I watch a TV show about a Nigerian immigrant woman living in Detroit. There was a scene where she and some of her African friends were discussing men, and they all agreed that the preferred order of men they’d be open to dating goes like this:
An African man from the same tribe.
An African man from another tribe but the same country.
An African man from another African country.
A white (American) man.
An African-American man.
Is this a thing in the African immigrant community in the US? Not just the dating, but a general sense of dislike/distrust/hostility/words-like-that to the African American community?
Isn’t this just cultural? Just because they’re a similar skin colour doesn’t mean they’ve actually got anything in common. Culture (and language and social mores) are very different in large parts of Africa from America.
+1 to cultural bias/preference. Replace the nationality with any other and the results will likely be the same. Relationship preferences are largely built upon common interests. I don’t see any hostility at all.
The countries of Africa are as different from each other in language and culture as the countries of Europe, or the countries of Asia.
White Americans may imagine that all blacks are the same. Even black Americans may imagine that all blacks are the same - plenty have come to Africa expecting to be welcomed as long-lost brothers, only to be unpleasantly disappointed.
To African blacks, having a black skin doesn’t mean there is anything in common, any more than having a white skin in Europe means there is anything in common. An American black is seen as American first and black a long way second.
African immigrants to America may not like the fact that they are expected to be on the same page as African-Americans, when they have nothing in common.
In my experience this is definitely a thing with Africans in the US. Much less with each successive generation but it is common among first generation immigrants.
I think the interesting thing that isn’t addressed by the “cultural bias” explanation is that white Americans are preferred to black Americans. One would think that Africans would view white Americans as at least as alien as black Americans, if not more.
That would tend to suggest that African men from other tribes or countries would be as culturally different as an African-American man would be.
I wonder what the preferences would be for men, if they prefer women from their own tribe or culture vs. African-American women or white or Asian or Hispanic.
I have met Hispanic women who preferred Anglo men over Hispanic men. Partly it was a stereotype that all gringos are rich. Partly it was a stereotype that working-class Anglo men are less likely to be abusive than working-class Hispanic men. It was more about class than skin color.
We lived in Africa for three years. Africans generally view black Americans with pity, as they have none of the tribal connections that are important to African people. They have trouble imagining being that lost. They also view it with some amusement when black American entertainers show up and immediately exclaim to the audience “I feel like I’m finally home!” Anyway, I’m assuming that it’s not really hostility at work in the USA, but a sense of alienation and total lack of any commonality with African Americans. They could probably relate better to Native Americans.
I’m 3rd generation Okinawan/Japanese-American and have known 1st generation immigrant Korean, Chinese and Filipino women who expressed either a strong preference for or strong preference against 1st generation immigrants from their native countries. Interestingly, their preferred match-up for me was usually someone of their nationality, usually a relative or friend.
Analyze it any way you want, but when it comes to relationships, there’s no one answer for a person’s romantic choices.
I don’t know that I’d call it hostility, exactly and I don’t think it’s restricted to romantic partners - because I’ve seen it at jobs, where the Africans are one group and those from the Caribbean another group and people whose family has been in the US for generations were a third group. And while I wouldn’t say the different groups were hostile to each other, it was pretty clear to me that they had different cultures, traditions, food etc. People of any race prefer to socialize with those they have they most in common with and it’s the same for choosing a romantic partner.
One case sticks out in my head. I took a report about a baby that had been injured while in the care of a nanny. The parents were African immigrants and the nanny was a black American woman. The parents seemed very comfortable to tell me how they had made a mistake hiring a black American and used some choice racial epithets to tell me. It’s not the only time that an African immigrant for some reason felt comfortable to tell me how they felt about black Americans. That’s anecdotal of course and I have no idea how prevalent but it’s happened enough for me to notice.
That reminds me of a story I read a few years back by a young black African woman who had emigrated to the U.S. (IDR from where). She could not relate to the black American kids at her school, but she fit right in with that school’s sizable Filipino community. IIRC, she even ended up marrying the older brother of one of them.
I wouldn’t say that. It’s more of a spectrum I would say. A Belgian and a Pole would certainly be quite different culturally, but they’d likely have some things in common, like they’d most likely have been raised Catholic or at least have a familiarity with Catholicism, and they’d both like beer, and sausage, and cheese. They’d probably prefer different styles of beer, sausage, and cheese, but these things wouldn’t be completely foreign to them. They’d surely have more in common with each other than either would with a Nigerian. Likewise I would guess the differences between a Nigerian and a Kenyan would be similar to the differences between the Belgian and Pole – definitely quite different, but not as different as either of them would be from a European, or African-American, or white American.
Also, black Africans are not automatically immune to pervasive societal prejudice against African-Americans just because they have similar skin color. Plus if you’re talking about marital preferences, you’ve got traditional sexist prejudices coming into play as well as traditional racist ones.
If women are conventionally supposed to value social status in a marriage partner, and if the fellow Africans that their community traditionally ranks highest in social status are hypothetically unavailable, then it’s not surprising if their choice among American men is more influenced by American social hierarchies than by feelings of vague “racial” solidarity.
I’ve had college students from Africa who have told me about the prejudices they experienced from African-Americans. They don’t understand where it’s coming from and end up hanging out with European-American friends. I didn’t see any examples of the prejudice going the other way.
Even worse off are mixed-race folk from some Caribbean islands. The racism is not just more apparent, but since they grew up in cultures where racism was not significant and it was an entirely new and unexpected experience.
Of course, my African-American friends have regaled me with horrifying stories of racism they experience on a daily basis. (And I experienced racism and sexism at one position.)
IMHO something like this. The last five years I’ve worked with a lot of Africans and African-Americans. The fact that society as a whole tries to equate them seems to make the differences even more pronounced to them; and as a result they keep more of a distance them some would expect. Like others have said rarely have I sensed any hostility and the few times it did was from individuals who just hostile to everyone and everything so you throw those results out.