Why Do Africans Dislike Us So much?

[Samoon]

"...we can't unite and struggle to be organize and protect our interests."

Good point, all have to decide for themselves.

[ChrisM2000]

Originally Posted by Moe17

Afro Chat family, I want to come right out & ask this question. Why do our descendants hate black americans so much? I try to be open & get to know about their culture more but I just get really frustrated, because I dont understand the hate towards us.

We resemble them, dont we? Do Africans resent us because they think that Europeans are also are descendants, so they resent us for being "forced" to mix with Europeans?

In my opinion, a phony African is WORSE than a white american...they are supposely "our people" & its like the dont give a amn about us...personally I am just clueless about the situation.

I really want to know about this...

I've met some good individuals before, but most of their opinions about us are extremely negative. As Black Americans, we're more likely to study Africa's diverse cultures, traditions, and cuisine, but I took a different approach, and studied the people's interactions with other African cultures instead. I've learned that a lot of ethnic groups within each nation dislike, or don't trust each other. This may just be something that they're used to doing, and this sort of mentality doesn't change once they arrive in the US. Even here in Atlanta, African immigrant groups will live apart from each other, like Nigerians and Ethiopians for instance. My frustration was lifted after I learned this, I admit.

[Istlota]

Originally Posted by Ambassadeur

What's wrong with marrying white women? :) If that tickles you, you should see the black soccer players in Europe. There, it has reached "epidemic" proportions :)

Marrying a white woman because of love is healthy. Marrying a white woman because she is white is sick.

When a Michael Jackson bleaches his skin, straightens his nose and hair, and _then_ marries one white woman and pays another to have two kids for him [via artifical insemination] that ain't love, that is sickness. I am guessing Mike even had his baby mama use a white donor's sperm. Poor Mike could not risk the possibility of having his kids come out with Joe Jackson's nose:



When a Tiger Woods refuses to admit he is black, inventing a whole new name out of thin air [caublasian] to avoid Knowing Self, and _then_ marries the whitest blond he can find, that is not love that is sickness.

When an OJ Simpson marries, divorces, and dates white women exclusively, even after barely avoidiing going to jail for killing one, that ain't love, that is _extreme_ sickness.

We live in a world that places higher value on white skin. Every day of our lives, our unconscious mind is inundated with progamming, images, of the white, blond, woman as the pinnacle of physical beauty. This anglo-dominated [for now, soon to change] world offers successful athletes and entertainers, because of their fame and fortune, a wider selection of mates than other men. And, hence, more [not all] of those men choose the aforementioned preprogrammed image of the Ideal Woman --- white, blond, and docile. Or, if not that, at least a light skinned sista, latina, or asian.

This has nothing to do with love, or a player's game. It is the same dynamic that allows the loudest and/or most aggressive males in other species to mate with the females who have the brightest color feathers.

What you mistake for personal choice is, in fact, Pavlovian response.

Woof, woof, woof ...

So I don't think it has to do with the image we have of each other, but rather the fact that despite what our people went through because of slavery, colonialism and apartheid, we can't unite and struggle to be organized and protect our interests. There's no racial solidarity between us except for some isolated cases here and there.

It is not that we "can't" unite. It is that we do not "want" to unite. It is easier, we think, less work, we think, and less intimidating to remain on the plantation where Massa provides us with hots and a cot.

Oh, don't get me wrong. We hate Massa with a deep, smouldering, flame of murderous angst. But, we hate ourselves even more. Hence, we still stay on the plantation because that is what we are used to and we do not have enough confidence in Self to risk failure by standing on our own come what may.

The plantation is the familiar. Self-determination is the unknown. Homo Sapiens tend to be frightened of the unknown.

Here on the plantation, Massa rewards the Mandingos of our tribe -- those who can jump the highest, or run the faster, or buck dance the wildest --- by letting them sleep with Miss Anne. And, Miss Anne has no problem with adding some color to her sex life and several more zeros to the right side of her bank account balance.

[dtownbro]

Originally Posted by Istlota

1) We African-Americans don't admit it, but many of us have picked up a few of europe's prejudicial attitudes toward Africans. The most anti-African book I read in the past 10 years happened to have been written by an African-American.

2) Many of us African-Americans are pretending not to know, but Africans are perfectly aware that Condi Rice, Jendayi Frazer, and General William Ward are not motivated by a love for Africa or Africans. Also, Africans understand that the African-American GIs stationed at bases in Africa will shoot any African that their white commanding officer tells them is the enemy.

3) Blacks come here from countries that _they_ govern, and see that we African-Americans have more money, more education, and more black politicians than they had back at home. Yet, every morning, on their bus ride to a job many of us would not take because it is beneath our dignity, they look out the window and see a group of brothers sitting on a beat-up old couch, under a shade tree, waiting for the liquor store to open and complaining that they can't get ahead because the white man is holding 'em back.

Chuck:

Yes...

Another one of your on point/on time commentaries...

But...

Why does just a gap exist?

Also what leads to either Obama's or Cosby's overreactions to it all?

Personally I get the strong impression of how both the black have nots and black haves belabor under false illusions and come to wrongheaded conclusions:

As in?

About each other!

Perhaps this is about how the politics of race and racism pervade how we prejudge or judge each others options and that's not advancing the best interests of most of us anymore...

At least that's my two cents on this subject...

FYI...

[dtownbro]

Dare I to remind one and all posting on this subject that we African Americans live in one natoin and while African is a continent filled with people who live in many different nations?

Then, too, here our ancestors were the enslaved, and there's colonized...

Exploitation and oppression abounded...

And, yes?

Maybe sometimes their exploiters and oppressors saw them as a ends to their means...

But even if such louses accomplished the same results...

It was not by the same means and ways...

Hence their various ancestors and forebears resisted towards sometimes different goals and objectives...

Though the historical legacy which those on the continent and elsewhere in the disapora have in common is we were and are a diverse group of people wherever you find us...

I. e., it did take a great effort for civilization to rise up, and/or empires be established, etc., and I have yet to come across as serious study or studies which even imply or suggest how that came about...

So we were and are unique among the world's people...

When we forget that anybody and everybody can too easily prey on all of us...

Do keep that in mind as well....

FYI...

Take care...

Later...

Peace...

[Ambassadeur]

Originally Posted by ChrisM2000

I've met some good individuals before, but most of their opinions about us are extremely negative. As Black Americans, we're more likely to study Africa's diverse cultures, traditions, and cuisine, but I took a different approach, and studied the people's interactions with other African cultures instead. I've learned that a lot of ethnic groups within each nation dislike, or don't trust each other. This may just be something that they're used to doing, and this sort of mentality doesn't change once they arrive in the US. Even here in Atlanta, African immigrant groups will live apart from each other, like Nigerians and Ethiopians for instance. My frustration was lifted after I learned this, I admit.

That was a very clever thing to do to observe the Africans. You must have realized and understood that their attitudes toward other Africans weren't much better or necesarily warmer than their attitudes toward black Americans. So it's not selective prejudice against black Americans.

What most westerners don't realize or understand is that the Africans identify themselves by nationality and not by the color of their skin, i.e., as Nigerians, Ugandans, Zambians, Ethiopians. Thus, their identity is more national and cultural than racial. Which would explain why the same complexion doesn't guarantee a natural bond.

Another dimension to the diverse African identity is that there are Africans from Francophone Africa, such as Gabon, Senegal, Chad, Zaire, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, fluent in French and in their own national languages. And in the case of Cameroon, which was both a former French and Britihs colony, there are tensions and divide between Franchophone Africans and their English speaking counterpart.

To add further to the complexity of the African identity, Africans in the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique on the western and eastern coasts of Southern Africa are also fluent in Portuguese, having been ruled by Portugal for more than 400 years.

So it's only when Africans arrive in the Western or Northen Hemishphere that they are identified as "blacks". But I know that most African insist on maintaining seperate and very disctintive identities than black Americans. And they do that with other Africans as well. Though they are both Nilotic, I am quite certain an Ethiopian wouldn't appreciate being mistaken from a Somalian or Erythrean. A Congolese from Kinshasa wouldn't like it to be thought of as a Congolese from Brazzaville even though both of these people are Bantuand would speak Lingala and French.

It's the same for a Nigerian and someone from Cameroon. Though these countries share a border, the relationship between the inhabitants and the various ethnic groups isn't a honey moon. Why? Well, I am not sure a Japanese would like it if we thought he was Chinese, would he? Didn't Japan bullied and subjugated China a while back?

[dtownbro]

Originally Posted by Ambassadeur

That was a very clever thing to do to observe the Africans. You must have realized and understood that their attitudes toward other Africans weren't much better or necesarily warmer than their attitudes toward black Americans. So it's not selective prejudice against black Americans.

What most westerners don't realize or understand is that the Africans identify themselves by nationality and not by the color of their skin, i.e., as Nigerians, Ugandans, Zambians, Ethiopians. Thus, their identity is more national and cultural than racial. Which would explain why the same complexion doesn't guarantee a natural bond.

Another dimension to the diverse African identity is that there are Africans from Francophone Africa, such as Gabon, Senegal, Chad, Zaire, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, fluent in French and in their own national languages. And in the case of Cameroon, which was both a former French and Britihs colony, there are tensions and divide between Franchophone Africans and their English speaking counterpart.

To add further to the complexity of the African identity, Africans in the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique on the western and eastern coasts of Southern Africa are also fluent in Portuguese, having been ruled by Portugal for more than 400 years.

So it's only when Africans arrive in the Western or Northen Hemishphere that they are identified as "blacks". But I know that most African insist on maintaining seperate and very disctintive identities than black Americans. And they do that with other Africans as well. Though they are both Nilotic, I am quite certain an Ethiopian wouldn't appreciate being mistaken from a Somalian or Erythrean. A Congolese from Kinshasa wouldn't like it to be thought of as a Congolese from Brazzaville even though both of these people are Bantuand would speak Lingala and French.

It's the same for a Nigerian and someone from Cameroon. Though these countries share a border, the relationship between the inhabitants and the various ethnic groups isn't a honey moon. Why? Well, I am not sure a Japanese would like it if we thought he was Chinese, would he? Didn't Japan bullied and subjugated China a while back?

Chuck:

The one thing our Black Muslim relations in the states via the FINAL CALL newspaper did and do keep us up to date about is how even our (sometimes dissing and) distant African relations emulate and mimic what we're about so they can relate to the so called Western (read white) world scene...

Y'see, there was a time when Black Nigerian females were wearing white wigs:

One young Western African male proclaimed himself the next Mike Tyson...

So be it the legacy of slavery or colonialism, I do feel and think the Last (Black) Poets take on the latest generation of our folk anywhere and everywhere is was/is very on point/on time...

Ignorance on that particular subject damn sure ain't 'bliss':

And so much for some of us hyping how our ancestors were kings and queens!

Flashforward:

And we choose to be (for) real or (awfully) ill...

Feel me?

Dig that??

Old school..

No fool...

Word: Truth...

Take care...

Later...

Peace...

[thulitils]

Hello everyone, I am an African from South Africa. I totally agree with Sephari and Auset32, Moe to answer your question, it is not really hate, it's annoyance and it is not directed at African Americans only but Americans in general. Americans are ignorant and arrogant, the USA is convinced that the sun revolves around their continent and this attitude is building resentment all across the world, not only Africa. I remember watching Oprah, either last year or the year before and she had a show about women around the world - Oprah herself is ignorant! the problem with Americans is that they think they know it all, they think theirs is the perfect society when the reality is actually the opposite. Yes, Americans have more resources and opportunites than us but trust me when it comes to education, speech, grammar and general knowledge America is really lagging behind.

I was in America a few years ago and I must admit I was really dissapointed by the ignorance that was displayed. Like really, somethings just need common sense, we all know that Tarzan is fiction so I don't understand why Americans (in this day and age) still think we have lions and tigers running up and down our streets and that we wear animal skin (by the way as far as I know there is no African nation or clan that wears animal skin all traditional gear has always been made out of cloth). Do you guys have grizzly bears running up and down your streets everyday?

All most everyone I know who has been to the states has come back dissappointed. For example the people are just generally rude, kids have no respect for their elders (I would get a BIG FAT KLAP if i ever dared to answer back to my mother, even now as an adult I would never answer back) the women do not take pride in themselves , you'll find a +50 year old woman wearing tightest tight pants what is that? or an overweight woman wearing the skimpiest skirt and the most revealing top when it totally unappropiate for her body and then they are loud, rude and aggressive (yes, we also have woman like that here and Islota your point 3 also happens in Africa it's not American thing only).

Put simply Moe, African Americans have lost respect for themselves and when you don't have respect for yourself you can't expect others to respect you and the Africans that side are only projecting/mirroring attitude they are receiving. when you talk to them try not to sound condescending and yes they do have a heavy accent but that does not mean they don't know English or that they slow - talk to them as if you are talking to your family member.

[Ambassadeur]

Originally Posted by thulitils

I was in America a few years ago and I must admit I was really dissapointed by the ignorance that was displayed. Like really, somethings just need common sense, we all know that Tarzan is fiction so I don't understand why Americans (in this day and age) still think we have lions and tigers running up and down our streets and that we wear animal skin (by the way as far as I know there is no African nation or clan that wears animal skin all traditional gear has always been made out of cloth). Do you guys have grizzly bears running up and down your streets everyday?

I am going to play "the devil's advocate" here and say that almost all of the rest of the world has the same misconception about life in America that Americans in general have about the rest of the world. See, Americans usually go by their movies and the byproduct, television, in order to try to visualize what's life in other countries must be like. But let's be fair: I am African like you and don't most Africans think that life in the U.S is like on the movies they sees, on the video clip they see?

Most people believe what they see and in the case of African Americans, it is what they are taught and constantly shown about Africa. It's a brainwash. I have been asked many times if all black Americans are rich, drive Bentley, have supermodels girlfriends or girls that look like Beyonce on their side by Congelese in Belgium. And the reason people thought about this is because their only reference to the everyday life of black Americans is Rap music, R&B video clips or all the rich and famous entertainers or athletes that appear of Tv or make the cover of magazines. Most Africans want to come in the U.S because they think they will live the so called "American Dream" glorified by the world most powerful media. But in reality, many black Americans live the "American Nightmare": Being poor in the richest country the world has ever known and facing racism, discrimination, injustice and sometimes abuse on a daily basis. Just to name those few things.

Put simply Moe, African Americans have lost respect for themselves and when you don't have respect for yourself you can't expect others to respect you and the Africans that side are only projecting/mirroring attitude they are receiving. when you talk to them try not to sound condescending and yes they do have a heavy accent but that does not mean they don't know English or that they slow - talk to them as if you are talking to your family member.

I will have to agree with you on that. And an example is the casual and random use of the word ****** by too many black Americans. Alot of them call each other niggers all the time in public, in front of strangers that are whites, asians and Latinos and the same people are suprised and get offended when they hear that the Nigerians, the Yorubas to be exact, have coined a derogatory word "Akata" to refer to black Americans. If those people call each other niggers, why are they surprised that other blacks have a derogatory word to call them too?

[The Dragon]

Ambassador, you sure don't mind promoting your acceptance of marrying "out." Especially with white folks. Nobody is going to answer your question as to what is wrong with marrying white women; Which you should already know what the issue is about.

Anyway, I have discovered that if you just show interest in getting to know an African, 9 times out of 10 you will get positive results.

I have gotten positive results using this technique everytime.