Any Africans in the suburbs?

[treedonkey]

Originally Posted by vegaspilgrim

Treedonkey, are you African or African American? If so, great. If not, then why do you feel the need to lecture us about the composition of all these identities. Just stop it.

Because:
a) I find Geography and Geology fascinating
b) I think not differentiating between and Geographical and Political Boundaries promotes ignorance and misunderstanding (as demonstrated here)
c) I think a question like 'Are there Africans in the Suburbs?' is inane if not specified for any particular locality, since the answer is obviously YES

The whole point of my original questions was to get some more specifics from the OP so that we could giver her a better answer, like, what country or region is she from? But she did not seem to want to answer that, which is her prerogative.

And no, I'm not African, nor African American. If I was, would that somehow alter the validity or tolerability of my argument?

[Camden Northsider]

Originally Posted by treedonkey

Because:
a) I find Geography and Geology fascinating
b) I think not differentiating between and Geographical and Political Boundaries promotes ignorance and misunderstanding (as demonstrated here)
c) I think a question like 'Are there Africans in the Suburbs?' is inane if not specified for any particular locality, since the answer is obviously YES

This post is solely for treedonkey- I studied Africa (history, development, etc.) in college where I had professors of African and Middle Eastern descent- I have many friends that are African (and some arab/ middle-eastern), and I work with many African immigrants/ refugees (spanning much of the continent) in my professional life in a neighborhood of Minneapolis sometimes referred to as "Little Africa" as we have the largest population of Somalis outside of the country itself. I have NEVER heard anyone reference the Middle East as "Africa" or "African", nor Middle Easterners as Africans, save for your post on this board. It is obvious the OP is referencing race/ ethnicity, not geographical/ geological boundaries, so your exposition on this topic served nothing else but to show everyone how knowledgable you believe yourself to be. Your above letters "a" and "b" are totally unrelated to the OPs question or the spirit of it, and as to your letter "c" response- the OP actually did give specific suburbs that she was interested in, and it is clear that she was wondering if she would be one of a handful of people, or if there was a somewhat substantial population of persons of African descent in any of these areas (as well as how welcoming the environment may be).