alright...a good response and didn't have to curse or anything...thank you.
you said a lot to unpack so i'll take it point by point for clarity.
to deny or ignore that you came from somewhere when its not only clear but common sense is being willfully myopic. The story of Black Americans should be they came from countries in West Africa thru the Atlantic Slave trade.
Were stripped of their identities and given a color designation. And while that is told to some degree...white America largely downplays it and black people downplay it too...That's why AFRICAN American is more accurate to our identity. It speaks more precisely to who we are. The general term African points to that. Black does as well but its a color with no history attached... which is its purpose. At least African gives you an idea of something regarding a real place in the world whether you know the specifics or not.
that's the issue for me. that's what's happening in this thread. That's what Camron and Smokey did in their statements. they refuse to acknowledge their African roots by saying that African American is wrong or at the very least inaccurate as an identifier. And even if they're saying its just for them the near indignation they show at being called African American is pretty much like trans people being angry when someone misgenders them. Its akin to "my pronouns are..."
‘African-American’ is an insult. I don’t subscribe to that title,” continued Freeman. “Black people have had different titles all the way back to the n-word and I do not know how these things get such a grip, but everyone uses ‘African-American.’ What does it really mean?”
As much as I admire and am a fan of Freeman...he clearly has no understanding of why
African-American is the most accurate identity for the us.
It speaks to the loss of our proper identity. (for the record I don't have a problem with Black American but African American is more accurate)
As far as the Jewish example...yes there different sects Ashkenazim, Sephardic Jews, Bukharan Jews, Haredim, Mizrahi Jews etc and they all have specific cultures to them. And do you know what YOU call them... JEWS. generic and generalized.
I take pride in the fact that our people came here from west Africa, a place that has many cultures and religions and languages just like everyone else who came here.
And I understand that most people in America are mixed.. .hell all African Americans have at least a quarter of European dna in their background but most don't claim it because it doesn't show it in their features.
Someone posted there's a difference between nationality and race but in AMERICAN society and western CULTURE those things are intertwined. Europeans created the concept of race then promoted it world wide backed up by violence. And its such an enduring thing that if you say
Africans ARE NOT BLACK (and they aren't) you'll be met with crazy looks...even by Africans (I have from people on this board and twitter and in RT) And I've explained numerous times on this board why that IS.
People in Sub-Saharan Africa aren't black. They are Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Kikuyu etc... Those are specific ethnic groups. It's not that they aren't just black... they aren't black at all. Africans aren't black as black and white are race terms and European concepts that's a purely social construct. It has socio-political value in western culture. And really doesn't apply to Africans in the way it applies to the American descendants of the enslaved Africans.
At one time people called Asians Orientals but its not done today because not only is it offensive its inaccurate. I contend that calling Africans black is inaccurate as well. And African American is more accurate than Black too.
I don't think Africa is a "magical" place at all. To the contrary...NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT THE WEST AFRICAN COUNTRIES those enslaved people came from. Except to point out how complicit those countries were in the Atlantic slave trade or how poor, backward and third world they are. So I have no magical illusions about that part of the world...Thats what America taught us.
Either by outright saying so or by just omitting any info on it in school. Sometimes its not just what your told... its what you're NOT told as well that shapes how you think of things.
The greatest structures and started civilization.... thats how Egypt and the countries around the Mesopotamia are described... that's on the OTHER side of Africa.
And because Africans Americans lost our connection to our heritage, language religion etc its why you see us searching for ANYTHING to connect to and feel positive about ourselves whether that's Asiatic, Moorish, Egypt or redefining a skin color designation whose original purpose was for oppression and subjugation.
You said I'm focusing too much on negative experiences and history...
When all your taught in a racist system is that you come from nothing and produce nothing...you start looking for yourself in everything. Hence Hebrew Israelites and Moors and Egypt and pretty much anything that exhibits thick lips and dark complexion.
The vast majority of the Black experience in American history has been negative.
When white America talks about freedom and liberty they talk about fighting against THEM... and THEY are always some foreign entity trying to destroy the US. And America loves to recount how we defeated THEM! The British, The French, The Indians, The Mexicans, The Germans, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and now Muslims...its always THEM...OVER THERE We LOVE talking about and recreating it and studying it in school.
But that's not Black People's story in America. When Black Americans talk about fighting for liberty and freedom the THEM that had to be defeated was...
WHITE AMERICANS! That's what the Civil War was...its what Juneteenth means...that's what Lift Every Voice means. that's why there's such a push to sanitize the history books and suppress the song.
It's why in movies Black people can't be
JUST THE HERO in any story you want to tell that includes American history.
For example, we all agree that Nazis are the perfect villains. Nazis make storytelling simple...Nazis BAD... Americans GOOD. You don't need nuance for that..its understood. So when you tell the story of white Americans fighting Nazis its EASY! They go over to Europe...they beat Nazi ass...they either make the noble sacrifice (Saving Private Ryan) or they get the girl and fall in love (many WW2 war movies)...THE END. See...that white American man was
just the hero...he had no further conflicts or issues beyond that and watching that kind of movie, all you have to do is just have sit back and enjoy the adventure and action.
White people get...
HE FOUGHT FOR HIS COUNTRY!
Not so simple for Black men or POC in WW2 movies. We don't get to be JUST the hero. We get....
HE HAD TO FIGHT HIS COUNTRY IN ORDER TO FIGHT FOR HIS COUNTRY! A Black American fighting Nazis means...he gets treated like shit by White Americans at boot camp. He goes to Europe and gets treated like shit by whites Americans and Europeans. He kicks Nazi ass. He doesn't get the girl and if you want to end with an epilogue then he comes home only to get treated like shit by white Americans again... in the country he just fought for. That really happened.
That's the story of black soldiers in America....from the time of the colonies in 1600s all the way up to about 1988 (the first Gulf War) where black soldiers weren't openly fucked over by the military and their own country. America is 246 years old and only in the last 30 years or so can black soldiers be JUST THE HERO like white ones and you're telling me to accent the positive and eliminate the negative.
Black means African and white means European but those designations were applied by Europeans for the specific purpose of justifying how they were going to treat people. Those terms were designed for the othering of a group to justify slavery, colonialism etc. And all of the hatred, disparities and issues we're dealing with TO THIS DAY goes back directly to the ORIGINAL purpose of those terms in
race science.
You can't take issue with RACIAL INJUSTICE in America without looking at the concept of RACE and how it was INVENTED and how its supposed to function. Racial injustice isn't indicative of a broken system.... its how the system is suppose to work. And that system is STILL working today. And it starts with black and white.
If you take the negativity out of it and dismiss the fact that race is not biological but an arbitrary social construct designed to oppress people then you are actually letting the people who created and perpetuated that shit off the hook!
We can try to REPURPOSE those terms to make us FEEL better about ourselves but we STILL need to deal with the ORIGINAL root of the cause of all these issues...where they come from and how deeply ingrained it is in the CULTURE of our society. (something CRT tries to do that cacs are afraid of).
I'm not being divisive... I'm trying to get to the heart of how people come to the conclusions and perspective they have and see how it matches up with history and reality and so far what I've gotten is feelings and beliefs not facts and history.
