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 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.
I know a couple of black people, but none of them is African-American.
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 sometimes 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 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.
Well, not living in America certainly makes it difficult to start friendships with African American people.
But all the black people I know are extremely annoyed at the automatic assumption that their culture is Africa American.
I don’t know any Americans let along African-Americans.
Omg, that NAME! BWAHAHAHA! I’m sorry. I am so sorry! I just keep imagining you waking up in the morning, sir, looking in the mirror and then in all seriousness saying to yourself… deep voice “You know what would be a really kick-ass name? Taserface!” That’s how I hear you in my head! What was your second choice? “Scrotum Hat”?
It’s about time someone noticed. HAHA. That is one of my favourite scenes in all of the MCU.
How long did you have to wait, señor face?
June 14, 4 weeks ago.
You know “the black community” isn’t a homogenous group right?
I’m a white guy who moved to Japan and it’s funny sometimes that a handful of people think we all must know each other (and all speak English though that’s true in my case).
In a certain sense, there’s no such thing as a homogenous group, period. But there are similarities between individuals with similar cultural background and historical context which makes it useful to talk about them as a group, while acknowledging that individuals will deviate from the average.
But there are a huge number of black people in the country with a huge number of cultural backgrounds.
Depends on how you slice em. A white person from Minnesota is very different from a white person in NYC, but it’s often useful to group both of them as white to contrast with, say, Asian. In the same sense, Asian can mean Chinese, and Chinese can mean Taiwanese, etc
Grouping people based on similarities is not inherently bad.
It’s decidedly not useful to say they have the same culture, though, because they don’t. There are common elements, but they’re nowhere near the majority, especially comparing those common elements to the common elements they also share with most black Americans because they’re American.
Well that’s a ridiculous take. So it becomes impossible to discuss culture?
Black people from Chicago, St Louis, and Oakland have cultural similarities. If you refuse to acknowledge that, you’ve taken “I don’t see race” so far you’ve looped back around to racism. This is exactly what I was getting at with the question.
It’s perfectly possible to discuss culture. Race is a small part of their culture, and you talking about “you must not know black people if the black people you know are different than the ones from my neighborhood” is racist as fuck. You’re disqualifying a hell of a lot of black people from “really being black” with that shit.
Black people from Chicago, St Louis, and Oakland have cultural similarities.
Of course they do. Those are all urban environments. Most white people from the same neighborhoods will have mostly similar cultures, because, like I said, race is a small part of that culture.
Is it an important part? Absolutely. There are systemic issues that they are exposed to because of their minority status that white people in the same environment are not. But there are plenty of black people who aren’t from urban environments, and many of them are as different from black urban culture as they are from white urban culture.
Most white people from the same neighborhoods will have mostly similar cultures
Absolutely not true!
Wikipedia has an entire article on African-American Culture.
African-American culture,[1][2] also known as Black American culture or Black culture in American English,[3][4][5][6][7] refers to the cultural expressions of African Americans, either as part of or distinct from mainstream American culture. African-American culture has been influential on American and global worldwide culture as a whole.[8][9][10]
Well that’s a ridiculous take. So it becomes impossible to discuss culture?
Black people from Chicago, St Louis, and Oakland have cultural similarities. If you refuse to acknowledge that, you’ve taken “I don’t see race” so far you’ve looped back around to racism. This is exactly what I was getting at with the question.
Grouping people based on similarities is not inherently bad.
“White” is not a “similarity” - it’s a racial classification.
Splitting hairs
The supposed “racial commonality” proselytized by white supremacists is purely a product of “scientific racism.”
No… it’s not a question of splitting hairs.
I thought the last of you “race isn’t real lalala if I don’t acknowledge it it’s not real” people got shamed into silence decades ago.
I’ve had a couple of conversations recently where people have confidently said things about the Black community that are ridiculously incorrect
Do tell.
No, i don’t live in america
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
Guess you won’t grow up then. Sad.
I’ve seen bad takes from you before but Jesus christ the comments ITT tops them all
K
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.I’m not from the U.S.
I was close friends with 2 black kids from across the street all through my school years, and another black dude in my neighborhood for a while in my adult years until they all moved away. But, like… There wasn’t much of a cultural difference from me; we were all “middle class” Californians.
I saw one of dudes from high school run into some racists yelling the N word at him once, but it was 2 skinny assholes vs like 7 of us and half of our group was on the football team so when we didn’t just ignore them, they pissed themselves and ran away.
Justice boner activated.
I’m black 👀 This post kinda acts like there are no black people on lemmy but we here… at least I am lol
Welp, that makes 2 of us!
Guess we have to start our own instance now so we can talk about [redacted]!
I’m sure there are at least a dozen of us.
I think some people grow up in some very ethnically homogeneous places. When I was a kid, I think we had two black families, one that came from Pakistan when we were in elementary school, and a couple of people form Latin America that moved in when we were in middle school. My (rural Ohio) town had a lot of super racist and anti-Semitic people.
You’re the first one in the thread lol
Ops is sheltered and white, probably from small town south.
Also black here 👋🏾
I’m also black (but not American) and I felt the same way reading this lol
Also Black here!
(My keyboard doesn’t have emotes, but pretend this is the black hand waving hi)
Edit: 👋🏾
been living with a black woman for many years
I don’t get out a lot period, but my friend is black. They live out of state, but we talk on the phone a couple times a week.
Now, on one hand, its a sample size of 1. On the other hand, that’s a solid 50% of my social circle.
That being said, “black culture” varies just as much as “white culture”. You’re trying to generalize a massive number of people, and you’d probably be surprised how hard that is. I don’t think you could pin down any single cultural element as being ubiquitous among black Americans.
Nothing is ubiquitous among any large group of people, but to suggest it’s useless to speak about people as groups because of it is silly. People of similar cultural background have commonalities.
I’m not saying its totally useless, I’m saying gets harder and harder the larger the group gets. The commonalities get fewer and less universal as group size increases.
It doesn’t get harder, it just gets more general. Statements made about groups are not intended to be universally applicable to every single member of that group, just generally applicable.
