Black Culture Discussion Thread

[goledensilence]

Hope this trickles down to other black celebs.

 

[sugafree]

 

[DCAllAfrican]

 

[nawghtyhare]

everybody cant be lebron
but thats cool....i guess

surprised he aint donate to a dancing school
he mad talented

 

[tokes99]

everybody cant be lebron
but thats cool....i guess

surprised he aint donate to a dancing school
he mad talented

hilarious! but not sure if serious...you know that isn’t drose tho!!

given the subject was recently discussed here some pages back, interested to see people’s take on this vid:



which is in reference to this article

???

it’s almost 30 mins, somewhat repetitive & goes off on stream of consciousness tangents, so the cliff notes are just about
the idea of reconciliation necessary for those (continental) africans that played a role in/were enriched by the slave trade in reference to the above article about a nigerian igbo family that profited from slavery. however, the bulk of it is really about stating the differences in the black diaspora, mainly concerned with the fact the black americans (as strictly defined as descendants of american chattel slavery) are the most influential/visible and are their own distinct thing separate & apart from continental africans; that others come here to “ride the wave” and take advantage of the struggle/work put in by black americans, rather than build/fight/struggle to (re)build their own homelands...

 

[sugafree]

I like her...she spot on

 

[Barbados Slim]

She makes some interesting points. Some I disagree with others opened my eyes.

 

[tokes99]

yea, i do find all her arguments compelling; even tho i don’t completely agree or necessarily think them to be true...i also appreciate her linking to/referencing that gladwell piece from ‘96...it’s a good read

curious as to which part(s) of the vid do stand out to y’all?

 

[sugafree]

yea, i do find all her arguments compelling; even tho i don’t completely agree or necessarily think them to be true...i also appreciate her linking to/referencing that gladwell piece from ‘96...it’s a good read

curious as to which part(s) of the vid do stand out to y’all?

All of it...Through personal experience growing up in DMV and LA and working with African and hispanic immigrants as a teen, but at the same time I don’t blame these very people(africans and hispanics) that naive black Americans always wanna hold hands with and fight for. We fight for equality and their main focus is survival.
So you really can’t put being an opportunist past someone wanting a better life for their family.
People get offended because some of us would rather be realists and call it how we see it.
We aren’t the same people...
We don’t share the same struggle...
We do have different agendas..

What’s division when there wasn’t any unity to begin with?

 

[MalcolmNewton]

 

[nawghtyhare]

Type of **** we need to be on
Unify instead of being divided

 

[tokes99]

All of it...Through personal experience growing up in DMV and LA and working with African and hispanic immigrants as a teen, but at the same time I don’t blame these very people(africans and hispanics) that naive black Americans always wanna hold hands with and fight for. We fight for equality and their main focus is survival.
So you really can’t put being an opportunist past someone wanting a better life for their family.
People get offended because some of us would rather be realists and call it how we see it.
We aren’t the same people...
We don’t share the same struggle...
We do have different agendas..

What’s division when there wasn’t any unity to begin with?

the profitability, popularity, reach of black american culture is undeniable, so that people have been attracted to the opportunities here or the appropriation thing would seem to kinda comes with the territory...i guess i wonder how these distinctions would really work in practice, of course people are diverse, so i get the argument that there are distinctions that necessarily should be noted just in the interest of addressing the things appropriate for the different issues that affect the all disparate folk under the tent of ‘blackness’ and while the agendas & struggles maybe aren’t the same, there would seem to be enough of an overlap that it could be beneficial to form coalitions when & where it makes sense...

we all out here trying to get to it, and rather than characterize it as equality for black americans vs. survival for black immigrants, i would say it just is that the circumstances & expectations are different; not every immigrant that comes here is under the auspices of trying to survive and some black americans aren’t really all that concerned with equality. tho i would think that the variation between expectations for each might differ greatly...

some division is to be expected given the expansiveness of blackness, however it is defined (both amongst the diaspora itself and externally by the power structures in america & abroad altho i guess that isn’t super relevant to this), the unity thing has to be mutual, and i think there has been a lot of misinformation/misunderstandings about the other on all imaginable sides of the pan-african thing...where people don’t really have that clear of an understanding of the other, which even with the free-er flow of information today still persists.

 

[nawghtyhare]

so I’m banned from the Colin Kaepernick thread for saying the animal that looks like a burglar somebody prolly reported my post

 

[hand2handking]

so I’m banned from the Colin Kaepernick thread for saying the animal that looks like a burglar somebody prolly reported my post

yea these thread bans should be on a scale

like temp bans and then perma bans

 

[gry60]

which is in reference to this article

???

I'm reading the article.

The video is ignorant. That is all I'm gonna say about it.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I guess I am one of the good foreign blacks because I am from the Caribbean.

If she made a single cogent point somewhere in the video I can't remember, all the other buffoonery she was spitting still got my ears ringing.

Minor Sidenote: It made me chuckle when she said says is not talking about West Indian immigrants, repeatedly mentioning Jamaica, then says she got an issue with foreign-born black people writing about music in America, but then she list DJ Akademiks.

 

[gry60]

I guess I am one of the good foreign blacks because I am from the Caribbean.

If she made a cogent point somewhere in the video I can't remember, all the other buffoonery she was spitting still got my ears ringing.

Minor Sidenote: It made me chuckle when she said says is not talking about West Indian immigrants, repeatedly mention Jamaica, then says she got an issue with foreign-born black people writing about music in America, then she list DJ Akademiks.

I didn't go past the 8 min mark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_music

I mean, we are really talking about cultural appropriation within the Black diaspora. Really!

You show your ignorance of black music if you can't realize that music genres across the Black diaspora are essentially very close cousins.

Kinda like Southern families.

 

[para bellum]

Hope this trickles down to other black celebs.

Surprised I didn't see more mention of Jay; the MJ mentions are understandable, obviously.

 

[gry60]

To go back to the article:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-great-grandfather-the-nigerian-slave-trader

https://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php

The topic of the slave trade as discussed in African classrooms is essentially a matter of "blame the white man." Very little is said of the African kings and chiefs who became wealthy through slavery, and the minority that acknowledges that (hard to escape the sight of slave buildings of Goree Island for example) chalks it up to "practices of the past" (while conveniently ignoring the inhumane practices around the production and harvest of cocoa).

With that said, I'm disappointed that the author of the article didn't realize how her uncle's reaction was similar to (and even more blunt than) the average White American/British/Spanish/Portuguese when it came to appreciating the impact of her ancestor on the current state of the black diaspora: "why should I feel guilty about it when he made us important and rich?" The lack of self-awareness is even more obvious when you realize that he organized a prayer session to ask for forgiveness without involving the descendants of their ancestor's slaves.

Personally, I support the idea of reparations for the descendants of slavery, and I would like to see the African Union address the issue. At the very least, countries in West and Central Africa should allow members of the diaspora who can trace their lineage back to those slave ships the ability to return if they choose to.

 

[tomdiginson]

I guess I am one of the good foreign blacks because I am from the Caribbean.

If she made a single cogent point somewhere in the video I can't remember, all the other buffoonery she was spitting still got my ears ringing.

Minor Sidenote: It made me chuckle when she said says is not talking about West Indian immigrants, repeatedly mentioning Jamaica, then says she got an issue with foreign-born black people writing about music in America, but then she list DJ Akademiks.

This. She's just another "woke" idiot And the fact that there are fools really pushing this dumb ****. The fact that they think that they are sole definition of black culture and preaching this separation in America is outride stupid and the fact that they are pushing this out in the public for all to hear is ignorant and irresponsible. This is just music to racist's ears. Idiot is saying that because your descendant of slaves, you're strong as ****, but apparently, fighters like Nat Turner, John Brown, Gaspar Yanga etc are all weak because they died trying to fight for their freedom. Do you realize that there were mass migrations of slaves from Africa and the Caribbean and they ended up blending into the system and have had a hand in the forming of black society as you see fit here as well as have had a hand in fighting for civil rights in this country as well as in other places? This was not strictly an African American effort. Even some of the black heroes of the civil rights movement (In the states) are of another nation or their parents are of another nation. They came here and did not like what they saw and helped participate in their being a change. Let me guess, Gil Scott Heron should have stuck to football and Jamaican **** cause his father is Jamaican? The revolution shouldn't have been televised because he is a descendant of black from another nation and culture ? Were his contributions worthless? She sounds like she's been in the same city for her entire life and knows nothing else. She's screaming swagless and she looks like the definition of swagless.

 

[sugafree]

**** weak *** reparations at this point...we are survivors.

Nothing was ever given to Black Americans and nothing in America was ever free..

 

[tokes99]

I didn't go past the 8 min mark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_music

I mean, we are really talking about cultural appropriation within the Black diaspora. Really!

You show your ignorance of black music if you can't realize that music genres across the Black diaspora are essentially very close cousins.

Kinda like Southern families.

hilarious! seriously tho, even considering that there is some relationship across the black diaspora wherein claiming or trying to discern og status is maybe somewhat pointless, but if cultural appropriation is really a legit concern why wouldn’t it be a concern coming from people who, however distantly/tangentially connected, aren’t of the culture they are borrowing? what is the difference or why should they get a pass when they are responding to similarly superficial motivations?

Personally, I support the idea of reparations for the descendants of slavery, and I would like to see the African Union address the issue. At the very least, countries in West and Central Africa should allow members of the diaspora who can trace their lineage back to those slave ships the ability to return if they choose to.

what, if any, credence do you lend to the argument that africans in the position to deal other africans into bondage to europeans were unaware of the magnitude & scope of how slavery over the atlantic was different? which is what i remember being taught as a part of my american classroom slavery rationale...reparations of that sort definitely could be beneficial in achieving some things (didn’t liberia start off doing something like this?), like some modicum of atonement for & responsibility in the slave trade (which perhaps could be a model for such things going forward), help in attracting talent to countries that might not be obvious choices, and just give people of the diaspora more options to emigrate to...although i imagine the native citizenry of those countries would feel a way about the advantages that would give to those newly arrived expats, so that would have to be managed

This. She's just another "woke" idiot And the fact that there are fools really pushing this dumb ****. The fact that they think that they are sole definition of black culture...

i don’t think her point was that black americans are the sole definition of black culture, at least i didn’t take it that way; moreso just that black american culture is its own thing, that its origins are rooted in & of or even tied to other culture(s) is somewhat academic to that fact. i can also understand the frustration of how (on a surface level anyway) easy it is for other black peoples to assimilate into black american culture but the reverse is not generally true. obviously the influence & imminence black american culture has is an altogether different thing and flip side of that position is that it is easier to access because it is just more visible; having just come back from my first trip over to nigeria, this really stuck out to me how easily conversant people were about aspects (black) american culture. while not always deeply or ‘correctly,” it vastly trumped the little knowledge i had of theirs, even having much more access to/awareness of some nigerian culture than an average american...

while i don’t really agree with her perspective, there are parts that do make sense to me...i don’t think her an idiot and anecdotally, i feel like her viewpoint is probably closer to the mainstream opinion of black americans than an outlier; if perhaps not stated/worded with the same venom/vitriol...

 

[d nice]

A 28 minute video.... Son....

These diaspora wars on the internet and social media is the most played out **** I've ever seen B. People really need to pick up a book (Or watch a documentary or two) and kill the ignorance on both sides. Now let me watch this ****.

 

[gry60]

hilarious! seriously tho, even considering that there is some relationship across the black diaspora wherein claiming or trying to discern og status is maybe somewhat pointless, but if cultural appropriation is really a legit concern why wouldn’t it be a concern coming from people who, however distantly/tangentially connected, aren’t of the culture they are borrowing? what is the difference or why should they get a pass when they are responding to similarly superficial motivations?

Here is how I understand cultural appropriation:

Ali Farka Toure claiming that the Blues is just African music: cultural appropriation (denying the contributions of all those Americans who helped develop the genre).

Wale, Nipsey Hussle, Busta Rhymes, IAM rapping: not cultural appropriation.

The way cultural appropriation is discussed these days makes me think that some Black people are willing to watch their culture die for the sake of purity. Because that is exactly what happens when a culture doesn't evolve with the times. When it refuses to adapt to the geographical and demographic environment in which it finds itself, a culture has no other end than irrelevance and death. That is the cost of purity.

what, if any, credence do you lend to the argument that africans in the position to deal other africans into bondage to europeans were unaware of the magnitude & scope of how slavery over the atlantic was different?

I think it depends on how kingdoms internally approached slavery.

https://www.quora.com/How-aware-were-Africans-of-slavery-in-the-Americas

Interesting read on the legacy of slavery in Benin:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...34f5aa-ff9a-11e7-86b9-8908743c79dd_story.html

 

[sugafree]

Crazy the sista speakin cold truth and got grown *** men in their feelings now trying to twist her words and nit pick.

She wasn’t preaching dvision she was simply providing awareness...

Maybe its a blunt honest truth that through actual experience some folks just would rather be straight forward about.

I don’t see why some folks just can’t respect where others stand?

Even within black american culture we have different groups and different agendas.

We are not one group mentally nor spiritually and never will be.
Stand where you stand and let her stand where she stands.

Its crazy yall” kum bah yah we all in the same skin” pacifists get all offended when a stand up sista points out cancerous bad apples on the tree and isn’t afraid of spring cleaning.

That young sista ready to take a stand against all..
Don’t get mad because unfortunately her stance isn’t just non blacks. It is what it is..

Either way the young beautiful sista and her ideologies need to be protected.

Growing up black in AmeriKKKa is gladiator academy... we are a different breed mentally and spiritually.
Africa and the Carrribean blacks have their own internal issues and we have ours...

Shes a voice for us...and quite frankly who gives a damn what others have to say.

Shout out to them Haitians...back against the wall at all costs! They brutally honest and 100 with their stance in this country gotta respect it!