A Girl Like Me

Kiri Davis

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Self
• Esteem

[Bluntples]

I think it is pointless and counterproductive when black people try to identify themselves as Africans when they are in fact American. You never see a white people call themselves European-Americans or identify themselves as being European. Except when you get those people who think they are Irish; I know actual Irish people and hate when people do this. Your lineage from hundreds of years ago has nothing to do with who you are as a person. We are Americans.

[7tnorris]

@adamsonxxfifteen I am presuming you are talking about white friends. I think if you investigated it further you would find that they are "choosing" their heritage and picking the ones that they find most appealing to them. I am an old white man and I laugh when people start telling me their family lines saying they are 1/4 this and 1/8 that when I know that it is all a bunch of baloney. Past is nothing, only shadows - the important things are your family now and in the future.

[goshdangheck]

I'm of german heritage, but I know fuck all about my "heritage"

[ihopveggan]

@Bluntples the first europeans were not white, but whites are from europe eventually. anyways i am black and i have no idea why they tell me i am african american. what do u think we should call ourseleves

[iamthesupremesamurai]

@Bluntples European-Americans an option and choose not to. It is about having the option; this is what freedom in America affords in all other avenues. This is similar to the confusion a person who was adopted has. When you don't know anything about your past you are constantly searching for it and would like the option to just call yourself an American. A shadow over your identity is not a denial of who you are today, but a deeper understanding of how your family came to be an American.

[tfnny85]

How come people do not look at individual personality rather than outer appearance. These hair style like brize really suits to the black female as their natural beauty.....How come natural beauty has to adjusted to straightning their hair and etc for being beautiful. I think they are already pretty...current black female's fashions are getting too moderate....not like they used to be...Natural is the best.

[tmhjahusa]

@Bluntples They really mean that they are Americans of African descent. I suppose you have never heard of Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, etc., etc. With all due respect, you are ignorant! As Malcolm X said, "If a cat has babies in the oven, you do not call the babies biscuits."

[Intervalintime]

@Bluntples

Part 1: Of course you think it is pointless and counterproductive for the black people of America to identify with Africans because you're not black and therefore, have no knowledge/experience of blackness in America or the world at large. Black people and White people do not live in the same America as you might have imagined. In a land where black people are at best tolerated;

[Intervalintime]

@Bluntples

Part 2: it is important to them to have their own identity that, they as black people have chosen, rather than an identity assigned to them by mainstream (White) America. Your past is important for it formed your present and thus the African heritage is important to Black America. White America has no need to refer to themselves as European Americans;

[Intervalintime]

@Bluntples

Part 3: because in the social structure of America (and the world in general) Whites are considered superior to People of Colour and this is magnified with regards to Blacks. Therefore, the European component of the term European American becomes 'silent' because it is understood when the term American is used it is referring to a White person. You may think that all the different Americans are just Americans but Black America knows otherwise.