MrBlak said:
I'm gonna speak my peice and leave.
This is ALL immigrant groups regardless of race. They fear losing their ID and dont want their kids to asimilate into the closest group to who they are.
Immigrant parents and all parents do this thing where they have certain groups they dont want their kids to mix with. It is sad but true and African Americans are no different.
Lastly....I know your mama told you this before....it takes 2 to fight and you know there is an equal if not larger nuber of american blacks with ignorant attitudes towards africans as there are africans with those attitudes towards yall. To act innocent and all hurt is ridiculous...this battle has been fought for a long time and for any of the sides (more than 2 if you didnt know) to act like anything said to or about them is an attack on the innocent is ridiculous.
More important than acting surprized at the same old same old, is to find a solution. Anyone got any??
Mr. Blak, my parents NEVER told me not to mix with African Caribbean children, they never told me not to mix with Latino children, they never told me not to mix with White Children, or any other kind of children... They never told me they didn't want West Indians darkening their doorsteps based on their West Indianess, and one of the reasons among many that this did not happen was because my parents came out of a society in which they were constantly told they could not mix with any but their own kind, and drink from water fountains with their own kind's label on it... They found that very repulsive, and a continuation of the same kind of garbage they were subjected to in their hometowns...
But on a more practical level, these immigrants always wound up in the neighborhoods where African Americans lived, and attended the schools and churches in the neighborhoods where African Americans lived... They played ball in the neighborhoods where African Americans lived, and hung out in the clubs where African Americans lived... In short, there was, and is, a greater integration of these immigrants with African Americans than either they, or White America wants, apparently... So, Mr. Blak, don't get it twisted, my brother... Having grown up in New York City, I know this article is only presenting the tip of the iceberg, and I done seen it all, man... No, Black Man, I am not surprised by what I read in that article, because as a child growing up, I remember a Trinidadian family who lived in my building, and who's son was my friend, sending me home when they set the dinner table(LOL!) It was not that way in my household... My mama let me starve while she fed my friends, sun...(LOL!)
You are right, the clashes of cultures are inevitable, and children, thank God, mostly stay above this garbage foisted upon them by their dumb-assed parents... The second generation always does the exact opposite of what their dumb parents advocate, and that's why we, now, live in a world where HipHop pervades - because second-generation West Indians, like Grand Master Flash, Chubb Rock, Afrika Bambaataa, Doug E. Fresh, and a zillion other brothers and sisters(MC Lyte and Foxy Brown)heard the call of their parents cultures, but also the larger African American community... It's all good, Mr. Blak(smile!)
By the same token, brother, I know that as you are telling African Americans NOT to be hurt, you are hurt by the very same things - because you care... Surely, there are some African Americans who are hurt, and some who take these things to heart more than others, but it is because they care, just as you do... Me, I am laughing at some of what I read in that article, because I know that the children of that African immigrant are African Americans whether that African parent understands that or not... Once you move away from the South, from the Caribbean, from Africa, into the Northern and Western Cities of North America, your children will fit into the environment into which they are born, as surely as those parents fit into the environment in which they were born... I know, Mr. Blak, as the child of Black Southerners, that this is what happens, my brother... Sure, I borrowed much from my parents, but I aint my parents, I am me, a Black Northerner, and Black New Yorker - period... HUMAN NATURE, Mr. BlaK - makes me wanna howl with laughter at the silliness of it all...(LOL!)
So, don't be jumpin' on your brothers and sisters, Mr. Blak... We're just human, and yeah, we are guilty of being some prejudiced mofo's, man... No doubt!!! I've heard African Americans express some of most ignorant racist, Black Supremacist nonsense, but what do you expect??? We have learned our lessons well, from the greatest Racists and White Supremacists the world has ever known... Be patient, God is not Through with us yet(LOL!)
Peace!
Isaiah