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Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

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Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#361

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #96
drumhead wrote: post #62

Adele, the singer, was photographed at the Nottinghill Carnival (a massive Carribean street festival over the August bank holiday in London) with her hair in Bantu Knots and wearing a bikini top in the colours of the Jamaican flag. As soon as it was on twitter the you started getting tweets from Black Americans about cultural appropriation, but this was met in turn by fierce opposition from African and Carribean post…

As a British person with Caribbean family background, I found the reaction to this from the internet so strange. In Britain it's normal that the different cultures here mix. Shops selling Baltic bread, next to shops selling jerk chicken, across the road from a traditional English pub. People of all colours and backgrounds frequenting all of them. From an outside perspective, people in the USA seem very pre-occupied w…

what happens in the U.S. is that white people take everyone's culture and continue to marginalize and disrespect minorities. It happened with the bible. It happened with karate. It happened with rock music. So people kind of have their guard up. Misinformation is so rampant here that adele very well could become the inventor of dred locks if people don't make enough noise about it.

So people still react like this because it wasn't too long ago that back to the future was implying that Chuck Berry stole the idea for Johnny B Good from a white person. That's an example right there straight from my parents' childhood.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#362

Post by dontcarethrow2 »

sergiotapia wrote: post #311
matthewmacleod wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common example would be profiting from cultural developments or ideas from cultures that had been historically looked down upon or disadvantaged by your own, particularly when doing so in a disrespectful manner. For example – a white European artist designing fabrics and prints with traditionally African patterns, without acknowledging the contribution or involving members of that community, would sit uneasily with…

lol, are you african? Why are you getting offended on behalf of people? Laughable! I'm Bolivian, when I see someone selling clothing with indigena designs I love it because it reminds me of home.

It would seem very strange to stop and question who made the design before you can enjoy it.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#363

Post by DanBC »

dspillett wrote: post #195
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a British person with Caribbean family background, I found the reaction to this from the internet so strange. In Britain it's normal that the different cultures here mix. Shops selling Baltic bread, next to shops selling jerk chicken, across the road from a traditional English pub. People of all colours and backgrounds frequenting all of them. From an outside perspective, people in the USA seem very pre-occupied w…

The issue is people being offended on behalf of others (which is itself not a bad thing: we should be conscious of where we might be using culturally significant signals inappropriately, or otherwise causing offence) but being hyper-sensitive and seeing offence where it doesn't really exist in the groups that they think they are standing up for. > pre-occupied with continuing a culture of segregation I think were "cu…

To be clear there were plenty of Black British people who were annoyed at the Bantu knots, as well as people who didn't care.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#364

Post by romanoderoma »

akvadrako wrote: post #324
romanoderoma wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Racist police is a popular media narrative, but it's not backed up by evidence. What I posted earlier IS evidence. It comes from official statistics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6080222/ Victims were majority white (52%) but disproportionately black (32%) with a fatality rate 2.8 times higher among blacks than whites I imagined people from the US knew their country better than me, that am from Italy…

You may be misreading that paper because it doesn't back up your claim. Blacks are more likely to have confrontations with police and also more likely to be killed by them. There are explanations for that which aren't police racism. Blacks also have a higher fatality rate for being murdered by criminals. The ratio is many times higher than 2.8. Are you saying the criminals are racist?

To be clear, you may not understand what the problem is.

For 2019, it reported a total of 1,004 people shot and killed by police

It's 1 kill every 328 thousands citizens.

In my country it's 1 every 20 millions.

20,000,000/328,000 =~ 60

If you can't see that's what you would expect from a narco state run by warlord criminals, I don't really know how to help you.

Or maybe that's exactly what you want.

Because what you are saying is that the police in your country have, more or less, the same behaviour of criminals.

You might be onto something there.

Enjoy your violence man...

But I don't wish for it in my backyard

Sorry not sorry!

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#365

Post by dang »

nathias wrote: post #7

I never even heard of anyone being as racist as americans are when trying not to be.

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN, especially on inflammatory topics.

You managed to combine race flamewar and nationalistic flamewar with this one-liner. That's bomb tossing. No more of this on HN, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#366

Post by dang »

nathias wrote: post #313
nobody9999 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I never even heard of anyone being as racist as americans are when trying not to be. As I'm an American, feel free to reject my comment out of hand. That said, yes there's plenty of racism in the US. Sure, it's fun to sneer at Americans and feel superior. Knock yourself out. However, you seem ignorant of reality and of history. In many cases the issue isn't that most Americans are actively thinking about how inferio…

Thank you for giving a nice example. You people assume so much and know so little ...

Flamewar comments, and especially personal attacks, will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong or annoying another commment is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#367

Post by Yetanfou »

charlescearl wrote: post #357
oedmarap wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from the Caribbean and I can attest to this. We're always baffled at the neuroticism of America's obsession with identity politics and tribalism, especially as it relates to race and culture. In my country for example we have six distinct races/ethnicities, from indigenous to post-colonial. When either has a celebration or period of cultural remembrance, we openly dress, cook, and celebrate in the same manner. Th…

My spouse grew up in Botswana. Despite living a few miles from the site of the first known location of a religious ceremony of our species —- in other words a place of transcendent human history, of Black history —- it was always the colonizer centered in her formal schooling. An anecdote that in my experience in the Caribbean and in Africa ( I am most familiar with southern Africa) the process of decolonization stil…

You do realise that your wife's Bantu-speaking ancestors displaced the Khoi and San (also known as bushmen) when they invaded the area which is now known as Botswana I hope? If you insist on decolonising Botswana it is not the western coloniser (who gave up its colonies in 1966) who bears the brunt of shame but the Bantu-speaking Kalanga since they displaced the original population - the Khoi and San go back a long time, back to the dawn of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. If your wife descends from Tswana-speaking people she doesn't escape guilt since the Bakgalagadi moved into the southern Kalahari which was, again, previously inhabited by the San and Khoi. Or did she maybe descend from the Toutswe who came out of the east and invaded parts of the territory now known as Botswana? Or maybe she descends from the Bakwena who moved into the southern Kalahari and displaced the Bakgalagadi (who earlier on had displaced the San and Khoi)? Should she descend from the Bangwaketse she has ancestors who occupied parts of western Botswana, if instead she has her ancestry with the Bangwato she'll be sad to learn that her ancestors occupied parts of Botswana which were formerly held by the Kalanga. Eventually the Batawana moved into the Okavango delta, one of the last refuges for the Khoi and San in Botswana so if she descends from them the memory of her ancestors' guilt is still fresh - the late 1700's.

Maybe it is better to take history as it is, learn lessons from where things went wrong so those mistakes are not repeated and look forward instead of back?

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#368

Post by berryjerry »

human_person wrote: post #355
drumhead wrote: post #62

Adele, the singer, was photographed at the Nottinghill Carnival (a massive Carribean street festival over the August bank holiday in London) with her hair in Bantu Knots and wearing a bikini top in the colours of the Jamaican flag. As soon as it was on twitter the you started getting tweets from Black Americans about cultural appropriation, but this was met in turn by fierce opposition from African and Carribean post…

I think context is really key here. A friend (who is a descendant of slaves) once told me that one reason hairstyles in particular are are such a sensitive subject, they were literally the only piece of culture/heritage people were able to bring with them on slave ships. When families were ripped apart it it was a connection/ritual they could hold onto no matter what. Fast forward to the recent past and black people…

I don't see consistency in logic. If the hairstyles were not accepted then 'wealthy white women' wouldn't be celebrated/complimented for adopting them. If anything having them become more celebrated by all would have those hairstyles more accepted than ever.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#369

Post by phatfish »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #83

To add some numbers to this debate - the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published a survey (Nov 2018) that examined the experiences of almost 6,000 people of African descent in 12 EU Member States. The report includes survey results from Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Sweden and the UK. It paints a varied picture across the countries survey…

I'm pretty sure this correlates heavily to the size of the black population in each country.

The UK having the largest and most well integrated black population shows in the lower instances of reported harassment. This rings true for me, certainly there is disenfranchisement and other forms of racism, but outright harassment is not something you see often (saying this as a white person). Honestly I would expect Polish and other eastern Europeans to face more harassment.

France I feel has a reasonably large black population but probably not as well integrated.

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