Why The Animosity Between Aas And Black Africans

If you actually read those threads well you'd know why as we've given many examples and who the hell is "copying" them? Cos you see a few morons who dress like hoodlums, that means we all "copy" them? If we truly copied them, we'd be on welfare. shio.

@ MayNjoku
but there're a whole lot of uneducated  people in nigeria and africa as well so what the heck does that have to with the topic?

@ Thieveofhearts can't the animosity be summarised into one or two points? Or i guess if i have to read all the winding and tiring threads to make out a "reason" for all this coldness is it not a sign that  the whole thing is nebulous? I just need one or two lines to explain.

To call the influence of hip hop on nigerian music moronic is pretty off cos most of the urban nigerian music we hear these days is a fusion of hip hop and local sounds! Same applies to R&B and jazz. Africans get drawn to AA culture, sometimes blindly, b/cos we feel a kindred spirit with them. Last year when a party of AA artistes from busta rhymes to jay z came to lagos it was the costliest and most hyped show in the country's history and the turnout was off da hook. If my fav. band Coldplay, an all white group, comes to lagos the turnout wouldnt be up to quater. But this same sentiment doesnt apply to nigerians in the US.

Nigerians living in the US should realise that some beef could arise sometime in the future between nigs. at home and abroad. These are the downsides of our human nature that should be guarded against cos they're damn unnecessary.

initiator,

If you want a quick summary of the problem, I'll try to help you.

AA have a grudge against whites and this makes many of them them reject things like education, hard work and all the "white American" values. Pursuing education they see as "acting white"; they have labelled many American values as "white" and have created their own culture that rejects these values because these are the values the "white America" lives by.
Continental Africans, on the other hand, are motivated to learn and work hard and if many Nigerians in Nigeria are not educated, it is because of lack of opportunity, and not lack of motivation or disrespecting education.

AA have their Ghetto culture, important elements of which are drugs (and selling them as the career of choice), entertainment (another preferred career choice) and living on welfare. I exaggerate a bit, not all AA are like this, but this is a stereotype and there are, unfortunately, many AA people who justify this stereotype with their lifestyle.

If a continental African comes to the US and puts effort into getting education and being an employee with good work ethics, AA accuse him of "bowing and grinning like hyneas for whites", like the poster quoted by GNature did.

Even more important is that due to the AA lifestyle, white Americans have a negative opinion of all Black people and a Nigerian may experience prejudice because of the assumption that he is lazy or criminal, because he is Black; it's the AA who are responsible for this negative image.

There are other minor issues, but this difference in culture, attitude and values is the main source of friction.

For instance there are notions held in naija that urhobos men are lazy and only drink ogogoro or yorubas are cowards or igbos are money mongers. At least we nigs. know better or the enlightened ones do.

These are cultural dynamics that evolve. Untill black people begin to realise that you have nothing to prove to anyone or race other than ourselves, our progress'll remain stunted.

Initiator,

At the upper level of course is the tension between Nigerians and AA because of the fact that Nigerians are forced to compete for AA jobs.

At the lower level, there is not so much animosity. So as you can see here on this board, AA are married to Nigerians, have Nigerian mates or in my case Nigerian relatives.

And then again all one has to do is listen to Nigerians about the way Nigerians treat Nigerians and thus you can find some of the same reasoning among African Americans. i.e. Nigerians treat white customers better than they treat  other Nigerian customers, etc.

I have been in the company of Black Americans who refuse to patronage Nigerian owned stores and will instead at least in this instance insisted on going to the Liberian's store near.

Nigerians in American also hate Nigerian stores in America. You'll see other threads here about that.

Initiator,

I guess the idea being that you should go and read what BigSis says then get in your Nigerian corner and fight for your side.

Unfortunately or fortunately. I've never read or spoken to BigSis, so I can't recommend her.

There probably is some truth in this stereotype about Africans, too. I heard a white guy who had been to
Africa telling how good he was treated by everybody, to the point that he was embarrassed because he didn't feel better than them, nor was he rich or famous, but he was treated like a VIP especially in smaller towns. He was just a student on a low-budget trek.

You could tell it's just African hospitality, but another story I know is awful. I heard it from a white guy whom I know well and I know that he didn't make it up. He spent some time in Africa as a kid, because his father had a job there. He and his brother were often playing outside with about 20 African kids of the same age. He discovered than when they both shout and run at the African kids, these kids would all escape. Twenty of them, who could easily beat them up! He told other similar stories from that playground. He was (and still is) puzzled by this experience. When he arrived there, he was maybe 8 years old and raised in an almost all-white country, he had no previous contact with black people nor any prejudice, he was an innocent, color-blind kid. But it was hard to ignore that newly found power. He said that this time spent in Africa made him into a very confident man.

But I don't really think it is about the skin color, it's rather about being from the better part of the world, the higher civilisation. The difference in quality of life in Africa and developed countries is huge. Many Africans aspire to go abroad, they can be quite desperate about it, they have an exaggerated idea of the richness of USA/Europe; somebody who comes from these places, regardless of colour, is seen as somebody who represents this better life they dream about. If someone is white, he is assumed to be from the rich world on sight. I guess Romans in the time of Roman Empire were treated the same when they went to underdeveloped countries.

When I was a teenager I found an African penpal newsletter (email wasn't popular then, it was for people who wanted to write snail-mail letters), sent my ad to it and wrote that I want African penfriends. I got an incredible and unexpected number of letters. You'd think they wanted to know something more about me. No, they all - almost all - wanted a walkman or some other stuff from me. They assumed that I was so rich that I could easily buy these things and send them, only because I lived in Europe. I was a bit shocked and decided for some time that Africa must be an awful place full of beggars. (It was years ago and of course I don't think so anymore.)

Initiator,

This is what I mean by it's good for Blacks to fight, we make each other better. i.e. We are discussing important subjects even if you can not see their deeper implications.

The questions always before us: How do we end the suffering of so many of our race around the world but in particular in our Fatherland, Africa?

How shall we agree to agree about going forward? On Pan-Africanism? On Euro made nations? On our shallow and dominated countries?

Shall African Americans learn to be more revolutionary from Continental Africans? Shall Continental Africans learn Unity from Diasporan Africans?

These are important questions and everybody has a say in this process as we get our on feet.

Thanx to all for your well-expressed views. @ Drusilla and Blonde, it's now clear that the problem africans all over the world is low self-esteem manifested by AAs in a victim complex mentality and continental africans in terms of over-reverence of white folks.

The sad fact is that playground anecdote is actually true. We nigerians (especially the untravelled) have come to associate nigerianness with mediocrity even as we know deep down that we are very ingenious as seen in "yahoo yahoo" lol.

Initiator,

I absolutely love Nigerians. I think they are very smart people. Much smarter than the typical American, white or black.

I truly enjoy the company around here. I am very jealous of one thing Nigerians have that African Americans lack. I may start a post about it soon. I am so shocked by it, I haven't yet got the words to describe this beautiful thing about Nigerians that makes me jealous.

In Africa-America we play a game called "the dozens", so we consider name calling games to be somewhat of play time. We actually think Nigerians are playing back with us most of the time.

I'm afraid we may be making a bad calculation on that because Nigerians get all riled up and take these name calling games seriously. Sorry.

Initiator,

I do believe we have to think universally. It's not for me about glorifying race. It is about the fact that 33,000 mostly brown and black children will die today and everyday from preventable starvation and disease.

By the way for the cost of icecream cones purchased on the streets of America. And the presents we buy for our cats and dogs on Christmas.

Americans alone could feed all people for a year and give them adequate healthcare.

There is a system in place that does not care enough about Africa and Africans. This is Global White Supremacy. Which places a higher premium on a life in the West than one anywhere else.

So thus we watch in awful shame as African countries are not even required to have a viable government (Congo, Sudan, Somalia) but can still be just as easily exploited.

Thus fact alone scares me because I think that more government less countries is what is planned for some African countries.

As long as we can continue to plunder even if their at war or in shambles, nobody is going to care.

Initiator,

I agree. I am a far worse person than I seem. Because I would willingly watch African countries slide into chaos, from losing their white counterparts who keep these horrible governments propped up with cash. I feel however it is unfair for me to make such a decision. That decision must come ultimately from Continental African people. (it wouldn't be right of me to sit over here in luxury and design a plan for the Continent that I would not suffer also).

So bandaids will have to do, until someone can think of a better way to ease Africa out of co-dependency (i.e. whites being dependent on so many African goods).

So, welfare is the standard for African Americans in America?  Nigerians have an affinity towards African American culture because they see aspects of their own in our culture. It doesn't have to be HipHop or RNB it could be jazz,gospel music, etc, When Fela Kuti visited/lived in the states there was some cultural exchange they he brought back to Nigeria and Africa and thus Afrobeat was born.

^ What preconcieved notion. The one we experience on a day to day basis from you lot.

Please it ain't preconcieved it's blatant.

I have had many a discussion with AA's while I was in college in the states. They never seem to grasp a wholisitc view of the world they live in. You bring up issues outside of Racism or Prejudice and they look at you as some sort of white man wanna be.

^I  am wondering why you don't see an threads on beef with Nigerians having problems with Blacks from other parts of the world as in Jamaica, Trinidad and tobago, Brazil, haiti, Barbados, or Canada for the matter, strange how its always AA's.

And you honestly can asy the problem is a one way streek

^ I think the first maybe response is close enough.

Have you ever wondered why we don't snub these other "Black" people who exist outside of AA's.