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There is blood of your forefather's on the ground.In the soil.Those people lived so that you might live and be able just to be whatever YOU choose to be.You may be able to assimilate into the culture of white American easily but in the not to distant past it was illegal for your parents to copulate even in most Northern states.And you would never have been accepted in most areas of society that YOU choose to associate with today.All that so that those people that stayed and STOOD there ground could have a foundation of what we know as black culture.
Billie Holiday sang the song "Strange Fruit".Strange fruit growing on the trees.It was about lynchings.Do you think the souls of those people before us that died in that manner did not have a HISTORY?A STORY?
Rock music came out of the Blues.It was from pure PAIN and suffering daily,living in vain.You would not have it if people did not fight to live in the only home they knew.Wherein the WORLD have you heard of ANY culture that exist without fighting for the land that was their home?
Sometimes you get tired of running.Some people have to STAY and fight
Im not attacking you but you cannot be entirely be left off the hook.Regardless of you being biracial you should embrace both sides of your past with equal admiration and respect.I would dare say even more so your African roots because in this country(even today) if you have black features there are those on that will look down on you.Without having a sense of knowledge,purpose and pride you cannot grow to be all that you can be in this life without knowing the context of the past that brought you into existence.Its not fair to your ancestors nor is it fair to YOU.
Please open your mind and realize that despite what some blacks or others say.Its not about how you dress, talk,or walk or even what you listen to.Its all about your confidence,comfort, and acceptance of yourself as being good enough for anything anywhere.Its in other words about your "swag".
That is why many refuse to be ran away from the home of their culture and birth of there forefathers.Its not about acceptance or "aligning".
Its been about hope.HOPE is the backbone of African American culture.It was that spark that set plans into motion to get to where we need to be.Without it,we would have been lost along time ago.
.
This is an excellent post. I just repped you, I'd do it twice if I could. Thanks for answering my question.
if i was stupid then i wouldn't be as unintelligent as you are to ask me a question about the cost of living in ny when i'm born and raised in ny and have lived both in and outside of ny and outside of this country and have repeatedly said that in my posts.
do you have the ability to comprehend what you read?
i think i know a thing or two about the quality of life, having lived in multiple regions in this country.
i know what i prefer and i know why i prefer it.
i'm aware of how many nyers buy into the notion of lower costs of living down south and when they realize that the grass isn't greener on the other side they also realize that they are stuck living down south due to their lower wages and/or that house they bought for cheap.
thats when they start complaining and thats why you have ppl like some of the ppl on cd complaining about nyers in the south that complain about how bad the south is to southerners in the south.
sometimes you get what you pay for. its bigger than that, but thats another topic.
i'd rather make my close to six figures here and pay 1200-1400 or so a month in rent than make 35-45k (give or take) doing the same ish and pay 600-700/month in rent in the south, easily. the price of gas, lack of adequate public transportation, maintenance on a vehicle, lack of things to do, etc. are not for me. been there done that.
have you ever tried living in nyc tho?
ppl paying the same amount that we would here to get on a bus or a train to go to nowhere there. you pay maybe half of what i'd pay for rent but i look outside and see all kinds of activity. i have access to manhattan. you look outside and its quiet. you have access to manhattan...via orbitz/priceline or a ____ hour car ride.
its a choice. some things work for some ppl and other things work for other ppl.
Half of what you said is trash. First off, if you move to middle of bumblefukc GA or Alabama or whatever of course there is not going to be sh*t to do. You have to go to live in reasonably sized or major city( New Orleans, Atlanta, Houston, Miami etc) to see daily activity and things to do. Obviously, only handful of cities in the world are going to compare with NYC when it comes to activity but if you are going to talk about the south in general you have to do the same for the whole north east out side of NYC also and with that the south is vary comparable in its larger cities.
Second, I don't know what you do for a living or where you lived but most people will tell you that everything does not equal out when it comes to pay vs. cost of living in cities like San Fran and NYC. Even people from NYC will tell you this, not to mention other expensive east cost cities. I see these complaints all over the board. If this was the case then there would be a great migration of people to places like NYC, or LA, San Fran or Boston. Why not if it all equals out? The truth is people in the south start looking to buy there first home around age 25 while in the expensive cities like NYC they usually have to wait till they are in there 30s or move somewhere cheaper. This is not a an illusion dude. If so then everyone would try to live in NYC or San Fran. I've seen the housing cost and wages for many fields across the country. The places that pay the most, namely California and East Coast cities rarely ever equal out in the cost on living, especially considering tax in some place like NYC.
There is blood of your forefather's on the ground.In the soil.Those people lived so that you might live and be able just to be whatever YOU choose to be.You may be able to assimilate into the culture of white American easily but in the not to distant past it was illegal for your parents to copulate even in most Northern states.And you would never have been accepted in most areas of society that YOU choose to associate with today.All that so that those people that stayed and STOOD there ground could have a foundation of what we know as black culture.
Billie Holiday sang the song "Strange Fruit".Strange fruit growing on the trees.It was about lynchings.Do you think the souls of those people before us that died in that manner did not have a HISTORY?A STORY?
Rock music came out of the Blues.It was from pure PAIN and suffering daily,living in vain.You would not have it if people did not fight to live in the only home they knew.Wherein the WORLD have you heard of ANY culture that exist without fighting for the land that was their home?
Sometimes you get tired of running.Some people have to STAY and fight
Im not attacking you but you cannot be entirely be left off the hook.Regardless of you being biracial you should embrace both sides of your past with equal admiration and respect.I would dare say even more so your African roots because in this country(even today) if you have black features there are those on that will look down on you.Without having a sense of knowledge,purpose and pride you cannot grow to be all that you can be in this life without knowing the context of the past that brought you into existence.Its not fair to your ancestors nor is it fair to YOU.
Please open your mind and realize that despite what some blacks or others say.Its not about how you dress, talk,or walk or even what you listen to.Its all about your confidence,comfort, and acceptance of yourself as being good enough for anything anywhere.Its in other words about your "swag".
That is why many refuse to be ran away from the home of their culture and birth of there forefathers.Its not about acceptance or "aligning".
Its been about hope.HOPE is the backbone of African American culture.It was that spark that set plans into motion to get to where we need to be.Without it,we would have been lost along time ago.
.
Probably the most useful post that this site has seen. This deserves a rep.
if i was stupid then i wouldn't be as unintelligent as you are to ask me a question about the cost of living in ny when i'm born and raised in ny and have lived both in and outside of ny and outside of this country and have repeatedly said that in my posts.
do you have the ability to comprehend what you read?
i think i know a thing or two about the quality of life, having lived in multiple regions in this country.
i know what i prefer and i know why i prefer it.
i'm aware of how many nyers buy into the notion of lower costs of living down south and when they realize that the grass isn't greener on the other side they also realize that they are stuck living down south due to their lower wages and/or that house they bought for cheap.
thats when they start complaining and thats why you have ppl like some of the ppl on cd complaining about nyers in the south that complain about how bad the south is to southerners in the south.
sometimes you get what you pay for. its bigger than that, but thats another topic.
i love how you consistently act as if you speak for all NYers. for many new york transplants, the grass IS greener down here. everybody is not the same.
in my personal experience, it's usually black new yorkers who came from the projects that have moved down south, LOVE IT, and ain't lookin back. i don't blame them one bit. many of them are thriving in ways they never could have imagined back home
Quote:
have you ever tried living in nyc tho?
ppl paying the same amount that we would here to get on a bus or a train to go to nowhere there. you pay maybe half of what i'd pay for rent but i look outside and see all kinds of activity. i have access to manhattan. you look outside and its quiet. you have access to manhattan...via orbitz/priceline or a ____ hour car ride.
its a choice. some things work for some ppl and other things work for other ppl.
there are plenty of places in the urban south where one can look out their window and see activity. you need to start educating yourself about other places besides your city
Nearly half of all the blacks in the Northeast came from the carribean.
Where did you get that stat from? I can see that with cities on the coast or close to the coast(i.e.-NYC, Boston, Hartford, Providence(quite a few Cape Verdeans too), but besides those cities and a few others, most have roots in the South. In Syracuse and Upstate NY cities, a lot of Black folks have roots in SC, NC, GA, VA, FL and Eastern Alabama. Some even have roots just in NY, as that state had slavery until 1827. People forget about that with NY State.
New Orleans does as well, but I'm not sure it wouldn't be considered New Orleans culture instead. Really probably any city in the South that was big in late 1800s and early 1900s had rich African American culture, but a lot of it has probably never been documented.
For smaller places you might want to look in eastern Oklahoma and Kansas. In Oklahoma freedmen from the Indian tribes started a lot of their own towns, and in eastern Kansas you had a lot of Exoduser towns started by freedmen from the South. I'm not sure how many of these towns are still around though.
It's not about divide and conquer; it's about familiarity. West Indians, and Bajans in particular, can be very clannish. A kid who grows up in Georgia probably sees his parents dancing to James Brown, listens to gospel on the way to church, eats soul food. A kid growing up in Barbados watches his parents dance to Edwin Yearwood, listens to Gabby, and eats flying fish. People want to be around what they know, and most West Indians know that black people are "them" and West Indians are "us."
Plus, many black Americans have this view that "the man is keeping me down." "You can't do anything, you're black." In many West Indian households, there's a different view of this country. Since a takes a bit of determination to up and move to a different country anyway, I think West Indians tend to be more optimistic about their opportunities here, whereas black Americans dwell much more on the injustices of the past. This is a generalization...no need to point that out. But it certainly applies to my family and many other families I know.
You also have to remember that those from the Caribbean come from countries where almost everyone looks like them, good, bad or indifferent. So, that also plays a part in that as well.
i love how you consistently act as if you speak for all NYers. for many new york transplants, the grass IS greener down here. everybody is not the same.
in my personal experience, it's usually black new yorkers who came from the projects that have moved down south, LOVE IT, and ain't lookin back. i don't blame them one bit. many of them are thriving in ways they never could have imagined back home
there are plenty of places in the urban south where one can look out their window and see activity. you need to start educating yourself about other places besides your city
A lot of Black folks from NYC have just moved Upstate or to PA too.
I'm not denying that the South has African-American history. I'm just saying that slavery (and subsequent segregation) limited the impact that black culture could have had on the area. Meanwhile, the North allowed blacks a chance at freedom and equal rights, something the South didn't do until they were forced to by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an act that many (white) Southerners opposed.
Firstly, slavery and subsequent segregation did not limit the impact of Black culture. When Blacks moved up North to larger and denser cities, it allowed the elements of Black culture to spread and enter the mainstream, but it started in the South.
Secondly, you're sadly mistaken if you think Blacks had "equal rights" and true freedom in the North just because they didn't have Jim Crow. Better economic opportunities is one thing; equal rights and freedom is quite another.
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