[spetznaz]

There is very little love lost between Africans living in the United States and African-Americans. I would know as I am the former, and if I was to honestly open up on the subject I would be banned in less than sixty seconds. Consequently, I think the prudent way to put it would be ‘there is little love lost.’

In terms of where the vitriol stems from, it primarily arises from the fact that most (first generation) Africans in the US came for tertiary education. That means either 1) their families had to pay through the nose to give their children the best education; and/or 2) they only managed to scrounge enough cash to get to the US and thus they have to work several jobs to pay tuition. Then they arrive here to meet a group of people that speak funny, wear pants that don’t cover their behinds, and a number are deficient when it comes to critical thinking, theory of knowledge and general intelligence.

Then these people unable to wear pants have the temerity to come and tell us we are ‘acting white’ because we don’t ape their sartorial (lack of) style, do not copy their (imbecilic) mode of ‘speech,’ or that we prefer studying (which is what brought us to the US in the first place) rather than dribbling some orange ball. I think that is what really sticks in our craw ...the judgement from people who really should not be judging us. Judging us because we want to study hard (which in most cases is because we know the difficulties in Africa and want to rise above that), and then someone mocks us for that?

We may ‘look’ the same (actually not really - even in college I wore a suit for most of my MBA classes), but the difference is profound. Take education - African immigrants in the US are some of the most educated immigrant groups in the States ( African Immigrants often more educated than other immigrants ) yet a good number of African-Americans don’t even graduate high school. Yet they try and lecture us on what we should or shouldn’t do? Someone who thinks Socrates is a brand of gold-teeth grill (and 10K gold at that, not even proper gold) or that fluid dynamics is how to gargle mouthwash tries to tell us how to ‘conduct’ ourselves so we can fit in?

Ridiculous!

Anyway, rant over. No love lost.

[krogers58]

Welcome to America! It is truly a pleasure to read your comment, and your studying habits are evident in your mastery of English. I am glad to have you as a fellow citizen - we can never have too many people of character in this country. Your parents must be proud of you!

[Celtic Conservative]

Thank you for your insights. It seems to square with my experiences.

CC

[A_perfect_lady]

I have been teaching in L.A. for 16 years, and one year I had a beautiful Nigerian student who was doing really well at first, but then started hanging out with the locals and acting like them. Her grade went down. Her mother came in and I said, very carefully, that her daughter seemed to be trying to fit in with certain types... oh my God, her mother went ballistic on the child. She went off like a bomb. I mean, she shot to her feet and stood over that girl, one finger pointed at her and one at the ceiling, and I thought lightning was going to come down, run through her and zap the child to dust. I have never seen an indoor thunderstorm like that. I was shrinking back in my chair. I didn't know if the girl was going to survive the night. LOL!!

Boy, did her parents straighten her out. They took all her civilian clothes and made her wear her school uniform all day, nights, weekends, until she brought up her grade (which I thought was genius.) I'll never forget that lady.