black americans versus immigrants

[Tropicana]

you're being untruthful here...
there is no great issue of "black" "west-indians" denying they are black;

I have no way of knowing to what extent this take place but if you deny that people are calling themselves clear, red, browning, and other ridiculous labels to deny their Blackness, then you are the one who is being untruthful here. You KNOW it's true.

There have been NUMEROUS articles and studies about this over the years and even this website has addressed it.

http://www.jamaicans.com/articles/primecomments/raceandclassinjamaica.shtml

“Layers of Blackness”(Colourism in the African Diaspora)

http://www.jamaicans.com/articles/bookreviews/layersofcolorBookReview.shtml

I guess Jamaican newspapers are just making this stuff up when they report on it too.

2012 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...the-race-curve

Why shove this under the rug? You think the white folks don't know about this? Even mainstream media has reported on it. One does not have to look far.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/11/09/skin-bleaching-secrecy_n_994900.html

you are obviously ignorant of afro-american history or you would know that black west-indians were intimately involved in all aspects of the american struggle for black justice;

Yes some were and some weren't.

malcolm x's mother was grenadian...stokely carmichael/kwame toure was trinidadian...claude mcckay...marcus garvey...ja rogers...

Is this supposed to be news.

and the regular common people living & working side by side...
you probably are searching for the negative why that's all you see

On the contrary, I wasn't expecting to find such ridiculous attitudes and I am shocked whenever I encounter it.

[Tropicana]

Can you name one black organization or immigrant organization on campus where in the local or immigrants do not cohabit, co exist, work and or play together?

Yes I can. Check out the Caribbean student's association of any of the Ivy League or Big 10 schools and see how many African Americans they include in their events. Check out the Black Student's Associations and see how many Caribbean students participate. The African students are no better.

Lets not make a mountain out of a mole hill.

How is speaking the truth making a mountain out of a mole hill? You just don't want to admit the truth.

Of Course it is, what reaction do you think comments like the following would have.......


You not communicating the truth, you propagating the very things that have led to the present situation.......your perspective is jaundiced

From the looks of it you do not seem to know what the issues are?

You are confused....I am aware of the issues. Not sure why you and others have a vested interest in denial but denying the truth will not change it.

[Tropicana]

I guess was a slow news day 2 months ago when the LA Times ran this article. I guess the write who is on the faculty at the University of California and the University of Washington is just making this stuff up too.

Redefining 'black'

LOUIS CHUDE-SOKEI







ALTHOUGH NOT quite able to pass for white, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been able to pass for African American. He is biracial, but not white; black, but not African American; American but not African. What has entranced the country more than his somewhat vague policies is Obama's challenge to conventional racial and cultural categories.
Among African Americans, discussions about his racial identity typically vacillate between the ideologically charged options of "black" versus "not black enough" or between "black" and "black, but not like us."
But there is a third side to Obama — and also to the politics of racial passing in America.


The population of African immigrants in the United States is rapidly growing. Since 1990, about 50,000 Africans have come to the United States annually, more than in any of the peak years of the international slave trade, which was abolished in 1807. They add to the steady influx of black immigrants from other continents and the Caribbean, and those who have been in the United States for generations but who don't racially and culturally define themselves as African American.
These blacks feel cramped by the narrowness of American racial politics, in which "blackness" has not just defined one's skin color but has served as a code word for African American. To be heard and to be counted, these black immigrants must often pass as African American, sometimes against their will.









Obama is not the first prominent black to defy conventional American racial and cultural categories. People identified former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's Jamaican ancestry as the quality that made his blackness different. When in the mid-1990s it seemed possible that he would run for president, the pride of the Caribbean immigrant community was nearly palpable. He emboldened Caribbean immigrants to resist African American pressures to erase their own cultural and historical distinctiveness.
In such distinctions between black immigrants and African Americans lay buried a history of competitive intra-racial tensions and cultural differences that have never been resolved.


In addition to black immigrants' need to hold onto their own identities, many whites have historically tended to regard black immigrants as a model minority within a troublesome native-born black population. A good proportion of immigrants tend to be better educated than African Americans, don't have the "chip" of racial resentment on their shoulder and exhibit the classic immigrant optimism about assimilation into the mainstream culture. Many whites, however, exploit these differences to magnify the problems of African Americans while avoiding charges of racism. And because these differences often result in greater employment and more educational opportunities for immigrants and their descendants, they also feed tensions between native and immigrant blacks.
The complex history of black immigrant and African American interaction and distinction has been masked by a tendency in American politics to treat "black" and African American as interchangeable categories. It is further masked by an African American cultural politics that arrogates to itself the official word on racial matters. For black immigrants, African American culture can be as alien and as hostile as mainstream America.
Because Powell didn't run for president, the intra-racial differences and historical tensions between immigrant and native-born blacks that his candidacy might have brought to national attention remain largely unknown. "Black" effectively continued to mean African American.
But, from a black immigrant perspective, Obama's run for the presidency carries the promise of spotlighting this "category crisis" at long last. There is the possibility of a conversation in which Africans in the U.S., along with other black immigrant groups, may emerge distinctly from the all-consuming category of "black."
These issues have been present in scholarship and education for some time. Tensions between native and foreign-born blacks are rising in higher education because universities are reputedly using black immigrants, at the expense of the native-born, to diversify their student bodies. In this case, black immigrants are the primary beneficiaries of the blanket category of "black."
Add to this a shifting academic terrain in which traditional black studies are threatened by increasingly popular courses and programs that have a diaspora or Africana slant and do not put African American history or experiences center stage. It's now not uncommon to hear African American scholars and students complaining about the increasing presence of Caribbean and African blacks in black studies departments. Indeed, these kinds of tensions erupted at UC Berkeley two years ago and reflect the continuing struggle over the redefining of "black" in American life and thought.
As the numbers of black immigrants and their progeny grow to challenge the numerical supremacy of the native black minority, can a challenge to African Americans' cultural dominance, racial assumptions and politics be far behind? Especially because black immigrants generally and increasingly differ from native-born African Americans in their views on race, racism and political affiliations. They also are less responsive to American racial traumas, which helps explain why some civil rights leaders are unsure of Obama's loyalties to African American causes. Because his political "blackness" is independent of their sanction and emerges from outside their histories, it threatens their cultural and political authority.
So Obama does not transcend race, as some might dream. Instead, he represents a set of tensions that go beyond black and white. On one hand, there is America's complex and still unresolved relationship with African Americans and, on the other, an emergent black immigrant presence that is less willing to politically or socially pass for "black" and that has unresolved and unspoken issues of its own.
In Obama, we witness how one set of tensions works with and against the other. Immigrant status is deployed not against race but against the messy and unresolved tensions of domestic American racial relationships. And in this, whether he wins or loses, Obama is definitely a sign of the country's future.
LOUIS CHUDE-SOKEI, an associate professor of literature at UC Santa Cruz, is the author of "The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy and the African Diaspora."


Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-op-chude-sokei18feb18-story.html

[Tropicana]

I suppose this African write also doesn't know what he his talking about.

Globalist PerspectivePreviousNext

How African-Americans and African Immigrants Differ

The rift between African-Americans and recent African immigrants to the United States.













As an immigrant to the United States from Sierra Leone, I perceive a huge chasm between African-Americans and African immigrants in the United States. That chasm has widened over the years. It has caused deep animosity between many African-Americans and their African immigrant cousins.
The chasm has prevented African-Americans from participating in the current economic boom in Africa and it has shut many African immigrants out of opportunities for economic advancement here in the United States.
The problem stems from deep misconceptions, sometimes fueled by the U.S. media. Astonishingly, many African-Americans believe that Africans are backward and primitive. Some make crude jokes about Africans or do not acknowledge the great contribution Africa has made to the world.
For their part, many African immigrants buy into the erroneous notion that African-Americans are lazy and violent.
They do not appreciate the great sacrifice African-Americans made, through advocating for their civil rights, to lay the foundation for Africans to be able to come to the United States and live in a country where both blacks and whites have equal rights, at least in theory if not always in practice.
The different experiences of the two groups

To understand the deep division that exists between African Americans and Africans, one first has to examine the background of the two groups.
Before migrating to the United States, most Africans have typically dealt with white Americans who went to Africa as Peace Corps volunteers, missionaries, doctors or teachers. These Americans acted as mentors and guardians to the Africans and developed positive relationships with them.
When they come to the United States, it has been my experience that Africans can easily identify with white Americans because they understand each other. Before migrating to the United States, the majority of Africans have had little to no direct negative experiences with whites. They simply do not hate them.
On the other hand, most African-Americans grew up in black neighborhoods where they learned from older generations the history of slavery and the cruelty it inflicted on the black race. Furthermore, they have usually experienced firsthand and in their communities the legacies of racism that still exist in the United States.
With this background, many African-Americans are not generally predisposed to trust white Americans, and they look down on those African immigrants who express respect or admiration for white Americans.
How they react to racism and discrimination

A fundamental difference between African Americans and African immigrants is the way they react to racism and discrimination.
African Americans usually see racism as the main cause of poverty among their people. They are also quick to point out instances of perceived racism, even in circumstances where it is ambiguous, unclear or more complex than simple racial bigotry or discrimination.
A classic example is the currently large African-American population in prison. Most African-Americans feel that the only reason there are so many African Americans incarcerated is their race. They blame police discrimination and lawmakers who make laws weighted to punish blacks.
For Africans, after suffering many years in civil wars, military coups and other problems, they are happy to be in a country that offers them freedom. They are ready to integrate into the American culture without getting involved in the lingering racial conflicts. They do not typically get involved in the ongoing civil rights struggle – and that has angered many African-Americans.
How they react to adversity

Perhaps the greatest difference I have seen between African immigrants and African-Americans is how they react to adversity.
Most African immigrants to the United States came here for economic advancement. They do not have any political agenda. They are willing to take any job and do not blame the “system” when they fail in their endeavors.
Most African immigrants to the United States often live in mixed neighborhoods instead of black neighborhoods and they easily integrate. African immigrants know who they are. They are not easily offended when someone tries to put them down. They know where they come from and why they are here.
For African-Americans, there is often a tendency to blame slavery for most of the problems they face today. For instance, when African American students fail in school, some educators blame slavery and do not look for other factors.
However, the time has come for African Americans to realize that while racism still persists, the best thing they can do for their children is to teach them to take full responsibility for their actions. Fathers need to take care of their children and young women need to stay in school instead of having children.
It is only when black people, be they from Africa or America, unite to instill discipline and respect for each other that the chasm that has divided us will narrow. Then we can finally work together to remove poverty from our people both here in the United States and Africa.

http://www.theglobalist.com/african-americans-african-immigrants-differ/

[Tropicana]

Why the All-Ivy League Story Stirs Up Tensions Between African Immigrants and Black Americans





The story of the first-generation Ghanian-American student accepted by all eight Ivy league schools is wonderful, but it also stirs up the tension between black Americans and recent African immigrants–especially when you describe him as “not a typical African-American kid.” That’s been the reaction to USA Today‘s profile on Kwasi Enin, a Long Island high schooler who got into the nation’s most competitive schools through hard work and, according to IvyWise CEO Katherine Cohen, being African (and being male). At one point the piece reads:

Being a first-generation American from Ghana also helps him stand out, Cohen says. “He’s not a typical African-American kid.”

“Not a typical African-American kid” is being read as an allusion to the lazy black American stereotype. The tension comes from the fact that some African immigrants buy into that stereotype, which gets turned into “Africans don’t like black people.” {snip}
In January, Luvvie Ajayi, a Nigerian-born immigrant, tried to explain “akata,” a word some Nigerians use to refer to black Americans that translates into wild animal. (Note: A lot of Nigerians use akata to mean “ghetto” as well. My mom once told me I was dressed like an akata girl because I wanted to wear sweatpants in public.) She argued in a series of tweets, collected by Clutch, that the reason some Africans believe black Americans should be doing better is because they don’t know about the history of black Americans but see their own success as a reason blacks should excel as well. {snip}


American society holds that same view as well. A 2007 study covered by the Washington Post found that a quarter of black students admitted to elite colleges were African immigrants, though they only represented 13 percent of America’s college-age black population. The study’s authors several theories on why black immigrants do better, including “to white observers black immigrants seem more polite, less hostile, more solicitous and ‘easier to get along with.’ Native blacks are perceived in precisely the opposite fashion.”

http://www.amren.com/news/2014/04/why-the-all-ivy-league-story-stirs-up-tensions-between-african-immigrants-and-black-americans/

[Tropicana]

Shall I keep going?

There are enough articles and studies on this subject that if I posted even a fraction of them, it would bruck dung de board.

What I would like to know is why are people on here so intent on denying the obvious? If you are afraid the white folks will find out, you may as well forget it as these stories are already being covered in mainstream publications Heck it has been covered in the International Business Times (IBTimes) with editions in Australia
China
India
Italy
Japan
U.K.
U.S.

In addition, relations between Caribbean and black Americans have also been fraught with tensions and misunderstandings.“Some African-Americans do not realize that we [Caribbeans] have lived in this country since slavery and that we struggled with racism and participated in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s,” Persaud said. “In the absence of this historical perspective, some black Americans believe we are taking advantage of civil rights gains without having had made any sacrifices.”
As for the near-future, Persaud strikes a rather pessimistic note.
“I think racism and discrimination against immigrants has become even worse in recent years, in tandem with the economic recession,” she said. “Speaking out against immigration has become encouraged in some circles as we see more and more states enacting tougher and discriminatory immigration laws. Even if Obama wins the next election, despite his empathy for us, I don’t believe things well get better anytime soon.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/caribbean-americans-invisible-minority-seeking-identity-affirmation-795709

so you may as well knock it off with the pretense.

[franksterr]

Yes I can. Check out the Caribbean student's association of any of the Ivy League or Big 10 schools and see how many African Americans they include in their events. Check out the Black Student's Associations and see how many Caribbean students participate. The African students are no better.

My daughter is the member of one such organization and all events are attending by any and all nationalities and races.

How is speaking the truth making a mountain out of a mole hill? You just don't want to admit the truth.


You are confused....I am aware of the issues. Not sure why you and others have a vested interest in denial but denying the truth will not change it.

That's not the truth.....you are confusing stereotyping and scapegoating with with real issues

[Tropicana]

Really?

My daughter is the member of one such organization and all events are attending by any and all nationalities and races.

I don't buy that for one second.

A sample size of one....whoopee doo. I doubt that you have even discussed this with your daughter.

On many campuses in the USA you can't even get Black and White students to sit together in class or the cafeteria so clearly they are socializing to any great extent.

I guess the authors of this study are also confusing things. You can log in to get full access if you like but I doubt that you will. It is seems you have a vested interest in denying things. Even if I post 100 articles or studies, you will still deny that there is an issue.

Whatever floats your boat.


In case any lurkers are interested here it is:

Embracing and Resisting Ethnoracial Boundaries: Second-Generation Immigrant and African-American Students in a Multicultural University

The transformation of college campuses related to the growing presence of minority youth and the arrival of second-generation immigrants offers opportunities for exploring the formation of social and cultural boundaries and ethnoracial identities in local multicultural contexts. Absent from many discussions of the merits of multicultural college settings is specification of the interactional processes and cultural transformations that presumably lie at the heart of diversity payoffs. This project focuses on students from four minority groups, three of whom are second-generation immigrants, in a racially diverse university, combining focus groups and in-depth interviews. First, we analyze how the social mixing practices of students congeal into ethnoracial boundaries on campus. We find that two images of multiculturalism (“fragmented pluralism” and “interactive pluralism”) play out simultaneously on this campus. Second, we examine the pathways leading to more insular ethnoracial mixing and toward more heterogeneous social mixing, as well as explore the cultural meanings of these practices in student narratives. We also compare the influence of campus context, student agency, and internal and external group pressures on varying degrees of student satisfaction with their achieved social worlds.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2010.01174.x/abstract

[franksterr]

My daughter is the member of one such organization and all events are attending by any and all nationalities and races.




That's not the truth.....you are confusing stereotyping and scapegoating with with real issues

It is our mission to promote community interaction among African, African-American, and African-Caribbean students at Harvard University, as well as facilitate dialogue between our community and the general Harvard community.
http://www.harvardbsa.com/web/about

[Tropicana]

....there is a difference between mission and reality. My exec's nephew also went to Harvard do don't think you can pull the wool over my eyes about what goes on.

I guess these students are also just making things up:

.Podcast: The Complex Relationship Between Immigrant Blacks and African Americans on College Campuses

What happens when the different black groups meet on college campuses? Is there contention or cooperation?

The response of Onleilove Alstin, an African-American who recently graduated from Columbia University’s School of Social Work, echoed ideas I had encountered as a college student. “I think some underlying tensions exist,” Alstin said. “If you go on your average campus it may seem that the black students are very united and for the most part they are. But some tensions arise between the groups when people who are of African descent try to stereotype African-Americans based on what the dominant culture thinks.”
Alstin said those negative stereotypes include beliefs that African-Americans are lazy and unproductive, and do not value education. In response, immigrant blacks often try to distance themselves from these stereotypes. But Alstin points out that there’s a common struggle of being a person of African descent in a majority non-black country. Blacks in America , no matter their heritage, still face systematic racism, poverty and violence.
Professor Brown has found that over time, as immigrant black students mix with African American students on campus a new community often builds. “My students are very candid and they talk about narratives that were told to them by their parents. Well, you often hear, ‘My parents said this about African-Americans, stay away from them,’ all the pejorative stereotypes,” Brown told me. “The opportunity to socialize with native born African-Americans in a competitive environment as peers helps to mitigate and demystify many of those stereotypes.”
Aneicka Bookal, who immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica and attended university in Michigan has a different perspective. “Regardless of the minority status that African-Americans hold in this country due to years of racial, socioeconomic, and political oppression in this country, there is a completely different barrier that you have to cross as an immigrant. As a consequence, the sense of unity and community that you would feel with someone who shares your racial background is completely different,” she said.

http://fi2w.org/2011/07/07/podcast-the-complex-relationship-between-immigrant-blacks-and-african-americans-on-college-campuses/

Not sure why all these people are discussing a non-issue.

[franksterr]

Really?


I don't buy that for one second.

A sample size of one....whoopee doo. I doubt that you have even discussed this with your daughter.

On many campuses in the USA you can't even get Black and White students to sit together in class or the cafeteria so clearly they are socializing to any great extent.

I guess the authors of this study are also confusing things. You can log in to get full access if you like but I doubt that you will. It is seems you have a vested interest in denying things. Even if I post 100 articles or studies, you will still deny that there is an issue.

Whatever floats your boat.


In case any lurkers are interested here it is:

It is our mission to promote community interaction among African, African-American, and African-Caribbean students at Harvard University, as well as facilitate dialogue between our community and the general Harvard community.
http://www.harvardbsa.com/web/about

CHIDEYA: So I'm going to start with you guys both - Amara first and then Jason. Do you feel a tension between the African-American and the African or Caribbean communities, Amara?
Ms. OMEOKWE: I would say for the most part no, at Harvard. I think that black students at Harvard, regardless of origin, are generally really cooperative and really try to work with each other academically, socially, politically. I would say we're a pretty united community.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=10080307

[franksterr]

I guess was a slow news day 2 months ago when the LA Times ran this article. I guess the write who is on the faculty at the University of California and the University of Washington is just making this stuff up too.



http://www.latimes.com/news/la-op-ch...b18-story.html

You missing the larger point I do not know many black Americans who did not vote for Obama or are not proud of him.....what does that tells you???

[Tropicana]

Yup everything is peachy-keen and wonderful at Harvard now. I wonder why...

posted on March 3, 201463 Black Harvard Students Share Their Experiences In A Powerful Photo Project

The “I, Too, Am Harvard” photo campaign explores the diverse experience that black students at Harvard have to face. .

A group of black students at Harvard are fed up with the institutional racism they say they have experienced, and are speaking out against it through a commanding photography project on Tumblr.

“Our voices often go unheard on this campus, our experiences are devalued, our presence is questioned,” the website says. “This project is our way of speaking back, of claiming this campus, of standing up to say: We are here.”

I guess these black students are just imagining that there are issues.

Here are 21 of the images

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonvingia...nces-through-a


This is the article and presentation that caused a ton of tension at Harvard and this is recent

The article: http://www.thecrimson.com/column/the...mative-action/

The response and I am using the version run b Al Jazeera to show that this went worldwide:

So if you say everyting is honky-doory and students of all races are mixing without issues, then why has this hit the media all over the world?

[franksterr]

I guess was a slow news day 2 months ago when the LA Times ran this article. I guess the write who is on the faculty at the University of California and the University of Washington is just making this stuff up too.



http://www.latimes.com/news/la-op-ch...b18-story.html

ALTHOUGH NOT quite able to pass for white, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been able to pass for African American. He is biracial, but not white; black, but not African American; American but not African. What has entranced the country more than his somewhat vague policies is Obama's challenge to conventional racial and cultural categories.

Among African Americans, discussions about his racial identity typically vacillate between the ideologically charged options of "black" versus "not black enough" or between "black" and "black, but not like us."
But there is a third side to Obama — and also to the politics of racial passing in America.


The population of African immigrants in the United States is rapidly growing. Since 1990, about 50,000 Africans have come to the United States annually, more than in any of the peak years of the international slave trade, which was abolished in 1807. They add to the steady influx of black immigrants from other continents and the Caribbean, and those who have been in the United States for generations but who don't racially and culturally define themselves as African American.
These blacks feel cramped by the narrowness of American racial politics, in which "blackness" has not just defined one's skin color but has served as a code word for African American. To be heard and to be counted, these black immigrants must often pass as African American, sometimes against their will.









Obama is not the first prominent black to defy conventional American racial and cultural categories. People identified former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's Jamaican ancestry as the quality that made his blackness different. When in the mid-1990s it seemed possible that he would run for president, the pride of the Caribbean immigrant community was nearly palpable. He emboldened Caribbean immigrants to resist African American pressures to erase their own cultural and historical distinctiveness.
In such distinctions between black immigrants and African Americans lay buried a history of competitive intra-racial tensions and cultural differences that have never been resolved.


In addition to black immigrants' need to hold onto their own identities, many whites have historically tended to regard black immigrants as a model minority within a troublesome native-born black population. A good proportion of immigrants tend to be better educated than African Americans, don't have the "chip" of racial resentment on their shoulder and exhibit the classic immigrant optimism about assimilation into the mainstream culture. Many whites, however, exploit these differences to magnify the problems of African Americans while avoiding charges of racism. And because these differences often result in greater employment and more educational opportunities for immigrants and their descendants, they also feed tensions between native and immigrant blacks.
The complex history of black immigrant and African American interaction and distinction has been masked by a tendency in American politics to treat "black" and African American as interchangeable categories. It is further masked by an African American cultural politics that arrogates to itself the official word on racial matters. For black immigrants, African American culture can be as alien and as hostile as mainstream America.
Because Powell didn't run for president, the intra-racial differences and historical tensions between immigrant and native-born blacks that his candidacy might have brought to national attention remain largely unknown. "Black" effectively continued to mean African American.
But, from a black immigrant perspective, Obama's run for the presidency carries the promise of spotlighting this "category crisis" at long last. There is the possibility of a conversation in which Africans in the U.S., along with other black immigrant groups, may emerge distinctly from the all-consuming category of "black."
These issues have been present in scholarship and education for some time. Tensions between native and foreign-born blacks are rising in higher education because universities are reputedly using black immigrants, at the expense of the native-born, to diversify their student bodies. In this case, black immigrants are the primary beneficiaries of the blanket category of "black."
Add to this a shifting academic terrain in which traditional black studies are threatened by increasingly popular courses and programs that have a diaspora or Africana slant and do not put African American history or experiences center stage. It's now not uncommon to hear African American scholars and students complaining about the increasing presence of Caribbean and African blacks in black studies departments. Indeed, these kinds of tensions erupted at UC Berkeley two years ago and reflect the continuing struggle over the redefining of "black" in American life and thought.
As the numbers of black immigrants and their progeny grow to challenge the numerical supremacy of the native black minority, can a challenge to African Americans' cultural dominance, racial assumptions and politics be far behind? Especially because black immigrants generally and increasingly differ from native-born African Americans in their views on race, racism and political affiliations. They also are less responsive to American racial traumas, which helps explain why some civil rights leaders are unsure of Obama's loyalties to African American causes. Because his political "blackness" is independent of their sanction and emerges from outside their histories, it threatens their cultural and political authority.
So Obama does not transcend race, as some might dream. Instead, he represents a set of tensions that go beyond black and white. On one hand, there is America's complex and still unresolved relationship with African Americans and, on the other, an emergent black immigrant presence that is less willing to politically or socially pass for "black" and that has unresolved and unspoken issues of its own.
In Obama, we witness how one set of tensions works with and against the other. Immigrant status is deployed not against race but against the messy and unresolved tensions of domestic American racial relationships. And in this, whether he wins or loses, Obama is definitely a sign of the country's future.
LOUIS CHUDE-SOKEI, an associate professor of literature at UC Santa Cruz, is the author of "The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy and the African Diaspora."

This article does not support you contentions in any way, it only identifies differences in people with a different history and culture coming into contact........

[franksterr]

I suppose this African write also doesn't know what he his talking about.



http://www.theglobalist.com/african-...grants-differ/

As an immigrant to the United States from Sierra Leone, I perceive a huge chasm between African-Americans and African immigrants in the United States. That chasm has widened over the years. It has caused deep animosity between many African-Americans and their African immigrant cousins.
The chasm has prevented African-Americans from participating in the current economic boom in Africa and it has shut many African immigrants out of opportunities for economic advancement here in the United States.
The problem stems from deep misconceptions, sometimes fueled by the U.S. media. Astonishingly, many African-Americans believe that Africans are backward and primitive. Some make crude jokes about Africans or do not acknowledge the great contribution Africa has made to the world.
For their part, many African immigrants buy into the erroneous notion that African-Americans are lazy and violent.
They do not appreciate the great sacrifice African-Americans made, through advocating for their civil rights, to lay the foundation for Africans to be able to come to the United States and live in a country where both blacks and whites have equal rights, at least in theory if not always in practice.
The different experiences of the two groups

To understand the deep division that exists between African Americans and Africans, one first has to examine the background of the two groups.
Before migrating to the United States, most Africans have typically dealt with white Americans who went to Africa as Peace Corps volunteers, missionaries, doctors or teachers. These Americans acted as mentors and guardians to the Africans and developed positive relationships with them.
When they come to the United States, it has been my experience that Africans can easily identify with white Americans because they understand each other. Before migrating to the United States, the majority of Africans have had little to no direct negative experiences with whites. They simply do not hate them.
On the other hand, most African-Americans grew up in black neighborhoods where they learned from older generations the history of slavery and the cruelty it inflicted on the black race. Furthermore, they have usually experienced firsthand and in their communities the legacies of racism that still exist in the United States.
With this background, many African-Americans are not generally predisposed to trust white Americans, and they look down on those African immigrants who express respect or admiration for white Americans.
How they react to racism and discrimination

A fundamental difference between African Americans and African immigrants is the way they react to racism and discrimination.
African Americans usually see racism as the main cause of poverty among their people. They are also quick to point out instances of perceived racism, even in circumstances where it is ambiguous, unclear or more complex than simple racial bigotry or discrimination.
A classic example is the currently large African-American population in prison. Most African-Americans feel that the only reason there are so many African Americans incarcerated is their race. They blame police discrimination and lawmakers who make laws weighted to punish blacks.
For Africans, after suffering many years in civil wars, military coups and other problems, they are happy to be in a country that offers them freedom. They are ready to integrate into the American culture without getting involved in the lingering racial conflicts. They do not typically get involved in the ongoing civil rights struggle – and that has angered many African-Americans.
How they react to adversity

Perhaps the greatest difference I have seen between African immigrants and African-Americans is how they react to adversity.
Most African immigrants to the United States came here for economic advancement. They do not have any political agenda. They are willing to take any job and do not blame the “system” when they fail in their endeavors.
Most African immigrants to the United States often live in mixed neighborhoods instead of black neighborhoods and they easily integrate. African immigrants know who they are. They are not easily offended when someone tries to put them down. They know where they come from and why they are here.
For African-Americans, there is often a tendency to blame slavery for most of the problems they face today. For instance, when African American students fail in school, some educators blame slavery and do not look for other factors.
However, the time has come for African Americans to realize that while racism still persists, the best thing they can do for their children is to teach them to take full responsibility for their actions. Fathers need to take care of their children and young women need to stay in school instead of having children.
It is only when black people, be they from Africa or America, unite to instill discipline and respect for each other that the chasm that has divided us will narrow. Then we can finally work together to remove poverty from our people

This article actually supports what I have been saying all along.....are you reading what you are posting????