Or rather, a lack of them. It strikes me that a country (Liberia)established by freed African American slaves, and facing one of the worst humanitarian disasters Africa has seen in a while would have African Americans out on the streets demanding intervention by Bush. But not a sound. Why is that?
Only a tiny minority of Liberia’s population is descended from freed slaves.
I don’t think the average American (African slash or otherwise) knows what Liberia is. It’s not like it gets much coverage in the American media. I also would guess that most Americans, black, white, or other, are basically too focused on their own problems to care much, especially if the government and the media aren’t trying to whip them into a frenzy about it.
Hey, here’s a cynical idea for you. Immediately after Liberia’s founding in 1820, some of the freed slaves began EXPORTING slaves to South America. Kinda sick, huh?
Just my $.02.
I always thought of Liberia started as an American colony started by American Blacks. Not to be sarcastic, but I wonder how the native Africans there felt about the idea that their land would be used so forgien blacks could move in and live there?
As Diogenes says only a tiny minority are descended from African slaves, most of the population is native to the region. The descendants of former slaves despite only being a very small part of the population however, have dominated the Liberian power structure.
95% of the population are native, 2.5% are descended from American slaves and 2.5% are descended from Caribbean slaves:
Which is one of the reasons for the current civil war.
The African American interest in Africa seems to me to be remarkably low in general. For a group/race that takes such pride in the African name, very few seem to go there. (I have lived in a number of African countries over the years). As I pointed out in a post some months ago, interest in visiting Africa is so limited that not one US Airline flies to Africa. (Althopugh there are a couple of code-shares operated by African carriers).
Well Rider, actually what comes to mind is what is your little obsession with this topic? This is perhaps the fourth thread you’ve started around the idea black Americans should be somehow flocking to Africa.
(a) I’m not sure where you’re getting this “group race that takes such pride” in the name thing.
(b) Interest in Africa in re cultural reasons is perhaps not the same as political motivation. That’s not unusual, see it in other groups.
© Your flights to Africa issue strikes me as poorly concieved, insofar as it doesn’t strike me that even if every black American was inclined to fly off to Africa, that would support in the long term direct US flights. Further to that, you entirely forget the issue of purchasing power.
(d) The assumption appears to be in this series of threads of yours that somehow black Americans are not living up to some yardstick of interest, which is not clearly stated. As far as I could ever tell, the Congressional Black Caucus was among the only ‘African’ focused pressure groups on policy on Africa, so that seems to be a level of interest. Americans in general are rather insular so it is hardly a surprise that black Americans are not totally different. What the fuck do you think should be the case?
(e) So the fuck what? What’s the fucking obsession?
Collounsbury, take ten deep breaths and glass of rum. Then come back a bit more relaxed.
In other words, chill a bit. It’s just a message board.
Yep, chill out. It’s only my second post on the subject in several months. And it was brought about by the current situation in Liberia, which is topical. And why shouldn’t I take an interest?
Did I touch a raw nerve?
I think what’s a concern is why do African- Americans warrant such interest? Do Irish, Italian, German, Latin americans follow en mass, every ‘interesting’ events in their ‘homeland’? From personal experience I say no. BYMV.
Are ** they **questioned as to why they "as a group/race that takes such pride in the African name, very few seem to go there. "? No. They have their parades and throw up in the streets and all this well.
Let’s take this a step further, I don’t think I’m pushing the limits, if I say that most African Americans have no idea and will never know what part of Africa their family came from. Hell I would imagine, that most have as much ‘bloodties’ to Europe as they do Africa at this point.
I think any attempt at African kinship would be forced. It isn’t like being an Italian and being born into two cultures. African Americans are AMERICANS, whose only ties to Africa is a matter of genetics, not culture and culture is what matters. The problem is their culture (America) is one that told them that they are ‘bad’…
The US did everything that it could to break the ties to Africa that the early slaves had. For many centuries Africa and everything relatived to it was bad. How can they relate to it?
Let’s try this, I mean, if you were taken away from you father and your mother told you what a loser he was, would you want to see him? Even if you kept his name, you still couldn’t relate to him. That bond is broken and even if wanted to, chances are it would always be ‘forced’.
What’s your question, because the answer seems fairly apparent to me.
Was there a poll somewhere that showed the majority of black people in the US prefer to be called African American? What’s very few? How many should go?
Chill? I am chill. A few fucks don’t make me unchill. I do, however, need more Cuban stock.
As to Rider: you’ve had a series of dumb-ass questions all more or less on the subject of black Americans and some vague and not quite clearly stated critique-assumption about their relationship with Africa being inadequate in your eyes. Thus my response, getting to the heart of the matter rather than namby pamby beating round the bush.
Irish Americans go to Ireland by the planeload every day, as do other European Americans go to their ancestral homelands in large numbers. My original question concerned the seeming lack of interest in the one country in Africa that has tangible connections with the emancipation and return to Africa of blacks. The airline comment was just an aside.
I’m not finger-pointing, just asking.
Black Americans to go countries in Africa by the planeload, too! There’s an annual trip to Africa sponsored by the church my mother attends. They get no less than 100 people to go every year.
The point that you don’t get, is that there is ** no** real tangible connection. 2.5% is hardly tangible compared to say 100% of European American having a ancestral homeland to point to.
I don’t know any Irish-Americans (but that’s me) who have any desire to visit Ireland, but plenty of Irish who want to leave Ireland by the ‘planeload’. I’m sure you can give a precise number what constiutes a ‘planeload’ right?
What percentage of say 4th generation Italian, German, Irish Americans visit or even care about their native homelands? Do you know?
In order to ask this question honestly, you have realize that at least in my experience most 3rd or 4th generation Europeans consider themselves AMERICANS first and whatever 2nd. However they still demand the right to use the ‘whatever’. African-Americans are no different, and you seem to be holding them to a different standard.
Anyway I hope this answers your question.
Where were the Irish-Americans out in the street demanding that Nixon intervene after Bloody Sunday?
Where were the Croatian-Americans and Slovenian-Americans and Serbian-Americans out in the street demanding that Bush and Clinton do something about the fragmentation of Yugoslavia?
Actually, there were a few demonstrations for each of those situations, just as there have been a few demonstrations in regards to Liberia (although most of the recent pressure has been in the form of private meetings or position statements by organized groups rather than street demonstrations).
The fact is that there is, as Holmes has noted, a good deal of separation between the people in the “old country” and the U.S. citizens and while there have been efforts to encourage the U.S. to do something, the efforts of blacks regarding Liberia are little different than the efforts of whites regarding their troubled ancestral lands.
Maybe folks could get some information from reading here:
http://www.thestranger.com/2001-07-12/feature.html
There is quite a divide between real Africans and African-Americans, it seems…
I’m struggling to see how your article is germane to the OP or to any other post in this thread, Dogface. So far, I’m not doing so well. Care to assist?