African - Americans : An Important Question

[BetterCallSaul]

This is in general the rule for ALL Americans. Yeah, a lot of whites know which country they have heritage from but they don't know anything about it, languages, religion or anything about the culture. I don't know why so many people outside of America find it so difficult to understand that we are making our own culture here. Our country might not be that old but that doesn't take away from the fact that we now have a few generations from this country and this is what we relate to. I could care less about where my great great great grandparents came from. I wasn't alive or ever met them.

I may have Polish heritage but I'd never consider myself Polish. Yeah, technically I guess I am but I know nothing about Polish people other than calling my grandmother Babcia and eating some Polish foods. I'm American and that's about it.

I agree with this.

I was born in England and have benefited from this nation immensely. Thus I pledge my allegiance to it fully.

I know little of my ancestry past great grand parents, and have no intention of finding out more.

We are who we are now. Repeatedly bringing up the past doesn't help anybody. We should learn from history, but not live by it.

[cupocity303]

I agree with this.

I was born in England and have benefited from this nation immensely. Thus I pledge my allegiance to it fully.

I know little of my ancestry past great grand parents, and have no intention of finding out more.

We are who we are now. Repeatedly bringing up the past doesn't help anybody. We should learn from history, but not live by it.

There also is no point in trying to go back in time and tracking down your roots & ancestors. Because if we all go back far enough, I'm pretty sure we all come from a place called Planet Earth.

[Paclan]

the difference is other immigrants weren't stolen from their homelands, shackled and chained, treated like animals and forced to build this entire country from the ground up with their blood sweat and tears for free for 400 years while their descendants are left with nothing but to be trapped in an endless cycle of crime and poverty.

While the descendants of the white people that became wealthy from 400 years of slavery are still rich to this day and hold a high majority of power in the country.

And that's real.

[The Boxing Snob]

the difference is other immigrants weren't stolen from their homelands, shackled and chained, treated like animals and forced to build this entire country from the ground up with their blood sweat and tears for free for 400 years while their descendants are left with nothing but to be trapped in an endless cycle of crime and poverty.

While the descendants of the white people that became wealthy from 400 years of slavery are still rich to this day and hold a high majority of power in the country.

And that's real.

what happened to the expert who started this thread.

[LoftyDog]

I knew a black guy who laughed when he was called an African American, because he's from Trinidad, so he wasn't African or American.

[Money Shot]

AA's should just be glad they are not in black Africa, period. None of them would live in countries that don't have the white man's sanitation or power grids, never mind the death and squalor that cuts lifespans in half. A black guy in Liberia or Sierra Leone is lucky to get to 40.

[Danny Gunz]

Fun fact: there was a plan by Lincoln that never went through (I don't know if it got shot down, or Lincoln just died before he could make moves on it) that would have sent all the newly freed slaves after the civil war to the west to start their own civilizations.

[Chups]

The same goes for White Americans. You can only say Italian-American, Polish American if they came from there or both parents came from there. But generally Caucasians in America are just plainly called Americans.

[Big BRICKS]

No offense to anyone's elders, but they got lured onto boats with pancakes. Are you really asking why they didn't retain their language and liberate themselves?

Get the **** outta here

[2501]

I think part of that was because the majority of slaves were forced to accept a different culture, religion and class in a different society. Through hundreds of years of oppression, their identity was washed away forced to adapt to a completely different world. From this, they created a new ancestry, a new history from which they spawned generations. For many "African Americans", their history began in the United States, not Africa.

As for me, I'm content with saying I'm just an American. My parents are from Mexico and I've lived there. I have dual citizenship, but before anything, I am an American. When the USA faces Mexico in Soccer, I cheer for the USA. As far as my ancestry, the farthest I've been able to track it has been a great, great grandfather of mine who was a Captain in the Mexican Army and on the other side, a semi famous criminal grandfather.