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Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4328
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 12:00 am: | 
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Professor questions racial solidarity between African American and Caribbean blacks
Asiliyah Salaam
Contributing Writer
Although both the African American and Caribbean communities are influenced by being socialized in a political culture that is highly racial, these two groups differ in ideology, according to Dr. Ron Brown, an associate professor at Wayne State University since 1993.
“Black Americans and black Caribbeans experience race differently — black Caribbeans have two identities — one from the host nation or home and an identity of living in the U.S.,” said Brown yesterday in the Faculty Administration Building during a talk titled “Is Racial Solidarity Possible Among African-Americans & Caribbean Blacks?”
“Black American experience is largely at home in the U.S,” he said.
Because of this, Brown said that African Americans perceive themselves as residents while Caribbean blacks initially perceive themselves as immigrants, and this difference impacts each group’s perception of the American experience.
Brown explained that the first generation of Caribbean people arriving in the United States differs from African Americans because they don’t have ancestors who were subjected to U.S. imposed slavery. 
 Consequently, the first generation of Caribbean blacks is less likely to accept the black narrative ideology, Brown said, because that ideology suggests that the African American experience is the definition of blackness.
As a result, some African Americans tend to feel entitled to reparations and to believe that their success in this country is hindered by racism, Brown said. He said Caribbean immigrants tend to not have negative views of white Americans and they believe that the American dream is possible, despite racism.
When viewing Black Nationalism as a mechanism to fight racism, the difference in the two communities is more pronounced among the upper class, the professor said. According to Brown, U.S.-born black political leaders are driven by the self-interest of winning elections.
Brown suggests that if Black Nationalism plays any role for these politicians, it plays a role in getting them elected to office.
On the contrary, for Caribbean-born blacks, he believes that Black Nationalism is not about being elected to office.
“It’s about improving the methods of the structure, forcing the structure to decentralize,” Brown said. “That is where the conflict is.”
“(It all boils down to) getting the elite leaders of black Americans and the elite Caribbean-born leaders to agree on what direction they want to go in,” he said.
Brown summarized his talk by saying, “The new black leadership will emerge from Caribbean-born blacks in the United States who are going to force the structure to be the way it ought to be, so that it will remind us a lot of (Marcus) Garvey, (Louis) Farrakhan, Stokely Carmichael … all Caribbean-born blacks”
Dr. Walter Edwards, director of the Humanities Center at Wayne State, stated that Brown’s study “was a very important piece of work.”
“Often people are uncomfortable about doing research that affects certain groups within the larger group of blacks and there has been certain reported tension,” Edwards said. “I think it’s overstated, often, but still important work to do.”
http://thesouthend.typepad.com/tsenews/2007/01/professor_quest.html |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4331
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 12:29 am: |
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This clash between foreign Blacks and African-American Blacks is new to me. I get along with Africans quite well (one of my good friends is an African female) so I figured the relationship between American born Blacks and other Blacks who migrate to the U.S. was solid.
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Nels
Veteran Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 766
Registered: 07-2005
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 02:47 pm: |
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IMO, most of the sub-Saharan black and descendent ethnic groups from around the world go out of their way to disassociate themselves from the so-called "African American", and the ill-conceived identity which describes this rather socially and intellectually challenged group of people, as a whole. Until the physical, social, ethnic, cultural, educational and economic distinctions within the American black community are recognized and accepted, there will continue to be a devisive dialogue between U.S. blacks and non-U.S. blacks.
Again, as interracial births continue to rise, the American black core will be diluted exponentially. The old classifications of Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid no longer apply. |
Schakspir
Veteran Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 863
Registered: 12-2005
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 03:23 pm: |
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Nels, I doubt it, because most Americans don't want to marry blacks, they see it as marrying down rather than up. On the contrary, the white stock will be diluted for exactly the reverse reasons. |
Schakspir
Veteran Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 864
Registered: 12-2005
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 03:27 pm: |
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I think Ron Brown's an asshole who's trying to create divisions where none exist. I've never heard of this strange division between Caribbeans and Afro-Americans. I call BULLSHIT!!! |
Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 361
Registered: 05-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 03:35 pm: |
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Nels wrote: Again, as interracial births continue to rise, the American black core will be diluted exponentially.
IMO, that's the core reason White America (as a group) supports a multiracial identity, whereas Black America (as a group) does not. Whites see multiracials as "new nig-gers" to step on. Blacks see multiracials as "new nig-gers" who will step on them.
This fits in with the mindset of non-American Blacks, as a group. They make it a point to distinguish themselves from U.S. Blacks so as to not be relegated to the bottom of the socio-economical/political barrel, and to have someone to step on. |
Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 362
Registered: 05-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 03:53 pm: |
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Schakspir wrote: I've never heard of this strange division between Caribbeans and Afro-Americans. I call BULLSHIT!!!
Not only have I heard of it, I've experienced it - from both sides. Both of my ex-husbands are non-American Blacks. My Black American family didn't want me marrying them because they were "foreigners." Their families didn't want them marrying me because I was a "Yankee" and an "akkatta."
When they called me "yankee" I told them I don't play no phuckin' baseball. When they called me "akkatta" I told them not if I akkat you first. So we came to an understanding... |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7125
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 04:02 pm: |
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We all do very good jobs of describing the situation in America but in the end nobody can come up with a viable strategy the would unify us into a force to stem the tide of inevitable change. And I guess it mollifies us to attribute that what comes to pass originates in a secret boardroom someplace where the ubiquitous "they" meet regularly for the sole purpose of mapping out a plan to give black folks the shaft. Po us. Black people are notoriously religious. Why do they think God burdens us with so many woes?? |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4338
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 04:44 pm: |
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Sounds a little sexist and perhaps a bit too conservative, I don't know, but Garvey, Farrakhan and Carmichael isn't all that bad for change. It’s a hell of a lot better than what we got now, if Brown’s study is right, I’m looking forward. |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1716
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 02, 2007 - 07:16 pm: |
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cynique: brown's description is actually a bad one. there are much better books, articles, etc...that explain the relationship between afr. u.s. and afr.caribbean folks. at any rate, the division is real, and quite old, but there having been a changing for years; its better to look at migration shifts, for the new migrants induce conflict between the U.S. born Afr.Caribbeans and the Africans Americans. |
Schakspir
Veteran Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 865
Registered: 12-2005
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 03, 2007 - 02:23 am: |
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Urban Scribe: Not only have I heard of it, I've experienced it - from both sides. Both of my ex-husbands are non-American Blacks. My Black American family didn't want me marrying them because they were "foreigners." Their families didn't want them marrying me because I was a "Yankee" and an "akkatta."
When they called me "yankee" I told them I don't play no phuckin' baseball. When they called me "akkatta" I told them not if I akkat you first. So we came to an understanding...
Schakspir: "akata" is a West African word(I think Yoruba or Ibo) for "cotton picker." African immigrants tend to be bigger assholes than the Caribbean ones, mainly because they weren't slaves and think they are superior because of it. I didn't have THEM in mind. |
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