I’ve known middle & upper middle class blacks who’ve visited Africa. They usually kiss the ground when they get back here, if you take my meaning.
“Since the dawn of history the black man has owned the continent of Africa – rich beyond the dream of poet’s fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet and yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light.”
“His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled. A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour. In a land of stone and timber he never sawed a foot of lumber, carved a block, or built a house save of broken sticks and mud.”
“With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for four thousand years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizon calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed a sail.”
— Charles Darwin
I'm glad you acknowledge this group of people. And these groups exists in all racial category, i.e., those who are thankful for what they have here in America.
However, just as there are the Panthers, there were groups called the Aryan Nation, Neo Nazi, Skin Heads, and the KKK. These folks weren't exactly thankful of what they had either. Only difference, is that the system opposed them first until they no longer exist or exist in the very fringe of society. The Black Panthers, while they may still exist, or get away with things that white fringe groups would have difficulty getting away with, have much less influence than they did in he past. In the 60's, the Black Panthers were very prominent, as well as the Nation of Islam. Today, they either don't exist or are not influential in a significant way.
We need to keep in mind, most African Americans go to church on Sundays, are thankful to be Americans, and contribute to the law and order that exists here.
Despite what may seem unfair at times, i.e., as in the case of Zimmerman, African American males have suffered injustice in the US as well. And I am not talking about a century ago. In the last few decades, several hundred men from the prison system have been released via DNA evidence. Most of them, you guessed it, are African Amercan.
So, while I do not agree with the treatment Zimmerman is getting, my overall point is, it is not as one sided as most people think.
Ocassionally, when an African American male is shot by police or someone in authority, it makes front page news. However, MOST DO NOT. This one situation, happens to make front page news. There was even a situation, in a Southern State at a defense plant, where a white gunman went on a rampage (the 90's, there abouts) and deliberately targeted black coworkers. Saying they were uppity. And, because the black workers did not press it in the aftermath, it simply didn't receive as much attention as this Zimmerman case.
I've met a few of the same. They aren't liked by true black Africans. It makes me wonder why they want to be known as African-American