pleep:

Hey Inked Nerd do you remember the name of that documentary? Im interested in watching it.

A.D.M.:

I thought I said this dumb thread should be ended.

Inked_Nerd, I live in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn. I agree with your comment about some Afro-Americans claiming to be American Indian or part American Indian. It is sad and pathetic. The self-hatred I see and hear from some Afro-Americans makes me shake my head and ask, "What the f---?" It's your basic self-hatred: "I'm not African, I have nothing to do with Africa and Africans" and on and on and on. It's pathetic. K.o.n.y., you're right about Afro-American culture being in other parts of the world, but the whole "Africans should look up to black Americans" talk is condescending and disrespectful. By the way, the Africans you're responding to are black, too. Duh!

This may come as a shock to some, but a lot of Afro-American music has African influences. Jazz music is one example. By 1808, the Atlantic slave trade had brought almost half a million Africans to the United States. The slaves largely came from West Africa and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them. Lavish festivals featuring African dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843, as were similar gatherings in New England and New York. African music was largely functional, for work or ritual, and included work songs and field hollers. The African tradition made use of a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, but without the European concept of harmony. Rhythms reflected African speech patterns, and the African use of pentatonic scales led to blue notes in blues and jazz.

All this back and forth is getting us nowhere. I'm not a religious man, but for the love of God and everything that is holy, can we please put an end to this silly thread? How many times are folks going to talk about this?

Let's talk about something more important like the possibilty of a third world war.

pleep:

I second that. Let's stop the arguing it's pointless.

A.D.M.:

I'm of African descent, Inked_Nerd. I mentioned my being Afro-American in previous comments. To be more specific, I live in the Sheepshead Bay/Nostrand houses housing project. It's bounded by Nostrand Avenue, Bragg Street, Avenue V, and Avenue X, with Avenue W and Batchelder Street running through the development dividing it into a four block complex. Lots of black people here, along with non-blacks. It's relatively safe and quiet. It's not bad. And I second your pro-African solidarity thread.

Ron Oneal:

To clarify some points here, some African Americans claim to have some Native American ancestry but almost NONE identify as Native Americans. there's a big difference between those two points of view. And again, when AAs say w're not African they mean it in the sense that they're not Africans of the continental type, no one denies they're of African descent and or black and we don't pretend to have arisen out of a puff of smoke in America. You Nigerians know whether you are Yoruba, Hausa, Kanuri, Edo or Igbo, AAs are just limited primarily to just saying African-American. African is such a broad term, so if yome one walks up to me and says they're African I will not know which group or country they come from unless they tell me.

Ron Oneal:

I am AA and I'm telling you, almost no AA identifies as Native American, to claim to have some ancestry from a particular group and to identify as that group are two different things and the occurrences you're talking about are far, far rare, not even common among African Americans, almost NONE identify as Native American, you want to see people of African descent deny their African roots? Go to Dominican Republican or some places in Cuba and Puerto Rico, but in the US that is rare to almost nonexistent, so please quit trying to trump up your rare occurrences among AAs as something that standard. If anything, there are people who look completely white who deny their whiteness and say they're Native American and thats far more common among them than among AAs. The fact is that some AAs do have Native American ancestry, but many do not, but to claim to have some Native American ancestry is NOT rejecting nor denying their African lineage. I know some Africans who don't even see AAs as truly black people, but those aqre rare, ignorant people so I don't even waste my time bringing them up. Your problem is a problem of misunderstanding,

A.D.M.:

Inked_Nerd, both of my parents are Afro-American. My heritage on both sides is Afro-American. And yes, some, not all, some African-Americans do use the whole American Indian to distance themselves from their African heritage, but African descendants from the Dominican Republic are much worse. Some acknowledge being of African descent, but they mostly hate it. Where does it come from? It could come from the environment a person was born and raised in. It could come from being influenced by the media. I never followed media garbage and I was raised to love the skin I'm in. I learned about AA history from my parents when I was young, but it was mostly self-taught. And yeah, you're right Inked_Nerd, this topic will probably never go away.

Malstrom:

I consider Obama to be black because his father was and his grandad and great grandad and so on, to our society and to ppl he is seen as a black person. For me any person with African heritage and visible African features is black. Even if you have one black one white parent and even if you have more white ancestry than u have black, if you look black I see u as a black person but by both European and African parents Welcome to tha club lol. I see them all as my brothers and sisters and I do not see them as white, White for me is when you are just white or have almost no other origin than European. tho Its very much an issu how u identify ureself 

BTW I think people give Obama so much cred for nothing. He is the president of USA but he got selected before he got elected. What real power does he really posses? NONE! Even if had the will, he has no means,  Its not much more than symbolic and the worst part is people are satisfied with this and think it is some kind of proof that all is good and the black struggle is over! He is a war president with a peace price WTF! And he is not actually ruling the country. A black president means nothing as long as the masses of black people r still catching hell! Still people go on like he is some kind of holy man.

Maybe the USA is not possible to change that much through democratic methods. I think they need a revolution, rather than Libya.

Ron Oneal:

Man, let me repeat this again since you don't understand, the one drop rule does NOT apply to people like Obama who have visible black ancestry, it applies to people who look white to the eye but have African ancestry that isn't visible and there is no longer any one drop rule. Its a common misperception that the one drop rule applied to anyone of mixed ancestry, not so. And that one drop rule wasn't something created and imposed by blacks, it was done by whites to keep their racial purity, but despite that, the ODR played a majority part in creating the AA community and starting the AA identity even though it no longer exists.

Ron Oneal:

I think plenty of people misunderstand the intent and use of the one drop rule so let me clear it up. Number one, there no longer is any one drop rule, people freely self identify as they like, the law itself has been nonexistent for a long time. Number two, the one drop rule did not apply to all people with mixed ancestry, it only applied to people with African ancestry who look visibly white to the eye and it was intended to specifically keep those people from passing as white and enjoying the same rights as whites. Of course, if you visibly had any African ancestry you were black and the one drop rule didn't apply so people like Obama would have been black in the days of the one drop rule, people like Wentworth Miller and Walter White would have had the one drop rule applied to them.


@Inked-nerd  

Look, I never denied that so AAs have self hate but in terms of numbers, very, very few AAs identify themselves as Native Americans, are there plenty who claim some Native American ancestry? Yes, but as I pointed out, thats a very different thing from solely identifying as Native American. AAs strongly identify as black so much that Dominicans and even some Brazilians complain that AAs like "one dropping" them. It is the blacks of Latin America that have the problem of denying their African roots, not so much so in the US.