James01

[Noni Edozie @Hibana122]

Igbo masquerade of old looked more scary,but so mysterious and beautiful.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

Our ancestors are African, specifically West and Central African, but culturally we aren’t African, and that’s okay.

Saying that we aren’t African and have developed our own distinct communities, cultures and ethnic identities isn’t a slight against our African ancestors.

Acknowledging our ancestry doesn’t mean pretending centuries of history in America didn’t create a distinct people and culture.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

Your whole page is just disrespecting Black Americans, but you’re complaining about and generalizing all of us as being disrespectful.

You’re just as hateful and ignorant as the people you’re angry at for being hateful and ignorant.

Xenophobia isn’t okay coming from either side, but both sides think of themselves as these innocent, perfect angels who can do no wrong.

You’re just calling the kettle black. Diaspora wars, regardless of which side is having them, are just two ass cheeks arguing over who’s shittier.

[Tata Rompe Pecho© 🇨🇺 @TataRompePecho]

Not all ATRs is Ifa.

Let’s introduce yall to some new spiritualities and ATRs/ADRs:

Palo Mayombe
Vodou
Akan
Obeah
Sangoma
Hoodoo
Espiritismo
21 Divisions
Umbanda
Kumina
….

There’s more…

[James01 @LundenP7903]

None of those things prove your argument that we don’t have culture.

Music LITERALLY is an aspect of culture. You also don’t need to invent your own language for it to be your mother tongue, nor does a culture need “clans or tribes” or “native names” to exist.

By this logic, countless cultures across the diaspora suddenly aren’t cultures either because they speak European languages and have European surnames.

You’re just making up random requirements for culture specifically when it comes to Black Americans.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but your personal feelings and hatred toward Black Americans don’t change the literal definition of culture. The things you named CAN be aspects of culture, but they do not define culture or determine whether a people have one.

Culture encompasses things like music, cuisine, religion, language and dialect, folklore, customs, social traditions, art, literature, dance, and shared historical practices.

Black Americans literally have ALL of those.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

Since when does a culture need a separate mother tongue, clan names, or totems to exist?

Black Americans have distinct cuisine, dialects, music, religious traditions, folklore, dance, celebrations, and customs developed over centuries in the U.S. , all of which literally are cultural.

And many of the things you listed are also either absent or heavily transformed in other African diasporic (Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latino) cultures. Yet somehow y’all only pull out this ridiculous standard when discussing Black Americans.

You’re describing specific African ethnic markers, not the definition of culture.

[Black Americans @BLKAmericans_]

Students at Howard University, 1867

[DP¹⁶ 👾 @DP1605_]

Everyone loves generalisations until their demographic is involved

[Historical Africa @historical_Afr]

In September 1946, Albert Einstein called r@cism America’s “worst disease.” Earlier that year, he told students and faculty at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the oldest Black college in the Western world, that racial segregation was “not a disease of colored people, but a dısease of whıte people, adding, “I will not remain silent about it.”

When Albert Einstein moved to America, he was disappointed to see how Black people were being treated. Even in his new hometown of Princeton, he observed separation of the whıte and bIack societies. Einstein thought of segregation as “unacceptable.”

Albert Einstein rarely accepted honorary doctorates but he did so for Lincoln University, a small historically Black college in Pennsylvania in 1946. He also gave a lecture before a small group of students who are seen with him in the photo. Also taught Black university students but the press didn't like to publicise it as the idea of educated equal Black people scared the establishment.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

@woahhvickyyy I wouldn’t necessarily say one’s better than the other, cause it depends on personal taste, and everyone’s different, but I definitely prefer Haitian food over Jamaican food.
Not saying Jamaican food is bad though.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

You’re saying Europe participates in imperialism as an extension of America, when the reason that America exists in the first place is LITERALLY BECAUSE of European colonialism and imperialism. 😭 European empires were colonizing the Americas, Africa, and Asia centuries before the United States even existed. The U.S. later becoming the dominant Western power doesn’t somehow retroactively make European imperialism an extension of American imperialism. 🤡

[ꨄ︎ Dr. Princess ꨄ︎ @PinKIYSensei]

I understand the impulse behind saying, “You’ve been practicing Hoodoo your whole life and didn’t know it.” It reconnects BAs to an inheritance that was often unnamed, stigmatized, hidden or simply practiced w/o explanation, however…

[James01 @LundenP7903]

Every time I talk to people about the cultural traditions that they claimed we don’t have, they either try to change the literal definition of what culture is, or use double standards that they don’t use against any other diasporic group, just to argue that the examples that we gave them aren’t actually cultural.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

I’m genuinely asking this, why do SOME Caribbeans have this weird obsession with trying to deny that Black American cultural traditions exist?

Y’all blatantly claim we don’t have certain cultural traditions, despite having never done any actual research on those traditions to begin with.
Then, when we provide examples of Black Americans practicing the very traditions y’all claimed were nonexistent, y’all suddenly try to redefine what culture means just to argue that those traditions aren’t cultural.

A lot of y’all are so hellbent on denying that Black American culture exists that y’all will literally try to demean us using arguments that ALSO apply to your own cultures.

How do y’all not recognize the contradiction in that?

Please, get a grip.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

Since when does a culture need its own separate language or languages to exist? By that logic, countless cultures around the world, including many Afro-Caribbean groups and Afro-Latino groups, wouldn’t qualify as cultures simply because they share a language with other populations, despite having their own distinct cultural traditions and identities.

And even by your own ridiculous standard, Black Americans have developed distinct Creole languages, such as Gullah and the closely related Afro-Seminole Creole. Kouri-Vini also developed among Louisiana’s Creole communities, including Black Louisianians. We even developed speech codes like Tutnese.

We also developed our own historically distinct dialect of English, AAVE, which has its own grammatical rules and linguistic history. Dialects, just like languages themselves, are expressions of culture.

You could’ve easily looked all this up, by the way.

Y’all are so desperate to deny Black Americans a culture that you don’t even bother learning what culture actually means.

Y’all claim we don’t have a culture based on criteria that have never been required for a culture to exist. Then, when we demonstrate that we actually have those cultural traditions anyway, y’all just move the goalposts.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

Busta Rhymes said Americans don’t have culture and claimed what we have is basically just Caribbean culture. That is objectively false, and I literally just explained why. Caribbean cultures and Black American culture developed from many of the same African, European and Indigenous influences, while also influencing each other over time. Neither is simply the source of the other. At this point, you’re either intentionally misrepresenting my argument or genuinely not understanding it.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

You’re being disingenuous now. Busta Rhymes said Americans don’t have culture, you said he was right, then used soul food having African, European and Native American influences as evidence for his point. So obviously I responded to the argument you were making.

Nobody denied that Black American culture developed from other cultural influences. My point is that this does not make it any less of a distinct culture. Bringing up those influences doesn’t prove Busta’s argument when Caribbean cultures developed the same way, through combinations of African, European, Indigenous and other influences.

You can’t use cultural mixture as evidence that American culture somehow isn’t real, then when I point out that the same logic applies to Caribbean cultures, suddenly switch to “I never said Black American culture doesn’t exist.” Then what exactly was your screenshot supposed to prove?

[James01 @LundenP7903]

African American culture developed from African, European and Native American influences. Nobody is denying that. The point is that having influences from other cultures doesn’t make a culture nonexistent, as many people are trying to claim. Caribbean cultures themselves developed through the same general process, combining African, European, Indigenous and, in some places, Asian influences into distinct cultures of their own.

And Black American culture is not simply “derived from Caribbean culture” either. Many Afro Caribbean and Black American cultures developed alongside each other during the colonial era, with cultural exchange occurring in both directions. Caribbean cultures have influenced Black American culture, but Black American culture has influenced Caribbean cultures too.

Jamaican ska, for example, developed partly through Jamaican musicians adapting Black American R&B, and ska later contributed to rocksteady and reggae. Black American jazz, gospel, soul, R&B and later hip hop have also influenced music throughout the Caribbean. At the same time, Jamaican sound system traditions helped influence the development of hip hop in New York. It’s a two way street.

And that exchange wasn’t limited to music. African American Protestant traditions, including Black gospel, preaching styles, and Holiness and Pentecostal movements, also influenced Christian religious life in parts of the Caribbean. Caribbean religious traditions have likewise influenced specific communities and regions in the United States.

You can’t use African, European or Indigenous influences to argue that Black American culture somehow isn’t distinct while recognizing Caribbean cultures as distinct despite developing from many of those same influences. Portraying Black American culture as simply coming from Caribbean culture ignores centuries of parallel development and two way cultural exchange. Influence does not equal origin, and having cultural influences from others does not mean you don’t have a culture of your own.

[James01 @LundenP7903]

@Kimaniblk @BlacksOrganize What are you on about? Genuinely asking

[James01 @LundenP7903]

You realize Caribbean cuisines developed through African, European and Indigenous influences too, right? That isn’t unique to Black Americans. It applies across the diaspora.

Saying Black American culture doesn’t exist because soul food has African roots is a brain dead argument. Cultures don’t appear out of thin air. They inherit influences and develop them into distinct traditions.

African influence on soul food doesn’t make it any less Black American, than African influence on Jamaican cuisine makes it any less Jamaican.

Why do y’all try to single us out for shit that literally applies across the board?