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This topic popped up on my rural culture thread , however I didn't want to get into it for fear of straying off topic , so I decided to start up a separate thread about it .
Anyways one of the posters on the aforementioned thread wrote that younger African Americans in the Mississippi Delta are ( for lack of a better word ) abandoning rural African American culture in favor of its urban variant .
So how true is this claim ? Is this phenomenon restricted to the Mississippi Delta or can it be observed in other predominantly African American rural areas ?
When African-Americans from the farm see New York City , Los Angeles California , San Francisco California and Chicago Illinois... "you just can't keep them down on the farm" anymore....
I think what may happen is that some will stay, but many will leave for cities in order to make more money. From there, some will stay in the city/urban areas, but some will return "back home" to retire.
You may also have some that may leave the city/urban area and move to a small town/rural area near their new area. For instance, you have some Black people that lived in NYC for a while that may move to NE PA/the Poconos or to small towns in the Hudson Valley/Catskill area of NY State.
So, I think the answer will be more complex/somewhere in the middle.
This topic popped up on my rural culture thread , however I didn't want to get into it for fear of straying off topic , so I decided to start up a separate thread about it .
Anyways one of the posters on the aforementioned thread wrote that younger African Americans in the Mississippi Delta are ( for lack of a better word ) abandoning rural African American culture in favor of its urban variant .
So how true is this claim ? Is this phenomenon restricted to the Mississippi Delta or can it be observed in other predominantly African American rural areas ?
It's because of the media (TV/radio), social media platforms, and technological advancements at large. But rural culture everywhere is taking a hit.
This topic popped up on my rural culture thread , however I didn't want to get into it for fear of straying off topic , so I decided to start up a separate thread about it .
Anyways one of the posters on the aforementioned thread wrote that younger African Americans in the Mississippi Delta are ( for lack of a better word ) abandoning rural African American culture in favor of its urban variant .
So how true is this claim ? Is this phenomenon restricted to the Mississippi Delta or can it be observed in other predominantly African American rural areas ?
I'm not positive which culture you are speaking of.
If you are talking about the farming culture, everyone is being forced out. Farms in The Delta are usually huge and usually handled by relatively few people. The small farm is all but gone. But I speak only for The Delta.
If you are talking about the culture of dependency that is prevalent among all poor people in The Delta, I would have a hard time saying it is being abandoned. People who have been forced into poverty and dependence don't have an opportunity to abandon that lifestyle. After all, it is not really a choice to the great majority, and there is no way to move away from it. I know a few who were able to escape Delta Poverty, and you would not believe how hard it was for them.
I know a young man who is a truck driver. He saved everything he could make by cleaning catfish at a plant and put himself through truck driving school. But in the end he "made it out", as they say.
The entire Delta is being abandoned, though. Been that way for years and will continue although teh farms will continue to produce.
Just changing times.
I'm not positive which culture you are speaking of.
If you are talking about the farming culture, everyone is being forced out. Farms in The Delta are usually huge and usually handled by relatively few people. The small farm is all but gone. But I speak only for The Delta.
If you are talking about the culture of dependency that is prevalent among all poor people in The Delta, I would have a hard time saying it is being abandoned. People who have been forced into poverty and dependence don't have an opportunity to abandon that lifestyle. After all, it is not really a choice to the great majority, and there is no way to move away from it. I know a few who were able to escape Delta Poverty, and you would not believe how hard it was for them.
I know a young man who is a truck driver. He saved everything he could make by cleaning catfish at a plant and put himself through truck driving school. But in the end he "made it out", as they say.
The entire Delta is being abandoned, though. Been that way for years and will continue although teh farms will continue to produce.
Just changing times.
Plenty of people have left the Delta for decades, as my own dad did in the 60's, as did my great mother in the 1920's. Cities like Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee and others have plenty of Black people with rural Delta roots.
Plenty of people have left the Delta for decades, as my own dad did in the 60's, as did my great mother in the 1920's. Cities like Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee and others have plenty of Black people with rural Delta roots.
I'm sure that's true. In fact, they are still leaving.
But my comments were specifically concerning the poverty/dependent group. That group is separate from the group that is simply poor. Being dependent on the government forces people to stay where they are - or at least that's the way they feel.
What's rural African American culture? I mean I have an idea of what it is, but I'm thinking it's not exactly what the op is talking about.
It is rural American culture as lived and handed down generationally by African-Americans in rural areas. I don't think there is a suggestion that it is a radical subculture apart from the rest of rural America. If anything rural African-Americans are more culturally like their white neighbors than urban blacks and whites, in my experience.
To the question posed in the OP, I do think it is in decline at the same rate as the rural American culture as a whole. That is, its decline is not specific to the greater African-American community. I grew up in the NYC metro area and most of the AAs I knew were the first or second generation living in the city, their parents or grandparents having moved up from Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia in the 1950s and 60s. It is no surprise to me that this phenomenon is not only continuing, but that the urban culture (which is what we really call 'pop culture') is ebbing back from the cities into rural areas, thus culturally "urbanizing" small towns (populated by any and all races).
That said, I have just seen nine straight days of rodeo with white, black, Hispanic, and Native American participants and enthusiastic fans so I can tell you it is not dead yet.
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