared to Snoop).
Oddly enough, my mom is about Will Smith's complexion but we just found out that she's nearly 90% black, while my dad is only around 83% black (the rest is white) and he's the same complexion as Cedric the Entertainer.
What these tests do is compare each individual's genomes with some reference communities from around West Africa and Europe (they areas which are most thoroughly tested). These samples are small so not necessarily accurate. Its not necessarily the case whether these genomes correspond to skin color, hair texture, etc.
I base Denzil's 85% on the fact that the average American black is 80-85% African. So I give him the upper limit.
What we look like is based on the specific physical characteristics which we inherit from our ancestors and not every single kid inherits the same thing from their parents. It is not unknown for the lighter skinned sibling to be less European using these tests.
.African Americans are tied to the music and dance of the African continent.
Some of my African friends are always astounded in how much they see in the dances of todays hip hop are basically traditional dances of various African countries.
African Americans didnt "steal" anything.
You could even say that white Americans are also tied to the African continent through Africa.
One example would be the the "banjo".
A musical instrument straight from West Africa but soley used by white musicians in country music
Funny thing that is the kora, morphed into the banjo and in 2017 most will consider it to be a "white" instrument.
OK I know that Billybob Joe just slammed down the banjo since he heard that it was a "jungle bunny" instrument and stopped eating fried chicken/catfish and greens and so much that is Southern. Poor Billybob doesn't know what to do as so much that he thinks is culturally his actually emerged when Scots Irish and African indentured peoples work side by side on 17th C plantations in VA and MD.
Ask blacks of the Americas about African culture and they reduce it to dancing and music. That is because we know nothing about other aspects of the culture. This was the only space that African culture was allowed to survive and so much remains that is African, and in fact this is also why Africans consume the cultures of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Black America so avidly as it just "Africa returning home".
The mistake that we make is when we reduce African culture to this, run off to Africa and then encounter a rude shock, especially in "Village Africa".
Oh and by the way the "call and response" elements of TRUE country music is uncanny, as are the "rude" themes which are to be found in blues, calypso and other musics of Afro Americas. Country music actually does have a fan base in the Caribbean and Africa. Its connection to nooses and Dylan Roof types prevents AAs from seeing the connection.
That "white style" is Abercrombie. Marketing to Preppies.
I don't even know if the average white kid identifies with it. Bereft of the usual input from young black males they too have gotten a bit sloppy, as they have being copying the black style since the Jazz Age. They are basically the T shirt and worn jeans.
Actually, it's a direct descendant of what white upper class young people have been wearing since the 20s.
I think there were chemicals in Jheri Curl that affected our brains. That was right about the time everything started going downhill. We ought to investigate Robert Redding for CIA connections.
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