# Where is the African community doing best? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 10, 2012, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363 "2012-03-10T03:53:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/21 "2012-03-18T22:51:48Z")
In case anyone is wondering, I completely reorganized the paper around the military angle. The great thing about creaking bureaucratic machines (ie., governments) is that they publish lots and lots of statistics, so there are tons of government reports about racial integration in the various military establishments of countries with significant black populations. > [@TriPolar](#): > > I though Obama was white. What makes him black? Popular perception. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/22 "2012-03-18T22:56:18Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > There was slavery in Canada in colonial days. [Slavery in Canada - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Canada) > Well, not much, and before the modern state of Canada. There was also [Africville.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africville), and we’re not without racial tensions. It’s certainly been a better history than the Americans on this issue, but it’s not like it’s been all peaches and cream here either. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/23 "2012-03-19T08:25:36Z")
Since I assume you are talking about Black people outside of Africa, I would bring up Barbados, It’s got a high HDI, very little corruption and it’s richer than some EU countries. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/24 "2012-03-19T08:27:01Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I though Obama was white. What makes him black? His relative blackness, compared to the ultrapasty senators he’s photographed with. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/25 "2012-03-19T10:23:54Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Yes. The paper I’m writing is specifically about the African diaspora- ie., communities of people forced to leave Africa (whether as slaves or otherwise). How do you define “diaspora” and “forced”? I would consider economic migrants to be part of their culture’s diaspora, but “moving because there’s people trying to kill my people”, “moving because I’ve heard there’s more to eat elsewhere” and “moving because I want to go to grad school and they’re kind of lacking in my country” are three very different motivations. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/26 "2012-03-19T13:16:39Z")
I wouldn’t define diaspora as involving force, but the professor apparently does. For his purposes, I’ll use the first and second definition but probably not the third. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/27 "2012-03-20T14:25:33Z")
Then a lot of the Nigerians in the US or in the UK don’t qualify. Many African immigrants (or children thereof) in the armies of those countries, OTOH, will. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/28 "2012-03-20T19:05:14Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In the interest of full disclosure, this is for a paper I’m working on. I’m not asking for you to do my homework, though; just looking for ideas. > > We all know that blacks in the US lag behind whites and other minorities in terms of median income, home ownership, education, and numerous other metrics. I don’t want to rehash why; there are plenty of other threads for that. > > What I’m looking for is what other countries (or US communities) have done the best job of integrating their black communities; not just where there is the least subjective racism, but where median income, quality of life and so on in the black community most closely mirrors that of other groups. Maybe it’s a terminology thing but I don’t understand the premise; I work with and know plenty of non-white British people and I don’t know any who want to be ‘integrated’, whatever that is. What is it? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/29 "2012-03-20T22:19:56Z")
“Integrated” is a bit limiting, but in essence it means “not segregated”, or not treated differently from whites. In the context of the military I’ll be talking more about whether they are discriminated against in terms of hiring and promotion. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/30 "2012-03-21T00:26:14Z")
OK, so “What I’m looking for is what other countries (or US communities) have done the best job of…not segregating, or not treated differently from whites”? segregating - seriously? Are you talking maybe about equality, effectiveness of anti-discrimination legislation? I don’t mean to be rude but maybe you could think about the language you’re using. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/31 "2012-03-21T03:12:53Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In the interest of full disclosure, this is for a paper I’m working on. I’m not asking for you to do my homework, though; just looking for ideas. > > We all know that blacks in the US lag behind whites and other minorities in terms of median income, home ownership, education, and numerous other metrics. I don’t want to rehash why; there are plenty of other threads for that. > > What I’m looking for is what other countries (or US communities) have done the best job of integrating their black communities; not just where there is the least subjective racism, but where median income, quality of life and so on in the black community most closely mirrors that of other groups. > > Somebody suggested Canada, and I’m looking into that. Answering your question is complicated by the fact that populations that are visibly African in appearance will disappear with time due to racial mixing, unless people of African descent make up most of the total population. The one exception to this is the US, where the black population has remained apart from the rest of the US population through legal barriers, social custom, and extra legal violence. Mexico had African slaves on a fairly large scale, but there are relatively few visibly black people in Mexico today, aside from small remnant populations on the Caribbean coast. Do a DNA analysis on the Mexican population as a whole, however, and you see that the population has 8 % African ancestry. In Puerto Rico, the population as a whole is split evenly between African and European ancestry, with some Native American ancestry as well. But half the population of PR isn’t black. What you have is a small black minority, a small white minority, with the bulk of the population with skin in various shades of brown and tan. Do a DNA analysis on this population, and what you find is that the whiter looking Puerto Ricans can have substantial amounts of African ancestry, and that some of the black Puerto Ricans have majority European ancestry. So who counts as black, and what does it mean? The blacks in Britain are relatively recent immigrants. Given that half of black people in Britain marry whites, the black British population will disappear within a century, barring substantial immigration from Africa and the Caribbean. Black Americans, on the other hand, have lived in the US in large numbers from its colonial beginnings. How can you usefully compare the two populations? In short, in societies where black people are in the minority, and not intensely persecuted, they will usually just fade into the general population over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/32 "2012-03-21T09:42:28Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > segregating - seriously? Something which had Spanish authorities pretty worried was the self-segregation of immigrants from China. It’s getting better now, but the first ones came long enough ago that their grandchildren are graduating college; some of those first ones are retired and need an interpreter any time they’re out of their Chinese-speaking bubble. AFAIK, no other group has had that problem to such an extent. Segregation can exist both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/33 "2012-03-21T13:25:34Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > In short, in societies where black people are in the minority, **and not intensely persecuted** , they will usually just fade into the general population over the years. [my bolding] That’s kind of the rub, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/34 "2012-03-21T14:19:09Z")
Where has a black population “faded into the general background”? All I see is often large vibrant ethnic communuties often but not always based around church and school. This is like a parallel universe - do you people all live in some weird mid west smallville? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/35 "2012-03-21T14:42:29Z")
Did you read **Belowjob** ’s post? Lewis Hamilton’s heritage was a bigger issue in this board than with any of the European Formula 1 fans I know; for Americans he’s black, for us he’s British. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/36 "2012-03-21T14:57:29Z")
That says more about American attitudes to race than it does about British attitudes. Americans just have trouble getting their heads around the idea that other countries have immigrant populations too. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/37 "2012-03-21T15:15:26Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Did you read **Belowjob** ’s post? Lewis Hamilton’s heritage was a bigger issue in this board than with any of the European Formula 1 fans I know; for Americans he’s black, for us he’s British. No, I didn’t know about that. I just don’t understand the language being used here. It’s like the 1960s or something. Without something approaching real world, I don’t know what’s being asked… ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/38 "2012-03-21T16:24:27Z")
Just another perspective: I don’t exactly know what “doing best” means, but the North is losing blacks and the South is gaining them. > **[Many U.S. Blacks Moving to South, Reversing Trend (Published 2011)](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/us/25south.html?pagewanted=all)** > > The percentage of the nation’s African-American population living in the South has hit its highest point in half a century, census data shows. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/39 "2012-03-22T02:49:12Z")
To be more precise, there was a trend for blacks to move from the South to the North over essentially all of American history. This was especially true from the early twentieth century to the 1960’s. In the 1970’s this turned around. There’s now a tendency for blacks to move from the North to the South, but it’s not by a huge amount. For what it’s worth, there’s also now a tendency for whites to move from the North to the South, and this is also a reverse of the movement that ended in the 1960’s. I suspect that these two trends happened for the same reason. Until the end of the 1960’s, there were clearly more industrial jobs in the North. Then a lot of companies decided that they could manufacture things cheaper in the South where the wages tended to be less and the labor laws tended to be less restrictive. A certain amount of manufacturing thus moved from the North to the South and workers moved to follow those jobs. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363/40 "2012-03-22T09:31:30Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That says more about American attitudes to race than it does about British attitudes. Americans just have trouble getting their heads around the idea that other countries have immigrant populations too. Yeah, the one drop rule makes a big difference in race relationships. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-african-community-doing-best/615363.md?page=1)