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All good points. And there is absolutely no doubt that being born white in Africa automatically infers priviledge. But....that does not mean that a child of any color born in Africa will not feel African, or have the priveldge of referring to themselves as African. What else are they?
Read the comments section; alot of whites born in Africa feel no connection to Europe and are proud of the continent they are born in. If they see themselves as Africans, then all of the world to them. My skin may be black, but that doesn't give me the authority to pick and choose what an African is... just my personal opinion.
ps: I have changed my stance on this issue several times, but this is how I feel at the moment.
What am I talking about? Slavery is slavery. The END! You can try and sweeten the pot all you like, at the end of the day, slavery is slavery.
I understand reading comprehension is hard for you. Is a person considered still a slave if they obtain inheritance and are able to become ruler of the tribe that enslaved him? Yes or no? Well, in certain tribes this was possible.
I take it you never took any advance level African study classes or never went to any symposiums on the subject in college.
Read the comments section; alot of whites born in Africa feel no connection to Europe and are proud of the continent they are born in. If they see themselves as Africans, then all of the world to them. My skin may be black, but that doesn't give me the authority to pick and choose what an African is... just my personal opinion.
ps: I have changed my stance on this issue several times, but this is how I feel at the moment.
Thanks for posting the article, a very interesting read. It is an extremely complicated issue for sure. I do understand the emotions of all parties, and don't know that there is a good answer. I think it comes down to the individual in this case.
Many American blacks are flat out jealous that most African black immigrants to the U.S.A. can and do get good jobs as a result of being better educated and more intelligent than most American blacks.
On the other hand, these same American blacks hate the African black immigrants to the U.S.A. because most of the immigrants actually can speak English properly and their men rarely abandon their own children.
^This is the kind of ignorance that pisses American blacks off...
If anything, it's because African immigrants who come here are subject to the same racism but they're not indoctrinated into thinking they're n****rs... their kids get shielded from this by the parents because the parents don't see themselves in this light so the cultural conditioning becomes less relevant. Being the son of an African and an African-American myself, this isn't news to me... African immigrants tend to succeed more because they don't see themselves as being "black"... they seem themselves as being normal people who happened to move to a more racist country. They don't internalize it anywhere near to the same extent.
So you are saying Africans are superior because they do not internalize it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava
^This is the kind of ignorance that pisses American blacks off...
If anything, it's because African immigrants who come here are subject to the same racism but they're not indoctrinated into thinking they're n****rs... their kids get shielded from this by the parents because the parents don't see themselves in this light so the cultural conditioning becomes less relevant. Being the son of an African and an African-American myself, this isn't news to me... African immigrants tend to succeed more because they don't see themselves as being "black"... they seem themselves as being normal people who happened to move to a more racist country. They don't internalize it anywhere near to the same extent.
Here's what I don't get, why do so many white people care what American blacks think of African blacks or vice/versa? WTF is the difference. Does this sort of thing come into play in the daily lives of white people? Of course if I'm wrong and this thread is so many pages long with only responses from Black Americans and Black Africans then I apologize. If I'm not wrong there's a whole lotta people that need to get a life.
So you are saying Africans are superior because they do not internalize it?
If one is seen as a n*****r, treated like a n*****r, taught to think of themselves as a n*****r and knows nothing else, they become one. Most of my life has been spent straddling the line... on the one hand, I have an African father who in spite of being witness to half a life-time's worth of racist BS himself, he didn't come to America until he went to college... he already had an identity (of being normal). Being the minority in a country - and being the most despised minority at that - gives you a self-image that's anything but normal... even only fifty years ago, the media taught black americans that they were ugly, stupid, subservient failures... they continued to do this less-explicitly through Hollywood well into the early 90's.
On the other hand, I have an African-American mother whose own father and his 7 brothers used to shine shoes to eat scraps in Arkansas during Jim Crow. He's told me multiple times that he considered suicide when he was a kid because he "knew" that he was the absolute garbage of society. This society conditions blacks to think they're garbage and should only amount to garbage.
I've had to come to terms with my own questions of identity... to some on this board the obvious answer would be to ignore the n*****r mentality but they haven't been in these shoes... it's not that simple. To have one side of the family with a history of grief and pain solely because of their skin color and the other with no such history whatsoever is... interesting to say the least.
For those who want to point out Obama's election as the "end of racism", it's no coincidence that he's African. Obama grew up in a single-parent home and attended a very racist school in Hawaii for most of his teenage years. However, he knew he wasn't a n*****r since he was old enough to walk. It has as much to do with one's parents and their parents' background as it does with anything... back in the days of Jim Crow, being a black n*****r - a slave of the mind - was safer than being an intellectually free black man or woman. It's still true to an extent today.
Tragic doesn't begin to describe the last 100 years of African American history.
I wouldn't say that chiel. I've seen Jamaican immigrants treated like dirt by native African Americans born here on more than one occasion for the crime of having a positive attitude. At some point in time the realization that a struggle my people had 200yrs ago isn't requiring therapy. I can spit on the ground about the polish joke you might tell, or be annoyed by rude vendors with drunk irish tshirts. I can lament the old days about the potato famine. Did it directly happen to me? No.
African Americans native born in this country go on and on and on about slavery that happened in this country how long ago and ignore that it's happening in Africa/ Middle East/ Asia still? The attitude is why should I care? That's why I've just got to say I can't help but say they're FOS. What's really killing them is being passed by for promotions by black newcomers. Not only don't they seek out and create racism, their lack of chip on the shoulder makes onward and upward much easier than the self imposed handicap cultivated in 'the black community'.
If black isn't a relevant issue at all why is every thread mentioning black called racist?
Here's what I don't get, why do so many white people care what American blacks think of African blacks or vice/versa? WTF is the difference. Does this sort of thing come into play in the daily lives of white people? Of course if I'm wrong and this thread is so many pages long with only responses from Black Americans and Black Africans then I apologize. If I'm not wrong there's a whole lotta people that need to get a life.
Yes they really do need to get a life. It's been mentioned here more than once that this "animosity" is hyped up. Of course they ignore that and change the subject.
Same thing with the "genocide" of blacks in California by Mexicans. More hyperbole from those who have an agenda.
Here's what I don't get, why do so many white people care what American blacks think of African blacks or vice/versa? WTF is the difference. Does this sort of thing come into play in the daily lives of white people? Of course if I'm wrong and this thread is so many pages long with only responses from Black Americans and Black Africans then I apologize. If I'm not wrong there's a whole lotta people that need to get a life.
Some of them appear to be motivated by the notion that, if they can somehow elevate African immigrants above American-born blacks, their stance against black Americans won't be seen as necessarily racist. It is a convenient way to dodge the racist label while giving themselves the liberty to project all manner of racist opinion onto black Americans. Let them spend a little time in Lagos and they'll come back saying the exact same things about Africans in general.
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