'Are You, Like, African-AMERICAN Or AFRICAN-American?'
16 replies, posted
[URL="http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/08/09/338974310/are-you-like-african-american-or-african-american"]NPR LINK[/URL]
[quote=NPR]Ramsey said that as a black American, the president's different approach to the young African luminaries made him "a little jealous." Weren't the young men from Morehouse poised to do extraordinary things for their communities, too?
This bifurcation, Ramsey argued, illustrated the difference in how folks see and treat native-born blacks and how they perceive and interact with blacks from elsewhere. One often-cited data point is this: While first- and second-generation black immigrants compose a tiny percentage of the American black population, they're overrepresented at top universities and annals of commerce. So, the thinking goes, blacks who aren't "from here" are harder-working and less entitled than American-born black folks.
Ramsey pointed to research done by the political scientist Christina M. Greer that showed how widespread this native-black/immigrant-black schema seems to be.
[quote=Greer]"In a survey of Black New York City public service workers, she found Africans were deemed the most industrious of all Blacks. Afro-Caribbeans were ranked nearly as favorably. Black Americans, however, were perceived to be the least hard-working — even by native-born Blacks.
"Greer explained her book's findings by saying, 'There are whites and elites and people in power who do see a distinction. They may not necessarily understand the distinction but they are seeing Caribbeans as immigrants, who may necessarily work harder, or Africans as immigrants who have greater aspirations than this — quote, unquote — last-place category of Black Americans. Essentially, I argue it's no longer whites versus non-whites but this category of Blacks versus non-Blacks.' "[/quote]
In the United States, black folks index at or near the bottom of a whole lot of metrics for outcomes, and there's a whole lot of ugly history piled on top of that. But outside of our context here in the States, things get a little tricky.
A few months back on an episode of the very dope Call Your Girlfriend podcast, Aminatou Sow, whose family is from Guinea and who was educated in France, was telling her good friend Ann Friedman that in Europe, the hierarchy of social cachet for black groups seemed to be inverted.
[quote=Sow]Aminatou: My family is not super-psyched that I live here [in the United States]. They're like, "when are you coming home?" — "home" being Europe writ large. They just don't understand that I can't handle it anymore. ... In Paris, people say awful things on the streets to me, still. Like, hello, it's the 21st century.
Ann: Too real to ask what?
Aminatou: ... So in Brussels where my family lives, for example, getting on the bus in my neighborhood that is predominantly Dutch is a big hassle. If I'm the only person on the bus, I would say eight of 10 times the bus doesn't stop. And that's this really complicated thing, right? That's because I present as an African person if I speak French. If I speak English, they assume that I'm American — and French-speaking people, at least, are obsessed with African-Americans. It's so weird. You are like this evolved kind of black person as opposed to an African person. I would say that a little bit is true — of the reverse — here [in the United States].[/quote]
In a New Yorker essay from 1996, Malcolm Gladwell — born in Canada, of Caribbean descent, and now an American — considered how Caribbean immigrants in New York were considered in their new city. He noted a large body of research that found an elaborate schema for determining which blacks were more likely to be hard workers, and that schema was shaped by country of origin.
[quote=New Yorker]"The Harvard sociologist Mary C. Waters conducted a similar study, in 1993, which looked at a food-service company in Manhattan where West Indian workers have steadily displaced African-Americans in the past few years. The transcripts of her interviews with the company managers make fascinating reading, providing an intimate view of the perceptions that govern the urban workplace. Listen to one forty-year-old white male manager on the subject of West Indians:
" 'They tend more to shy away from doing all of the illegal things because they have such strict rules down in their countries and jails. And they're nothing like here. So like, they're like really paranoid to do something wrong. They seem to be very, very self-conscious of it. No matter what they have to do, if they have to try and work three jobs, they do. They won't go into drugs or anything like that.'
"Or listen to this, from a fifty-three-year-old white female manager:
" 'I work closely with this one girl who's from Trinidad. And she told me when she first came here to live with her sister and cousin, she had two children. And she said I'm here four years and we've reached our goals. And what was your goal? For her two children to each have their own bedroom. Now she has a three bedroom apartment and she said that's one of the goals she was shooting for .... If that was an American, they would say, I reached my goal. I bought a Cadillac.' "[/quote][/quote]
TL;DR for lazy fucks;
The article in question goes over how even among the African American community there's a split as those who've immigrated into the United States are seen as harder working and more legitimate than the native African Americans. It also touches on the European viewpoint of how well Africans are treated and near the end it goes into detail that Canada acts the opposite of United States where immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa are seen as shifty.
[QUOTE=Swilly;45642333]
The article in question goes over how even among the African American community there's a split as those who've immigrated into the United States are seen as harder working and more legitimate than the native African Americans.[/QUOTE]
Because infighting for completely asinine reasons is what an oppressed minority really needs.
Well I know one reason that we have so many doctors from Africa (and places like India, for that matter) is because hospitals actually have quotas they have to meet for hiring a certain number of them.
In fact, many places require that members of specific minorities, foreign or not, are hired.
Are you a Mexican or a Mexican't?
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;45642405]Because infighting for completely asinine reasons is what an oppressed minority really needs.[/QUOTE]
That's kinda it though. They don't consider themselves a part of the minority. They consider themselves a different minority. A minority with a significantly different culture.
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;45642405]Because infighting for completely asinine reasons is what an oppressed minority really needs.[/QUOTE]
Pretending like it doesn't exist won't make it go away
Im british
[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;45643615]Are you, like, English-BRITISH or ENGLISH-British?[/QUOTE]
English-British-European-HUMAN
[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;45643615]Are you, like, English-BRITISH or ENGLISH-British?[/QUOTE]
He's only partly because he's Brit - "ish"
African and American
This article is stupid. First of all, anyone with half a brain knows that genetic race has absolutely ZERO determination on intelligence and drive to succeed. It all comes down to culture, education, and opprotunity.
Quote unquote "native" blacks are an entirely different culture than africian born blacks. The only comparison is how they might be treated similarly, but that has nothing to do with who they are as people.
This article is racist in that it assumes all minorities are the same based on skin color and not heritage or culture or education.
Wish they would both just say, "American" and nothing else hyphenated to it.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45645214]Wish they would both just say, "American" and nothing else hyphenated to it.[/QUOTE]
When most people say "African-American" they really mean anyone with dark skin, including people from non-African nations. Rarely do I see people use it as an actual description of people who's families came from Africa.
