Posted on 11/19/2005 7:50:05 AM PST by Imnotalib
Why blacks should stay in Africa.
by Constant Sabang in "Le Quotidien Mutations"
Africans dreaming of a better life shouldn’t look to America, said Constant Sabang in Yaounde’s Le Quotidien Mutations. Every year when the U.S. visa lottery comes around, thousands of Africans, among them many Cameroonians, apply for a chance to “become a nephew of Uncle Sam.” A few of them even win one of the coveted green cards allotted to African countries. But what do they find when they leave Cameroon? They have given up their national identity, not to mention their passports, to become second-class citizens. For black people, America is “not the land of opportunity.” Jobs, if they can be found, are of the most menial kind, and people with dark skin are still outsiders. Those images we saw on TV recently of inundated Louisiana and Mississippi present the true picture of America, not the glossy “Hollywood superproductions or promotional videos” that capture our imaginations. The footage of black people crying on the roofs of their shacks might as well have come from Niger or Sudan. For all its great wealth and power, the U.S. is at bottom a Darwinian society. It is “a jungle, where the strong feed off the weak.”
Maybe, maybe not. My sister works in the hospitality industry. They hire huge numbers of recent immigrants. She says it is quite common for a Bosnian or Croatian to come here not knowing a word of English and without two nickels to rub together, and in two or three years he is a manager, speaking good English. They often leave to start their own businesses, or go to college and become executives or professionals.
On the other hand, immigrants from more tropical climes will work until the end of their days at the same job, sometimes turning down promotions if they require learning English or working longer hours.
This is not because the white immigrants are favored by racism, either. Quite to the contrary. The company goes to excruciating pains to figure out how many non-whites they need to promote, whether qualified or not, to satisfy the Federal quota mongers. Moreover, she sees the same pattern of maniacal ambition and self-improvement amongst some non-white immigrant groups, like the Vietnamese and Chinese.
The professors and pundits can argue about whether it is cultural or genetic, but there is no question that immigrants from some countries do way better than those from other countries.
What a bunch of crap...I know some Cameroonians very well. They came here 7 years ago....worked very hard, and have since bought their dream home. It took them two years to save enough for furniture. Unlike in their own country, here Americans are rewarded for putting in long hours and hard work...The USA has proven to be their dream come true.
I can concur with this. I am a former casino dealer in Atlantic City (still living in the area), and many of my former co-workers (and current neighbors) are from places like Vietnam, China, India, Cuba and other "workers' paradises". The work ethic displayed by first generation Americans from these countries is incredible. Many of them would take second jobs, and work 70-80 hours a week, while living very humble lifestyles so they could save up enough money to purchase rental properties or to invest in other businesses (dollar stores, motels, grocery stores, gas stations, etc.). Two of my former co-workers (one Vietnamese, and one Cuban) who purchased several modest rental properties throughout the mid to late 90's are now worth over $1 million. They still work as casino employees for the company medical benefits, but they are living the American dream. My Cuban friend, who came here in the early 90's, explained that the drive to own property in the U.S. came from the fact that he couldn't own anything in Cuba, no matter how hard he worked. My Vietnamese friend (who still has a heavy accent) used to ask me: "How can people be poor in the U.S. when you can speak English?" I didn't know how to answer him. He came here with nothing, had poor English skills, and worked menial jobs (dishwasher, bus boy) until he was able to get a casino license, lived in a rented room (No TV), and saved his money so he could purchase one property a year. No new car, no big screen TV. He purchased some modestly priced rental properties in Atlantic City and in the surrounding area that needed some work, and now he is sitting on a "mini-empire" of real estate. What is interesting is the fact that some native born Americans will direct some bitterness towards these people, thinking that they were somehow "given" these opportunities, or that they were obtained at the expense of someone else. When people say that the U.S. isn't so great, I ask them to follow the migration. I don't see too many people leaving the U.S. to live in Africa, Europe, or the mid east, and I certainly don't see many people in Miami risking their lives, swimming through shark filled waters for an "opporunity" to live in the communist "woker's paradise" of Cuba. God Bless America.
Not even an African, grasping for the worst hyperbole, can be that dense.
How does he explain rap stars and basketball players?
I do agree with him that the blacks depicted by hollywood tend to become cartoonish (A movie with 12 main characters have 6 of them be the director, the doctor, the physicist, the pilot, which devolves into comedy when a black actress lab technician uses a microscope lie a fiddle...
On the other hand, New Orleans ain't it either.
Can we do something about that "liberal" word? Please?
I realized that it still carries a smidgen of respectability while it deserves none.
"Liberal" and "Progressives" is never a word I now use. I call them CTGS, pronounced "Cuh-Tigs", which stands for "Cradle To Grave Socialists"...
Just listen to the House debates on reducing the deficit... The CTGSs heads are about to explode...
Actually this article serves a useful purpose. If it disuades the useless, the lazy, the ignorant, who lie around and catch fruit falling from trees and do little else, from believing that in America it's the same, only instead of fruit it's Plasma big-screens, Mercedeces and bling-bling...
I will bet money that the people you're talking about are better educated than the average African immigrant, but maybe I should have said, "A white man from Bosnia with no skills and the average education" and without the willingness to do something about either ...
Where do you live that Bosnians and Croatians are working in large numbers in hospitals? Im my area (WV) we're deluged with foreign doctors, mostly Muslims from Arab nations. Mexicans haven't made it this far north in large numbers, and Russians haven't made it this far south from NJ.
What great points! Blacks in africa are doing so much better than blacks in the states! (Sarcasm) Hah! What PC BS. The average inner city poor black is much better off than the average well off African and worlds better off than a poor african.
pinging the king
The writer is French, which includes a lot of those other adjectives. It is easier to say "French" then to have to string together "stupid," "arrogant," "unwashed," etc.
The whole article sounds racist to me.
I said "hospitality", not "hospitals. " i.e., hotels and restaurants. These people are starting work as groundskeepers and dish washers, not doctors.
-ccm
An attempt to stop a brain drain from an African country...
Whoops, should have put my glasses on....
A-ASS
Even a second class citizen is better off in America than Cameroon.
I met Welsh immigrants in San Diego who waited upwards of 9 years for an immigration lottery opportunity to emigrate to the U. S. They had to have sponsors and find satisfactory employment. All of them are now citizens, but it was a far cry from the BS that happens daily on the Mexican border. I suspect the African immigrants playing by the rules are experiencing a similar delay.
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