“Many Africans gain their perceptions of the Diaspora through a colonized, White Supremacist lens. I grew up in New York City for most of my life, first Queens and now Brooklyn, and I noticed, when I got older, a certain attitude among African classmates (particularly Nigerians and Ghanaians) who were trying so desperately to emulate pop images of what society deemed was an acceptable representation of “African-American Culture”. A lot of what entails Black American cultural influence on communities outside of Black America isn’t a 100% accurate portrayal of Black American culture at all. In fact, a lot of what I see counts as “Black American influence” on-Black American communities is actually a bunch of rubbish as well as cultural appropriation. I find it very telling that non-Black American people know more about “ghetto culture” and thugs and gangsta rap imagery and all of these other problematic images of Black Americans, but know nothing about Gullah-Geechee culture, Southern Negro folktales, Black American spiritual traditions, the History of Black American music. Africans will come to America with no knowledge of who Black American History whatsoever, and say some of the most horrifying things imaginable against us; classifying us as “uneducated”, “lazy”, “dirty”, “castaways”, despite our glaring, ongoing accomplishments. However, I understand where these sentiments come from. Blacks have forever been the pariahs of American society. All other groups, even Indigenous peoples (with which we have a long and complex history) have, one way or another, sought to elevate themselves above us because they knew that, in the system of White Supremacy, Black peoples were at the bottom. This is called Anti-Blackness, and it exists in Caribbean countries as well, especially those such as Trinidad and the Dominican Republic where a sizeable part of the population is non-African in origin.

When nationality is added to the mix, it becomes anti-Black Americanness. Black Americans, forever the caretakers of this society, have been in competition with other ethnic groups who immigrated here throughout its entire history, such as Italians, the Irish and European Jews, all of which “achieved Whiteness” by participating in the subjugation of Black Americans. Black Africans and Black Caribbeans also participate in this subjugation in various ways, but it’s essentially futile because they are Black peoples and cannot gain the graces and favors of White Society at all. I think it’s incumbent upon Africans to learn about the History of the African Diaspora, holistically, just as it’s incumbent upon the African Diaspora to learn about the History of Africa.”

-Jonathan Turner 

excerpt from “Who is African,” read entire post