Not like “I went to school with one” but have had an actual friendship?
I’ve had a couple of conversations recently where people have confidently said things about the Black community that are ridiculously incorrect. The kind of shit where you can tell they grew up in a very white community and learned about Black history as a college freshman.
Disclaimer: I am white, but I grew up in a Black neighborhood. I was one of 3 white kids in my elementary school lol, including my brother.
I did go to school with one but he was a decent friend and we carried on in classes together. He came from Ghana, and I can’t remember the specifics of his moving (it’s been over 15 years) but he was originally born in Ghana. He was pretty smart, but I think he struggled a bit with “integrating” to the high school, as he’d let himself be the butt of jokes at times. He’d tell stories about growing up in Ghana and exaggerate or make up details that would carry on into ongoing phrases we’d repeat like inside jokes. Particularly, he said he would ride a bull to school, which turned into a sing-song phrase “ridin’ bulls”. He was a good time.
The state isn’t exactly known for its spectacular past (we were a Union state though), and I think there was some fear with other students. He was in the International Baccalaureate program with me, so he was sorta insulated from the classic “dumb” racists, but you still have to traverse the hallways and life exists outside of school. Didn’t keep up after graduation though.
My cousins are half black so my uncle is this HUGELY intimidating black dude lol and my best friend is half Nigerian
I live in Canada. In Canada we just call them “people” or “Canadians”.
I’ve met, worked, and work with African Americans in the US.
I’ve heard lots of racist whites call black people “Canadians” when they want to speak in code. e.g., “lots of Canadians here tonight.” You know what word they’re using behind closed doors.
Assholes are going to asshole.
I have had close friendships with two black people. One was originally from Usa (which probably qualified him as African American for your question), the other was originally fom Nigeria, but was a German citizen.
I live in Germany btw. where nearly everybody has white skin color.
Right, I know we have a lot of international users here on lemmy, so I wanted to specify Black Americans, the descendents of slaves. For instance, one of my friends and coworkers is a very dark skinned Tunisian, but that’s a very different culture than the one I was asking about.
No, I am only German, not international.
Do you exist in a nation?
*whoosh*
oh wow, it’s been like a decade since I saw someone do a “*whoosh*”
Did you just praise yourself for doing a thing you hadn’t seen in a long time?
Based move on their part, even if I do not agree on the ‘whoosh’, hahahah
Yes, I exist.
Then you are international.
Whether you intend it or not, this comes across like you think “America is the default, everyone else is international”.
USA is also a nation, following your logic, Americans are also internationals. Everyone is international, the word no longer has meaning.
Americans are also internationals
Correct.
the word no longer has meaning
Incorrect.
intranational. Easy mistake.
Grew up in a community that was whiter than yours was black.
4th grade was exciting: we had a new, native American student in my class! Everyone else was white. There were two adopted kids in my neighborhood that were brownish, raised quite white (islander and South American). The only black people in the city played for the university football team.
Moved away from there, did most of my work in music. Many black, Hispanic & Asian coworkers, some friends.
I'm back in my birth city now. Black & Hispanic people are now established portions of the population of the city.What you describe is world wide problem.
We don’t have much black people here (it is more curiosity than “the shit” you refer to) but there are some other groups like Roma people and recently Ukrainians, that gets to be the political punch bag.
And yes I know some people from these groups. I am pretty open minded and I see homelessness, excluded communities and stuff like that mostly as social or information problem.
Open mindedness is the key though. I don’t know, and have never known, any Japanese people more than a passing acquaintance. But I don’t go around confidently discussing aspects of Japanese culture. When I talk about Japan, I’ll say stuff like “I’ve heard” or “my impression is”.
I’ve seen bad takes from you before but Jesus christ the comments ITT tops them all
K
I’ve had a couple of conversations recently where people have confidently said things about the Black community that are ridiculously incorrect
Do tell.
I grew up in a country where there was no black people at all when I was born. It wasn’t till much later that black people could be seen about in larger cities as students or tourists, usually a bit of a tourist attraction themselves.
Whenever I went to the west my parents always asked if I saw any {hard r n-word}s about. I don’t think they even knew it was offensive.
I try my best as a progressive to be anti-racist, but I have no clue about black people honestly or what problems if any they face in the UK apart from discrimination by the police and home office, as people they seem alien and strange, and in London all PoC in general I saw seemed to have no interest in interacting outside of strictly religious/ethnic/national lines and i don’t mind that, though it did make uni cliques seem more like ethnostates.
It is very difficult to be anti-racist if you fundamentally don’t understand the struggles of the oppressed. Sometimes you can do more harm than good, despite your best intentions, simply because you have no knowledge of the issues.
The Ibram X. Kendi quote that spawned the idea (among white people) of anti-racism was a good one:
The opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘anti-racist.’
But as a Black man, he inevitably approached the subject from a bone-deep understanding of racism almost from birth. I think he failed to consider people who were so far removed from the struggles of Black people that they legitimately had no understanding of the issue.
I think that if you are ignorant of the issues, or have a surface-level understanding (the white college kids I mentioned in the OP), it is sometimes best to simply be nonracist rather than anti-racist…or perhaps better to be anti-racist in the sense of “I oppose the concept of racism”. But this idea of “I must take action!!!” is…not terribly helpful if you have no idea what you’re doing. It’s like going to a poverty stricken neighborhood planning to build houses for the homeless, but you have no experience in carpentry or plumbing or roofing or anything. Your heart is in the right place, but please. Slow down. Take your cues from those who have lived through it.
or perhaps better to be anti-racist in the sense of “I oppose the concept of racism”.
True. To me it is this, and opposition to systemic structures that actively enable it, which often intersect with the same systems that enable other forms of oppression.
I firmly consider myself an ally. I do not know best, and I cannot really take action as I would not know what to do. I fully agree on that 👍
No, i don’t live in america
I live in a city immediately adjacent to one of the statistically blackest cities in America. I went to school in said black city for most of my childhood. I work in that city and have lots of black coworkers that I get along with just fine. My take? They’re just people like any other. Some of them are assholes. Some of them beat their wives. Some of them are total nerds. Some of them are the kind and intelligent. Some aren’t. Just like every other skin color. Black people are just people.
And yeah, people assume a lot of shit about them as a group and make idiotic blanket statements. I have some of my own preconceived notions in my head, and when they pop up in my head I remind myself how dumb it is to carry those.
I live in a city immediately adjacent to one of the statistically blackest cities in America.
Isn’t it terrible that my immediate reaction to this sentence was, “oh so you probably live in an extremely white area”?
I have some of my own preconceived notions in my head, and when they pop up in my head I remind myself how dumb it is to carry those.
That’s kind of what I’m getting at. It’s a constant thing that the human mind tends towards, and the best defense (imo) is personal experience. I always remember the gangbanger 19yo I knew, last I heard he was going to trial for an armed robbery, real “thug” type but he once confessed to me that he loved listening to pop music like Gotye and Katy Perry, but had to put on a real mean face when he was wearing his earbuds so his friends would think he was listening to rap. He wanted to open a barbershop and was teaching his little brother how to ride a bike.
You’re right, people are people. And they’re complex. Groups of people (race, culture, religion) are just complex groups of complex people.
I just wish people with no experience in a culture would take a step back and be a little less trusting of what they hear 3rd hand.
Do you actually know any African Americans? I mean, surely they’re just Americans?
Are you like a Eurasian Steppes American or something? 😂
It’s ok, one day you’ll grow up and realize how cringe it is to pretend to not understand something just so you can do a “well ACKSHUALLY”
I’m near pension age, doughboy. Why can you not just forget about calling them African just because they’re black? I’d be fuming
been living with a black woman for many years
I know a couple of black people, but none of them is African-American.
I know a couple. One was from Kenya, the other Sudan. I know a dozen or so Black Americans, several of which I have heard out right laugh at “African-American.”
Part of the problem is that the link to Africa was severed when their ancestors came here as slaves. Acknowledging that is pretty vital…
Yeah, I generally refer to the descendants of American slaves as Black (with a capital B) but I wanted my post title to be more recognizable to non-American audiences.
Same. My cousins are half black. I always like seeing them. But they don’t really have any connection to Africa beyond their blood (which if you think about it we all do), and we live in Canada, not America. Their dad is from Barbados.
I was born in the US, in Mississippi, but moved to Boston, Massachusetts, as a young adult. A significant portion of my friends were black as a child, and then I fell in with an international community of Haitian-, Nigerian-, and Latin-Americans when I moved to South Boston.
As with anywhere, most people are nice if you express interest in them and their cultures. There will be preconceived notions for some people towards you, and it’s important to understand that most stigmas stem from an absence of interaction. It can be surprisingly easy to break those barriers if you just make any sort of effort. It can be hard, but it’s so worth it. The kindest people I have met have been from these communities, mostly I think because they’ve worked so hard to build a better life for themselves and their families and friends.
Few things are as rewarding as being accepted into different communities. You learn and experience so much that you wouldn’t otherwise. My favorite experiences have been meeting the families of friends, being invited to cookouts with traditional foods and drink you have never had, and having an incredibly reliable community to lean on in times of hardship - we all help each other because we’re all in the rat race together. All it takes is some humility and a willingness to learn.
I had maybe one that would actually fit your specific terms (though he preferred <adjective> Black Billy with the adjective usually being big or sexy). One of my good friends living in Texas was black, but he’d call himself a Black American or Cuban American rather than African American. In Japan, my black friends were (I moved to the middle of nowhere recently and don’t use social media, so friendships tend to fade) black men from Africa (mostly Tanzania).
I think African American is one of those terms that (a) is super American-centric and (b) isn’t something everyone would call themselves. You can actually read into how “Native Americans” feel about that term (many don’t like it, apparently, because America (the country being the US)) wasn’t the place they came from; they came from the land that their ancestors settled, not some stolen version of it. Some actually prefer “Indian” while others favor something more like “aboriginal peoples” or “first nations”.
I think African American is one of those terms that (a) is super American-centric and (b) isn’t something everyone would call themselves.
That’s correct, but if I just said “Black” then all the Europeans would come flooding in talking about their African coworkers. I’m specifically asking about the majority of black people in the US who are descended from slaves.
