Isn't it obvious as another attempt to divide people?
20
EJ McCarthy, perhaps you misstated; slavery was brought to the Americas by Portuguese and Spaniards; the English settlers stole those enslaved Africans from the Portuguese, my ancestors, and brought them to Virginia.
4
The conservative right loves this debate because it allows them to safely denigrate black urban Americans who they see as lazy, immoral and of lower intelligence - by bringing up comparisons with black immigrants who have better success in college, career and family. They thrill at seeing black British/Carib/Nigerian vs. black urban-American conflict. Only in America could Donald Trump have a shot at being re-elected.
15
The issue is, what does the US owe its black citizens whom it formerly enslaved and brought here in chains? And it’s clear that it owes something to the descendants of its slaves. So while African immigrants might get subjected to same racism and that Caribbean blacks had also been slaves, the question is about US debt
27
'African-Americans' can be descended from former slaves freed at the end of the Civil War or slaves set free in the North in 1804 or Anthony Johnson who gained his freedom in 1640. There has been discrimination but there's no uniform family history here.
If slave ancestry in the US is a requirement for being an African-American then what was Obama? His father was from Kenya.
If your great great great grandfather left the US to go to Liberia, do you qualify as an African American?
Comparing the huge range of African-American experiences to others with direct or indirect African ancestry is impossible.
You have children of wealthy African and refugees from some of the most brutal conflicts on earth. I expect some have personally experienced worse things than someone's slave ancestor ever did.
Blacks from the Caribbean and Africa will all pointedly say exactly WHERE they have come from - Haiti is not Jamaica, Kenya is not Niger.
Perhaps we should parse things down to the extreme and focus on individuals.
12
All you need to know about ADOS is that Ann Coulter agrees with their message.
29
In African and Carribean countries, people do not get stopped, threatened, hated, lynched or incarcerated because they are Black.
The trauma of Black People born and living in America will be a constant fact of life for us for many years to come, if not forever.
We are truly and fundamentally different from immigrant Black People.
21
Why are we freaking out about Black Americans having different views from each other?
I see it as another way to control the voices of people of color that we feel a need to “decide” if this movement is justified or not. Seems a legitimate part of listening to more people than before
24
This issue is for divisiveness. The purpose is to have classes/groups among black voters. We might end up one day with one group saying to the other on national TV: you sold us. We are not living in the Jim Crow era, we are not living in the slavery era: you didn't fight, your ancestor did; you were not a slave, your ancestor was. So what are you fighting for as an ADOS? Civil rights? Equality? You just what somebody to seat and said you will be paid this amount of money? For what? What did you do for black people to deserve it? Yours ancestors fought. That's why you are here today. How do you keep their heritage? By saying they were my ancestors. That's it. Guess what ADOS:they are my ancestors too as an African. The results of their struggles are the "acceptance" of immigrants in America. Not only black but all immigrants. Please stop the division.
6
Everything i've heard from ADOS makes alot of sense to me. I'd consider myself to be politically left (no orthodoxy here, but i'm most sympathetic to socialism) and I find that until the debt we owe ADOS is repaid in full, we will never achieve anything resembling a civilized and humane society. I am so glad to see this movement crop up. To begin to issue demands and to not fall for the old trick of blackmail (want Trump to win again?) for support. ADOS being anti immigrant is greatly exaggerated. The issue to me seems to be that we are going out of our way to prioritize everyone EXCEPT them. Immigrants get Affirmative Action, DACA, and for now at least lip service paid by the Democratic Party. ADOS get bootstraps and have been taken for granted for far too long.
The Indigenous people and ADOS should be priorities when it comes to achieving justice. Don't let anything distract you.
Also the Harriet movie featured a black character straight out of D.W. Griffith's wildest fever dreams. It felt like a YA movie and made me uncomfortable. I'm white and I always use one metric when judging something like this. Would we do something like this about the Holocaust?
Would there be a Jewish male bounty hunter who is stopped by a good Nazi? I don't think so. I applaud the movement and hope it grows stronger.
20
ADOS is the sort of movement that would be aided by Russian bots and secret Republican money, so it probably is. On the other hand, the group has a point. But it should carry its logic to the end.
Children of successful Africans and Caribbeans do not need affirmative action. But neither do children of successful African-Americans; their ancestors have overcome slavery and segregation and can compete successfully with white folks. It is disadvantaged people of whatever race, especially when they come from a history of being disadvantaged. This includes African-Americans, who began with zilch in 1865. But it also includes many whites; in testing recruits during World War II, the army found that blacks from New York did better than whites from Mississippi.
The Deep South did not educate its ordinary folk, white or black, to qualify for high-paying jobs, and did not try to attract high-paying jobs because such jobs would upset the established labor market and give ideas to workers that they should make more and their children should have greater opportunity. Children of any race from such environments who nevertheless excel should get the extra boost of affirmative action.
The truth of ADOS is that affirmative action should be based on class and not race, as a way to help children from dumped-on families overcome their family backgrounds whether the being-dumped-on came primarily from race or primarily from garden-variety exploitation.
6
It seems counterintuitive, but the only way a group like this can get national attention— for their very relevant input into the conversation— is by being critical of the left. Would the Times profile the movement if it were not? If it were people of color critical of Trump? No, it would be just another drop in the bucket. Unfortunately divisiveness gets attention. And self interest requires attention. It’s not an either-or situation.
8
I have always thought that society should help those who are hurting, not because of race or because of historical wrongs but because Americans who are hurting are family and deserve help.
The question has always been what form the help should come in. I have always thought the help should be less in the from of a check and more in the form of funding for education, job training etc. At least in theory, conservatives should support this kind of aid. Just point out the concept that if you give a man a fish you fed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.
5
This, like the attempt to create tensions between Asian-Americans and black people -- is one more attempt to fragment progressive forces.
Right-wingers cite the fact that Kamala Harris is the descendant of Caribbean people and therefore is not black.
The simple fact is that she's treated the same as the descendants of American slaves.
That's the defining fact, not genealogy.
2
Cynthia Enviro has mocked people of ADOS ancestry, which is a significant reason why her role as Harriet Tubman was a disrespectful choice.
17
This reactionary outfit is a reflection of the growth of the middle class and capitalists in the Black community. For them "reparations" is posturing, and the hope for a turf grab and undoubtedly a business opportunity to cheat Black workers out of their potential payouts in the unlikely event of reparations. Their reactionary anti-immigrant politics inexorably leads them to like-minded company. An example was when the Nation of Islam entered into non-aggression pacts with the KKK, based on their mirror politics of "separation" of races. Another example is the long existing alliance of Zionists and anti-Semites, where both agree that Jews should be expelled from anywhere outside of Israel. This kind of politics is the exact opposite of the fight to transform society, to fight to end racism. They accept the status quo and simply demand a piece of the action. As for their bizarre and dispicable anti-African politics, Malcolm X wisely stated that 'You can't love the tree if you hate the root.' It is also undisputable that the caste character of American racism and the Black nationality is unique and requires unique measures to fight the ongoing myriad forms of discrimination. However, instead of demanding more affirmative action for all those facing discrimination, they turn on fellow victims. The racists undoubtedly thank them for their service.
4
Reparation are not for the suffering 200 years ago. Its for the injustice suffered now. Those in the non-ADOS community suffer now just like ADOS members do. By this logic I don't owe anyone anything as my family did not arrive until the 1920's. Are you arguing that I did not enjoy an advantage that others did because my family immigrated recently? I think I did.
2
Identity politics is promoted because it divides the working class. It is a proven strategy. The way the wealthy have stayed in power everywhere throughout history has been to divide the people into a class structure and cultivate conflict between them. This can be done by focusing on race, focusing on religion, focusing on gender, and focusing on age. The opportunities are endless.
This is why the South had indentured servitude and slaves at the same time, denying poor whites as well as slaves the oppoturnity of public schools. This is why Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans were hired to work in the factories up North rather than impoverished English-speaking black and white sharecroppers from the South. Even Affirmative Action and Desegregation were designed in ways that would divide people rather than unify them.
The European imperialists always cultivated a division of the populations they ruled. They did this in India. They did this in Africa and among the indigenous peoples in the Americas. The ancient civilizations in Egypt and Asia all did the same.
Therefore we should not be surprised that Republicans are embracing an attempt to divide people of African ancestry. Dividing the working class is how elections are won.
8
Interesting piece. As a social studies teacher, I find this debate fascinating. However, I'll also add this: No wonder conservatives are praising this movement. It's an opportunity to insert their own divisive identity politics into a legitimate debate (yes, I know the debate is about identity, but it's a real discussion that should be had). They will take any opportunity to widen existing divides, hurting the broad and diverse cultural and political coalition that is the Democratic Party, and that was once the Republican Party.
4
This is long overdue.
I used to work for a non-profit in Queens, and the fact of the matter was that our "diversity" numbers were inflated by youth from the Caribbean middle classes. *Very* few of our students were descendants of the Southern migrants who came to the city just a generation before to escape Jim Crow. Those students were typically "more difficult" and overrepresented in Section 8 housing. Why reach out to them when funders are just as happy with any brown/black face?
I suspect this is a common problem in other non-profits who claim to serve "high needs youth". In my view, our national failure to understand social class is a big contributing factor.
26
Sometimes you read an article and think about something in a new way. Initially resistant, you gotta give reluctance credence to the logic and the facts. And the "no" becomes an "oh" becomes an "ok". So it is with this article. At the same time, while descendants of American slaves are owed unique deference and respect, especially by Americans, the false myth of white supremacy knows no national bounds. And distinctions among people should not be graced by the inflammatory word of "race". Maybe we want to replace this word with "cultural affiliation." So much softer, it is more accurate and allows for the nuance inherent in human heritage and relationship. Which is why activists, whose are the voices we primarily hear, would hate it. Good article. God help us.
3
More than 50 years ago I came here as a young student to learn and I witnessed the changes in America from a completely segregated society to an artificially half-integrated society. Mostly there are still segregated neighborhoods. For example there are mixed black and white people living in Capitol Hill area. But in the most expensive Georgetown area are mostly white neighbors. Wealthy people from India are mostly living in rich white neighborhood Their skin color are dark but they are considered as whites. America has made a lot progress but there is still long way to go. Former president Obama and his family is living in a most exclusive white neighborhood in D.C. Many people asked why they are going back to Chicago where they originally came from. Obama was US senator from Chicago area before he became the president.
4
I don’t have a problem with Africans using affirmative action programs. Africans are disadvantaged too; the average African is even more disadvantaged than the average African-American (it’s not a fair comparison to compare wealthy Africans to average African-Americans). And discrimination against blacks today in America doesn’t distinguish between recent African immigrants and descendants of African-American slaves; if anything, recent African immigrants may face more discrimination because they usually have darker skin and can’t pass as another race, plus some of them may have to deal with immigration restrictions that make it harder and more expensive to find jobs and services.
Most of the companies and universities using affirmative action programs have no connection to American slavery (most weren’t even founded until after slavery ended) and therefore no special responsibility to American slaves. If they want to have affirmative action programs, those programs should simply focus on the most disadvantaged groups (or better yet, individuals).
2
Responding to the final quote in the article. The difference between this and someone who is Latino saying they are Puerto Rican or Dominican or Cuban is obvious. Latinos aren't defining themselves in order to claim special victim status. But shouldn't Latinos, who have faced plenty of discrimination in America, get some reparations too, even if not as much as ancestors of slaves?
And by the way, who should pay the reparations? Certainly not all Americans equally. Shouldn't they be paid more by the direct ancestors of the slave holding families?
3
I am a Black American, descendent of slaves, who is married to a 2nd generation West African American and Ivy League grad. There is tremendous validity to the ADOS viewpoint. My African in-laws have a contemptual opinion of American Blacks, as if they (we) have no reason to not succeed in America like a 1st gen immigrant with nothing but confidence and vigor in the veins as they step foot in America. To them, the Black American plight is all anecdotal, far removed from their reality. When I explained my family history of murder by whites in the Jim Crow south and the tremendous burden handed down each generation to current, they were taken aback, and could only respond with “we heard about it, but have never met anyone with any legitimate stories”.
But at the same time I envy them for fact that they don’t have the burden of their skin on their minds every day of their lives. There is something to be said for that. Call it blissful ignorance or supreme confidence, but the ability to focus on the goal of succeeding at all costs is admirable . In fact part of me thinks that’s the strategy that Black Americans need to take, which is: The government cannot help us. Yes we got the short end of the stick, but the best way forward is to trudge ahead without the handicap of believing we are owed something and discriminated against every step of the way. Yes it is a lie, but at this point in history, we can only help ourselves, with the Black immigrants as a model.
14
As long as we have each other, we will never run out of issues.
4
Man - this is how white supremacy began. It is one thing to champion reparations, and I do. But, black or white, we cannot expect more privilege on the basis of whether we came here five generations ago or yesterday.
That is what America is - an immigrant nation and, for most of us, it is the same hard, even desperate scrabbled reality that can make or break any one of us.
1
It is healthy and normalizing to the black American experience to recognize that this is a community with shared heritage and culture. Just like Argentinians who claim to be “Hispanic” Nigerians who classify as “African American” contribute to the way the violence and destruction of slavery and Jim Crow get minimized. The legacy of historical racism lives on. I love how the concept here is disruptive to the broken dominant political narrative. Only democratic and republican operatives can hate on a movement that recognizes black Americans who descended from slaves as a rich source of culture for the entire world.
11
Unfortunately, some black communities are copying the same segregation strategies as their white privilegie counterpart.
It is becoming like in implicit bias about who they treat people out of their conform zone. But I doubt they will solve the problems that they are being subject by other races.
I wish this country will walk away of that kind of race segregation. It is really hurtful does not matter how you analyzed.
1
The ADOS movement is (if it hasn't become one already) an anti-immigrant movement that serves to do nothing more than foster animosity between Black Americans and African/Caribbean immigrants.
The fact that it's being supported by the same conservatives that decades ago promoted African and Caribbean immigrants as the "good" kind of black folk should be enough to raise one's suspicion.
Nothing good will come from Black people pitting themselves against each other.
1
I am not sure if activists are really doing their target group a favor by consistently characterising them as underprivileged. That a group is underprivileged should be stopped, but if you constantly repeat it, it becomes something like a law of nature, a permanent characteristic of the group.
11
This has been in debate since early feminist arguments and is absolutely true.
But can we also accept that systemic injustice is so ingrained that the terms can be used for a while? Can we be angry about inequality without being accused of holding on to that anger or victim hood too long?
3
We have carbon tax--why not a "white privilege" tax, paid for by DOSO (descendants of slave owners)?
10
@shreir
Why punish someone for what someone else did 209 years ago? Doesn’t sound fair or reasonable to me.
5
There are Whites and then there are “White Ethnics”.
So instead of using a divisive term why not say Blacks and “Black Ethnics” (black immigrants and their progeny)?
4
We have a right to call ourselves whatever we want. It’s that simple.
7
Just what the country needs - more anti-immigrant sentiment. Dig deep enough and see who's really behind this - it won't be black people.
18
Dems eating themselves. Doesn’t portend well.
11
A differentiation already exists on the ground between black immigrants and American blacks. Why not give a label to that differentiation and claim it if it’s what you’re about?
5
Quite a few commenters seem to suggest that Black Americans are being duped into the ADOS movement by Russian meddlers and Far-right types. We have every right to form our own conclusions and advocate for our own interests. Perrmission/approval from other ethnic, cultural, or political groups is not required or welcome.
32
@19giantrobot67 : It is all about dividing and conquering. Europeans have used this systems for hundreds or thousands of years. Pit all the undesirables against each other by offering tantalizing gifts to a few and letting them fight over the scraps. As long as we are splintered and focused on Balkanizing ourselves, we can be controlled and prevent from making any real progress. Yes, you are probably being used. Unite, do not divide.
14
Sorry but we were never united. ADOS has been standing alone from day one. Now that we are standing up for ourselves alone it’s a problem? We don’t owe immigrants, whites, or anyone else anything....least of all our votes and loyalty.
15
This 2004 New York Times article about how Harvard scholars Henry Louis Gates and Lani Guinier were pointing out how affirmative action at Harvard tends to benefit the descendants of foreigners and the children of whites more than the descendants of American slaves remains highly relevant:
Top Colleges Take More Blacks, but Which Ones?
By Sara Rimer and Karen W. Arenson
June 24, 2004
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/us/top-colleges-take-more-blacks-but-which-ones.html
A few months later, Barack Obama (who is of course, the son of a Kenyan man and a white woman) gave his famous speech at the Democratic convention, and this conversation became unwelcome.
22
The distinction—between the son of a Kenyan and white woman, versus the son of an ancestor of slaves and a white woman—didn’t lead opponents of Obama to treat him better (even setting aside the birther thing), nor does differences in ancestry lead white people in this country to treat any class of black people better than any other. My concern is that making the attempt to do so will make it much harder to enforce civil rights laws for any black person in this country.
1
What excites me about this movement is the potential for a viable political party that will disrupt our current two-party, polarized system and its inherent assumptions (e.g., black people are Democrats, evangelical christians are Republicans, etc). I’d love to see black Americans rise up and create a viable party that better represents our interests and that other Americans could support. I don’t agree with telling citizens not to vote, but I can imagine one day being able to vote for candidates from a party with a platform that I could really get behind. This could help break up the partisan logjams in my state legislature and in Congress.
7
And should gay Americans do the same?
The inherent political leanings and affiliations you cite exist because they are true. Democrats are the Party that cares most about progress for equality and justice, so it's no surprise that most black Americans are Democrats. Republicans are the Party that cares most about protecting a homogeneous white power culture, wrapped in religion, so no surprise that Evangelicals embrace their agenda, no matter how vile it is..Independents have existed forever and the Green Party has been around a long time, with no significant break in the 2 Party structure. I don't ever see ADOS morphing into a serious political Party.
2
Politics in this country are totally dysfunctional.
9
We seem to be divided into two camps, justice seekers and injustice seekers and the injustice seekers are way out in front. Maybe we can find some type of compromise.
Maybe truth and reconciliation is as close as we can get to a win/win. Maybe it's time to put back the blindfold and take our thumbs off the scale.
5
What exactly does the “experience” of a black person today have to do with slavery.
This seems to me like black Americans who were not able to cash in on affirmative action are now trying to find some other way of getting the system to favor them over others, even other blacks.
It is time for the black community to get over it. Every demographic group has suffered throughout history and still excelled. American blacks are the only demographic blaming others for their lack of success instead of doing something constructive to succeed.
13
There are people in their 50s and 60s who were old enough to live under the oppression of Jim Crow systems, which were a direct effort to keep black people from rising from the enslavement their families had experienced. It’s a bit rich to ask people to “get over” the crimes done against them without even an apology, never mind true justice.
10
@John Gilday : Beautifully said.
1
There is a serious disparity between the groups that needs to be resolved. We must atone for the sins of the past before we can help others.
As a nation we have not done nearly enough to lift rural African American descendants of slavery out of poverty. Claiming that this is an “identity politics” issue rings hollow to anyone who has spent any time in rural parts of the South.
16
They make an interesting point. But. We should be shedding identity politics across the board and focusing on what makes us Americans.
And you can be sure that any movement endorsed by the right has been carefully vetted for its potential to sow discord and division in order to ensure another term for Trump and the triumph of the radical right wing agenda.
Look around you.
10
The overwhelming majority of Jamaicans and Bahamians are descendants of slaves. So in a sense what's being celebrated is the national identity of their slave masters who stole these human beings from Africa and distributed them along the Atlantic. White power feeds off of making sure it pits non-whites against one another instead of against those who prosper at their expense. As a white guy, this isn't really my fight, but it saddens me to see this division.
25
Sola Olosonde, most of ADOS have large percentage of Nigerian DNA, as do I, but we are not Nigerian; many of us are descendants of many West Africans nations.
5
The victimhood economy at work.
Opportunistic ringleaders look to enrich their ego and bank balance by breaking away a subset from the heard and making them feel uniquely wronged.
The only price to pay is a civil society and a functioning democracy.
13
Newsflash is they abstain from voting they will have zero say. It’ll be just like the time Cambridge Analytica tricked the youth of bursuma I think it was into thinking abstaining from voting was cool.... they told them to boycott the vote.... guess what happened? Their party lost & are now unrepresented in their form of Congress. It’s super smart to abstain from voting.... (it’s not & stop telling people to abstain from voting!! Beware of anyone who tells you not to vote!! I fought for your right to vote so this Veteran’s Day if you want to thank a veteran make the pledge to vote!!)
19
Good grief, when will this " slice and dice " identity politics reach some sort conclusion? Maybe when we finally have 330 million racial/ethnic/gender/age/economic demographic checkoff boxes on the census survey?
23
@BD
Or when Facebook stops taking ad money from Putin and his merry Republican pranksters.
Or when we the people wake up and realize we’re being played.
4
Racism affected the late comers, too. How to determine who was most adversely affected is probably a lot more complicated that is supposed. Some people went from being slaves to being prosperous people while others ended up tied down by exploitation in a different manner than enslavement. Racist mobs sometimes destroyed the homes and property of successful African Americans, and murdered them to intimidate whole communities. Policies and laws deliberately excluded non-white in work and business opportunities reserved for whites. So slavery doesn’t not define the experience of racial discrimination.
6
People who come here of their own free will know the history of racism when they come. Yet still they come. They are owed nothing.
14
Once you do the research, you will discover that this movement is only growing and gaining steam and will be one of the most influential components of the American Political landscape in the history of our country -mark my words.
19
That has to be sarcasm.
3
I taught at a public college in the city for many years and noticed over the past ten years or so that my black students were immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean islands. Very few American born blacks in class. Hardly any black students from my borough of the Bronx. My colleagues also noticed this. Something I’d wrong.
23
@Zejee why do you think this is? Do you have any ideas? Perhaps a broken down culture, fractured families and a terrible history of slavery and racism that has led to these breakdownr? I am absolutely in favor of reparations. But what will the population itself do to rebuild their families and culture? Where is their responsibility to ensure that their children will benefit from reparations. Serious question. Otherwise nothing will change.
3
@Zejee
Yes something is wrong and it would be interesting to find out why.
I don't think the outcome would be politically correct.
3
@Zejee
Having worked in the South Bronx for some time in a large plant with many women workers I got to see some of what was at work.
You can't underestimate the immigrant factor.
Intact families willing to sacrifice for their kids. They'd pay for parochial schools because they were 'better' and 'safer'.
Parents EXPECTED their kids to do well and punished them when they didn't. They worked to keep their kids OUT of gangs.
(I've known Nannies from the Caribbean who've worked here in the burbs to pay for barding school for their kids. Their husband is back home - seen a couple times a year. The women can make more here than their husband can here or there.)
Many of the Americans were single mothers who were stressed beyond belief. Some had no control over their kids and low expectations. But then the best a boy going to a public HS might hope for was a career in the Army or Marines.
4
Slavery is an ancient and universal practice, so reparations from whom, and to whom, is a myriad question. Do wealthy black people deserve reparations from poor whites; does it all depend on the percentage of black/white ancestors, and do LatinX and whites, some of whose ancestors were enslaved get reparations? It is also a fact that many if not most black slaves were enslaved in Africa by other tribes, and then sold. The traders were of many different ethnicities; Arab, European, Asian. To unravel this problem at this point in history is not worthwhile. Better that we should focus on equality of opportunity for all, and build a better future.
22
Ah, the complexities of identity politics.
It must be sooooo confusing to keep track of all this.
Is there a ledger somewhere? Maintained by an order of monks in a monastery on a hill?
If not, how does anyone keep track of which group is privileged vs. which group is oppressed?
Do we vote on this stuff?
18
@Veritas
The privileged in this country are recorded by Forbes Magazine. There are about 400 or them.
Anyone that has to work for a living is oppressed to greater or lesser degree depending on earnings. We are indentured servants.
We can vote on anything - rarely does it matter; See 'Bush vs. Gore'
1
REPARATIONS in America is a class action lawsuit where the litigants must be appropriately defined. American descendants of Slavery are the aggrieved party. [Caricom nations have already demanded theirs from the European colonizer countries. African newcomers don't qualify.] The concept of universal Blackness is a white supremacist construct that erases unique AA identity and culture. ADOS have reclaimed their naming rights. Black people in America and everyone else should support that.
18
If systemic racism affects all black people in this country and is blamed for the lower income, educational attainment, and health outcomes of black Americans, how do you explain the very different achievements of the subset of blacks who are not descendants of slavery, the recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean? The most obvious example of that disparity: the son of an African, raised by his white mothers family, just happened to become president of the United States? Of course the answer is cultural: the children of black immigrants were not raised from infancy constantly being reminded by their family of that echo of slavery, constantly told that mainstream America is against them.
18
Well, this new movement will be challenged by those who want to erase the fact that American slavery put an entire subset of the American populace on a different socio economic trajectory. Just yesterday a depraved bumpkin in South Carolina was sentenced to 10 years in jail for enslaving a mentally challenged African American who was supposed to be working for him. This is what people want when they say that they want to MAGA.
It’s really hard to read some of the vapid moral fakery here!
6
"Ms. Perry said she believed that the influx of Mexican immigrants had made it more difficult for black men to find construction jobs in the city.”
This is exactly what the Harvard economist George Borjas found in his research. As the numbers of undocumented workers increased, the fewer African-Americans there were who could find employment.
29
@ann But why were Mexican immigrants hired rather than African-Americans?
2
White Americans should take this example to heart and start fighting about which specific ethnic identity suffered more past oppression. Armenians should outrank Norwegians, for example.
10
“Tensions between black Americans who descended from slavery and black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are not new,“
While these tensions may not be new, what is new is the organized campaign emanating from Russia to divide black from white, black from black, left from right, even up from down as post truth propaganda works its way up and through the system, infecting us with the disease of mistrust, suspicion, and fear.
15
One of the greatest strengths of the black community in the United States is its sense of solidarity, particularly when compared to black communities in other parts of the world. We generally do not have the “I’m not black” phenomenon of many people of African descent from South America or parts of the Caribbean. We don’t have the political and cultural divisions
of the colored and blacks in South Africa. We have the highest level of political solidarity (as measured by voting) of any demographic group in the United States. We accept as part of our community people who who self-identify as black whether they look like Lena Horne or Wesley Snipes. When Abner Louima was assaulted and sodomized by N.Y. police officers or Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times when reaching for his wallet, the fact that they were born in Haiti and Senegal did not preclude the entire black community from rallying to their side. Our solidarity and inclusiveness is exceptional in a world riven by tribalism and division. It’s been our shield since our first ancestors arrived here. We should not let political opportunists weaken it.
31
Nope. We are done muling for people who do a absolutely nothing for us. This “ we are all black” nonsense has contributed to our demise. The recent congressional hearings about reparations were organized by a Jamaican congresswoman and featured people who are the children of immigrants speaking on ADOS behalf and saying, “We don’t need reparations.” Too many of them are willing to allow themselves to be used to undermine ADOS. Therefore we are drawing a line in the sand.
12
I worked with a physician of Argentinian background. His wife was Brazilian - a PhD psychologist. They had three daughters. There were very bright. The kids were selected as immigrant, Latin students and given special designation over most students. They went to Stanford as underrepresented minorities.
In addition, I know of a family - father a lawyer, Anglo. Mother Guamanian. Kids grew up in a very upper class community : country clubs etc. All three kids used their mother’s ancestry to attend high end colleges : one was accepted to Harvard.
Couldn’t social class also be an access point ? These kids were very privileged to start, and then fell back on minority status for another underserved privilege.
22
@Leslie Monteath
Excellent of why equal rights for ALL is the truly best medicine.
1
A census box is not meant to be an identity and I’m tired of the complaint. It’s data for government policy. In 2019 that data could get way more granular than skin color. Ethnicity might define some of your cultural interactions, customs or eating choices but it isn’t your identity. Identity is self-awareness of yourself. It is your personal understanding of you. The way others perceive you will not be the same. Navigating how others perceive you is a crucial social skill. Identity politics are about groups organizing to gain something - civil rights, marriage, equal access etc. ADOS wants reparations. No need to confuse this with an existential argument about what blackness is - that is a straw man and confuses the whole conversation. Our country was made on a horrific legacy of white colonialism, slavery and patriarchy. Frankly we don’t have enough money to make up for all of that. Instead let’s focus on making government make our shared experiences better. Clean air and water. Great public schools not tied to real estate. Basic family medical care for all. Equal employment & equal pay for that job. Affordable college. Technical apprenticeship education tracks. Farm to table food for all. Criminal justice reforms.
10
My husband is Nigerian and I am African American. In our house we are worlds apart. We have completely different perspectives based on our cultural background. Sometimes, I accidentally refer to my family as black, like he is not black.
However, when we leave the house we are one. We face the same discrimination, work place pressure, and racism. We are both black..African..the same. As a descendent of slaves, I feel there needs to a conversation to acknowledge the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. But separation is not the answer. If anything we need to merge our communities, there's more to be gained with unity.
42
Your husband’s family came here of their own free will. Stop comparing this to centuries of government sanctioned terrorism, violence, discrimination, and disenfranchisement.
12
The GOP is cynically configuring the future debate so that blacks (documented slavery descendants) oppose blacks (those who are not).
For all blacks in this country now, they are suffering under the residual effects of slavery. Period.
As with any group some are now doing better than others. Nonetheless, every black must worry about themselves or their children being pulled over by police, about unfair loan and sentencing policies, and about any number of daily activities that the dominating "race" can take for granted.
My point is that all blacks are crucially part of this identity debate and employing a divide and conquer strategy is both immoral and disingenuous.
13
@JFR
That GOP you refer to still gets their bullet points from Russia, where divide and conquer is high art. It only seems like we’re doing this to ourselves. That’s how and why it works!
3
This is hilarious. I’m guessing you’ve never seen an African stick his chest out and declare with pride, “My ancestors were never slaves” or even more telling, “My ancestors sold slaves.”
There is no such thing as residual impacts of slavery. If you or your family never suffered under the injustice of it then you have no right to speak for those who did.
7
Supporting the group while giving them a different name is vintage Ann Coulter.
10
Slavery occurred throughout America. Even during our Civil War, there was slavery in Cuba and Brazil.
7
Actually I read that the largest influx of enslaved Africans were settled in Brazil. True?
4
Divide and conquer.
19
The same techniques used to enslave Africans are the same ones being employed here.Division! Division! and more Divisions. The reasons why African is as poor and mismanaged as it is today has its roots in slavery and colonialism.What difference does it make anyway? A racist system does not distinguish between races having different generational experiences, but rather sought to plaque them with divisions and disorderliness. The perfect way to keep them marginalized and at the bottom of society.
13
Be divided, be conquered. And there is nothing as divisive as identity politics.
16
Haiti 1965; My Grandfather a Haitian Black Panther (TonTon Macoute) would tell me stories of what the embassy would do to the peasants that wanted chance at a better life. They would smack them to see how they reacted, if they defended themselves or reacted with anger or animosity they would reject their visa and any chance at getting to America. It didn’t end there everyone in the neighborhood would be rejected as well. The people they let into the country are the ones that didn’t defend themselves, the ones that cried or started to pray and plead, they let them in.
Not every brother is a brother.
6
@Shabaz Toussaint Interesting. I know what the TonTon Macoutes are.
2
The Tonton Macoute were a paramilitary force created by Papa Doc to bring fear and violence to dissenting voices in Haiti. They have no commonality with the Black Panthers..
7
Why don't people put the onus of responsibility for slavery in the Americas on those responsible for its origins: Holland, Portugal, Britain, Spain, to name a few.
The United States of America inherited the institution of slavery from other colonial powers before the USA was even conceived.
21
Americans imported slaves, bought slaves to work American plantations enriching Americans.
7
@EJ McCarthy No, America made it the law of the land. They institutionalized it. Made it the "Southern Way of Life". We took it to a higher level. We kept it up long after it was outlawed in all the European countries you list above. We wrote a constitution and could have lived up to those ideals of freedom and liberty 80 years before the Civil War. Inherited Slavery? No we honed it.
12
Household wealth studies really helped me to understand more clearly the need for reparations. Redlining alone cost so much as most average household wealth comes from home values. It makes sense to me that descendants of slaves brought directly to the United States should be the benefactors. Unfortunately this would disallow other Blacks who may have been here long enough to suffer the effects of actions like redlining.
Caveat emptor and do not let this honest debate deteriorate into loss of votes to get Trump and his protectors out of office.
24
The vast majority of the black immigrants in this country came here in the late 90s and early 00s. The things you mentioned never impacted them at all.
4
Two comments:
1) Caribbean immigrants are descendants of slaves too. This article seems not to realize that. Perhaps the point is that America has debts only to descendants of American slaves, but that is not how the article is worded. It lumps Caribbean and Nigerian immigrants together as if neither had a history of slavery. This is just ignorant.
2) the phrase."vastly different lived experiences" (paragraph 5) falls flat when one remembers that no black people in America (whether descendants of slaves or immigrants) have first-hand "lived experienes" of slavery. Legacy, yes; lived, no. That is taking identity politics too far.
14
ADOS is the weakest link in the current Democratic coalition and will relentlessly targeted by the Republicans and foreign disinformation campaigns.
5
I could not go anywhere in Africa and claim that because I am Black I am just like the people in that nation. That's ridiculous. Questions of reparations aside, ADOS is simply a self-definition of a particular ethnic group. There is nothing wrong with that. Literally every other group in the world does it. And as we've seen with the shameful xenophobic attacks by South Africans on Nigerians, Ethiopians, and Eritreans among others, even Africans do not practice Pan-Africanism.
Most of the people most up in arms about the concept of ADOS do happen to be Black immigrants who have come to this country after the civil rights movement. They should not be threatened. If I were in Namibia and there were a successful push to make Germany pay for the genocide of the Herero I would be happy for that group. I wouldn't be trying to say what about me. It's not about me.
28
Yep. Nothing like a sense of entitlement from a group of people who overwhelmingly came to this country in the late 90s and early 00s with their tribalism and negative attitudes about ADOS only to now sit around asking, “what about me?” for things they know they have no claim.
9
This group is dangerous. It is actively urging black people not to vote, using social media as a tactic. Did we not learn anything from 2016? The group Cambridge Analytica, with funding from the Mercers and other right wingers, targeted black people with laser precision with misleading ads to suppress black turnout for Hillary Clinton.
Is anyone investigating whether some of those most active ADOS-rights supporters are receiving Russian money?
This group claims to want to empower the American descendants of slaves. But what I see folks who claim the ADOS identifier on Twitter doing is trolling Democrats, trolling progressive activists and all around trying to sow discontent among black people—in order to make them disillusioned and suppress their votes. ...kinda like Cambridge Analytica did in 2016.
Reporters would do the public a great service by asking deeper questions about this group. We don’t want to find out in 2021, after a (God-forbid) Trump victory, that many of the ADOS folks most active online are paid Russian operatives.
I am a black American woman. At one point, Twitter was encouraging me to follow these ADOS accounts. I systematically block those accounts and no longer receive the suggestions. Something sinister is happening.
26
Another thing is that 25% of Jamaicans claim Irish ancestry because the English (starting under Oliver Cromwell) forcibly deported Irish people, many of them children, to Jamaica. They made them leave so they could confiscate the lands in Ireland and get rid of native people who rebelled. They locked people up as convicts who were starving and did nothing wrong but were criminalised.
"It was thought that the Irish would have a better chance of survival if they were introduced to the climate at a young age. Cromwell then sent 2,000 children between the age of 10 and 14 years."
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/welcome-to-sligoville-the-story-of-the-irish-in-jamaica-1.3225038
It is good that there is more discussion now of these things and the internet is helping people to research more the history of how people were oppressed because history is usually written by the victors. However, I hope that members of the black community can be supportive of each other in this process. There is so much divisiveness right now.
8
I run Adosa.org and an online forum for ADOS, The Inkwell.
We are not xenophobic or bots. We have valid concerns rooted in American history and current facts.
Yes, there are some similarities between ADOS and Black immigrants but there are just as many differences.
In many cases, we have more in common with white Americans than black immigrants. Acknowledging that fact and asking you to do the same is not something we will be shamed for. 
We have always fought racism; that our nation is as diverse as it is a testament to that. And we will continue to fight for a just society but we we will also fight for ourselves.
We will not fade to black (pun intended) because people take us for granted, are too intellectually lazy to consider context, or wish to gain from our sorrows.
Everybody wants to be Black. But nobody really wants to Black. (Thank you Paul Mooney)
And thousands can mean 1000 or 500,000 but you don’t know because people don’t speak to us. But we do talk among ourselves.
Adosa/ADOS Census2020
21
Where does one begin.
Perhaps with the Double Picard; perhaps with sighing and asking, do you really think, really think this matters? Most matters, right now?
I smell politcians politicking, personally.
5
You cannot remedy descrimination with more discrimination. You can remedy it with outreach programs that help specific groups of people. But when it comes to any competition --college admittance, hiring, qualification tests, etc. -- the playing field must be level.
9
Yes. Except, no level playing field.
2
I don't see either side of the argument as a continuing validation of a right to go to the front of the line. If so, we need to consider the inclusion of Italians and Croatians and Asians and Native Americans and all the others whom have suffered discrimination, including---believe it or not---Germans who were relegated to live in separate towns when they came to America in droves.
The future can only be won by being freed from the past. Enough already.
9
Exactly, enough already.
2
This is foolishness. Plain and simple. I suppose conservatives have been fighting for the betterment of the Black working class voter for years, eh?
9
I know well someone who works at a university and she says most affirmative action hires are not even born in the US.
15
I also work at a university, and that doesn’t fit my experience at all.
2
There is no schism between black immigrants and native black Americans. This is all just a divide and conquer strategy. The Russians used Facebook to do it in 2016 and they’re at it again.
18
I have observed that since the affordability of DNA testing, people have become somewhat obsessed with their “identity”, defined as their antecedents. Within that paradigm, we have a conflict, given that most who qualify as ADOS are also descended from slave OWNERS. I’m not claiming I buy into it; just pointing out the peril of taking DNA too seriously as a defining characteristic.
And on a separate tangent, I haven’t read any comments in support of reparations for Native Hawaiians. A sovereign country was stolen and subjugated.
8
The descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States, who's children grow up in predominantly white spaces, who are comfortable in the presence of white people, and more importantly white people are comfortable in their presence, are felt to fare better in America than those who have grown up in predominantly Black spaces. ADOS makes no distinction between them, but when it comes to access to resources the differences are startling.
It also feels lot many African immigrants are likely to have grown up in predominantly white spaces as well, and enjoy the benefits that confers. When you hear of some 14 year old, black child being accept to the nations top colleges with a full ride scholarships, or some other outstanding academic achievement, lately they tend to be the children of immigrants.
One has to wonder if we had been enjoyed the full, unmitigated rights and access to resources, just how much greater our contribution to this nation would have been. And how much greater the nation would have been had for it.
I'm not a fan of the ADOS ideology, but it is not without merit. It feels too much like the Agrarian/Patriarchal challenges that brought us here in the first place. I think we have an opportunity to model the kind of acceptance that we ourselves are seeking. WIth respect to the past, we are only really able to care for the living, with an eye on future generations. Do unto others and all that.
4
This is one of those topics that, if it don’t apply to you, you sit quiet. As an ADOS, I am immensely appreciative of this movement.
22
@Ebonie V thank you. As a Hispanic and Native American whose family has been here involuntarily since 1846, I applaud this effort and hope we organize one of our own.
4
Am I reading that people who have lived for generations in their country of birth do not see all immigrants as instantly equal or welcomed?
It is interesting to read that there are Blacks who feel that way. I have also read that Mexican Americans who have lived and assimilated here for generations sometimes see the Central and South American newcomers with caution too.
Simply human nature, maybe?
8
@A F whats is not being said is Africans, Caribbeans and other immigrants CHOSE to come here. They had a choice and also a place to call home if they decide to leave with all the were given on the backs of the American slave. ADOS's have no such luxury,this is our country and it was not by any choice.
I am tired of hearing everyone was a slave in their country. Then they should go to the country that enslaved their ancestors and get reparations. America owes them nothing.
24
Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that nobody who is born has any choice in the matter, nor can they do anything about it once it happens to them. Boomers, Millenials, Black, White, Male, Female — we’re all here by chance, maybe 1 in 100 million odds. Every one of us won the lottery! We’re all special but there’s nothing special about any of us. What we make of this gift, how we choose to think of or fellow miracles, that’s the challenge, isn’t it!
8
Black people from the Caribbean are also descendants of slavery. African Americans have been systematically institutionally oppressed by the white patriarchy, not by poor black immigrants from other countries. Identify as you wish but don't blame or denigrate your nearest neighbors in service of right wing tropes about them. Love and compassion people!
10
@Helgu They were not enslaved here nor do they suffer the vestige of US Slavery, Jim Crow,Legal Segregation,domestic terrorism, economic exclusion, generational dysfunction and trauma. That was experienced by one group only ADOS at the hands of our US government. CARICOM is suing Britain for reparations and they do not include ADOS in their claim, but we must add you all to our claim. Why ?
8
Oh my, I am so late to learn of this group; I thought, by the name it was some latinos group; I am with Ann Coulter on this, rearrange the letters so that we know who this group is; we are descendants of black enslaved people.
I am not for reparations but I want to join this group; I have been ranting for years about how African Americans, my people, have been left out for the next exotic group of immigrants by Democrats.
This is just the movement I can support.
Ancestry.com has identified a small community in Virginia that were the original American enslaved people; I belong with this group.
My black people, we are tired of being swept aside by every new "pet liberal group;" I say enough already; lets fix Chicago, Maryland and yes, Louisiana and
Appalachia before we import any other new sect.
11
How have you been left out by the Democrats? Medicare for All and free community college or vocational education won’t work for you?
4
Thanks NYT, Google is useful.
I will be supporting ADOS.
We have too many latinos benefiting from labors of my enslaved ancestors, including the 14th amendment to our Constitution which was inscribed for freed enslaved people; not Russians, Chinese and Latinos.
26
@JRS some of us Hispanics were also here since the 1800s and were made American citizens against our will. I’m fully supportive of this effort and I hope our people will also organize. My family joined the fight against segregation for Hispanics and natives and now we see recent immigrants benefitting from it, at our expense as well as African Americans.
3
Man we are a divided nation. It’s the holiday season so let the “airing of grievances” begin
12
Oldest tactic in the book. It's called 'Divide And Conquer'. This will benefit the already-haves and leave the descendants of the enslaved out in the cold. As usual.
17
This is actually extremely interesting. A former coworker of mine is a black lady from a Caribbean island, and she hated being identified as African-American. An interesting divide.
16
I'm a second generation Canadian-American. Should I have to check a Canadian-American box on the census? I'm also a descendant of a Royalist in the Revolutionary War. Does that make me less American? What if I said that my ancestors were slave owners? Does that make me racist?
We can either choose to identify by that which is divisive, or we can focus on what's important. Our shared goals of equality, and our desires to be one people of this nation. We have a long way to go, but rather than continuing to group ourselves into more demographical categories, shouldn't we be trying to erase those lines? It's definitely important to remember where you come from, but it's equally important to acknowledge that we're all in this together.
8
These are incredibly important DISCUSSIONS to have. These are complicated issues, hard to understand and even harder to figure out. That’s why this article and people talking describing theorizing is so important. It’s uncomfortable but it needs to be done.
This idea that complicated issues need to be resolved instant is unrealistic, silly actually. We need to start recognizing that settling into a long discussion is the first step. Mistakes and experiments will follow. More talk, more ideas, more trials. We can get it right, just not right now.
9
Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't black Caribbean immigrants also be descendants of slaves?
On the one hand, black Americans descended from slavery should have more of the resources meant to right those wrongs regardless of one's stance on immigration. Reparations are owed and to a very specific group of people.
But on the other, any black American regardless of their birthplace are affected by the systemic racism that has festered since slavery, so they should be able to avail themselves to the resources, too. When a black man is pulled over by the police, the police don't ask him if he's from Jamaica or descended from slavery before deciding to racially profile or inflict unwarranted violence upon him. I can promise you that many black Caribbean-Americans have to attend inferior schools in their neighborhoods.
One thing I am absolutely certain of: where there is GOP interest, there is nefariousness involved. Black Americans involved in this movement should be very, very weary of any right-wing involvement or interest.
274
@Brooklyn Dog Geek Thank you for stating this! I agree 100%.
12
@Brooklyn Dog Geek, so true, I agree with you. Firstly, I second your admonition to be "very wary of any right-wing involvement or interest". I think the right wing has repeatedly proven itself over time to be almost uniformly devoid of ethics and psychopathically focused on harming those not like them. Every time they've had a chance to be nice to other people, they've chosen instead to stealthily roll back civil rights protections in every sphere of life, undermine voting rights and champion police brutality.
You're right when you write that the police don't ask someone if "he's from Jamaica or descended from slavery before deciding to ... inflict unwarranted violence upon him". I've heard young Nigerian Americans tell their parents that "the police will kill Tunji as readily as they'll kill Tyrone".
It is so obvious that ADOS is a puppet organization, its followers are marionettes, and rightwingers are its puppeteers.
17
@Brooklyn Dog Geek
Nigerian Americans outperform native born Whites in income. They may be Black, but they don’t suffer from the historical legacy of slavery.
I can understand why descendants of slaves feel the need to distinguish themselves.
36
The only thing I feel you can say is that it is human to suffer. At the same time I believe you must also say, beware of those will say something very similar. This is something which reads like, “the only thing I think you can say is, it is human to suffer.” Do not count thoughts. Count what’s real.
Does this answer the question at hand? Does it answer Mr. Bill Gates’ problem of inheritance tax? Does it tell you when they say the buck stops here what’s the problem with Trump? The reason why rural white people who don’t have a college degree align themselves with the POTUS, which is an unfeeling acronym that too long ago materialized jumping up again and again shouting “look at me.”
I offer a metaphor. Perhaps too late it will be too soon and Climate Change will eat a hole and overkill a section of megafauna or other group of species that will collapse Nature as we know it.
Nations first will not solve this problem. The “Grateful Rich” will not either, nor the famous. When the people in the bottom half say “game over” and that it’s time to reorganize for the benefit of the ordinary human, and no man or woman is last or first and that we all from every part of this Earth must be in this together.
I am old, so I can add not all of us can be. But let those who have life stretching out in front of them have their due.
1
My fellow black people, cops do not differentiate between recently arrived dark skinned people and dark skinned people brought here in chains. Neither do store clerks or security guards that follow you around because they perceive that we are natural born theives. Let us all unite, talk about and share our differences, and form one seriously large coalition. That'll scare them! I am down for the cause.
19
I like your argument for how to fight a race war. Be careful what you wish for.
2
Its a shame when people of color are up against other people of color. Fits right into the hands of conservatives and Russians. I think people get wrapped up in their own agenda and forget the bigger picture. We all need to join together and fight racism. MAGA isn't going to do it.
I can tell you that the average "non-minority" oppressor does not distinguish between American descendants for slaves and other dark skinned people. They tend to lump us all in the category of "highly undesirable".
10
More evidence of the Left eating itself. This does not bode well for getting Trump out of the White House.
10
Validating these reactionary anti-immigrant movements as understandable is why you’ll always be ruled by dishonest crooks like Trump. They are more than willing to use immigrants as a scapegoat for their malfeasance. Divided we fall.
7
Not like Caribbean immigrants are not also descendents of Euro-slavery.
5
Good to see this group of true Americans holding Democrats feet to the fire and asking “What have you done for me, lately?” And admitting that open borders isn’t a good thing.
11
A little story about how America is being made, always been made, to be American...
My mother's side is Japanese-American (internment camps WWII), and I am 6th generation American on her mother's side. My father is German-Jewish-Navajo-American and grew up in postwar Munich. Lots going on there. I am racially ambiguous physically speaking, sometimes I look white and sometimes I don't, and all the advantages and disadvantages that come with such fluidity... I only know the birthplaces of my mother's side.
My husband is 1st generation American, immigrated to the US as a boy from Malawi, a former British colony, with his parents who were educated at Oxford and are high-level international government bureaucrats. He was raised in a colonial mentality household, in Africa, Europe & Westchester. Most people ask if he's Haitian. He knows his family villages for hundreds of years on both sides. So rooted!
We have names from our various cultures, and we have English names, on birth certificates, too.
We recently had a baby boy - we debated a lot about what to name him...We settled on five names and the birth certificate has an "or" ... Chimwemwe Augusten Matupa or Koichi Kihara but we call him CAM (like the rapper Camron) or Inter, after Italian football club Inter-Milan, since that's his daddy's favorite club, and Inter means "together" in Latin... and that's who we want him to be, a distinctly American name... only in America does this make sense
6
Do they realize that their argument fully undermines any claims of ‘systemic racism’? If the problems in the African American community come from their heritage as descendants of dispossessed slaves while black immigrants thrive by comparison, then their argument really is that racism is not the problem but rather socioeconomic status. That may indeed be true to some extent, but I don’t expect the message to resonate, especially since they seem happy to write off the plight of all others in the same poor socioeconomic status. That is problematic in many ways.
18
Having grown up in New York City, with a global Black population....and as a Brooklyn-born Nigerian, I see both sides of the argument. I've heard many Nigerians speak down on African-Americans, ignorant to the perpetual struggle this country has put them through. I've also heard the xenophobic comments made by Black Americans up until about 3yrs ago, when Afrobeats went global. My parents have told me about the ignorant comments made by Black Americans when they came here 30 years ago. I'm sure lots of Black immigrants have biases that stem from those times. However, I do think Black immigrants should educate themselves, or at least be educated, on the history of those who look like them upon arrival in America. Vice versa too. Because though Nigerians may not have the same history as Black Americans, we do share struggles. Not all Africans are wealthy or middle-class, or have the means to become that. Those immigrants have children that you'd assume were Black Americans until they said their name. Police treat them the same way. Some Black immigrants don't speak English, and that's a struggle in itself. It's not as if immigrants come here and become wealthy all of a sudden.
I do think schools in Black neighborhoods should have exchange programs with African countries and the Black Diaspora. That'll open the eyes of children to understand other Black cultures and maybe then the divide will shrink over time.
177
@Sola Olosunde yes yes. I am ADOS and my husband is native Kenyan.
9
@Sola Olosunde I agree, I think there needs to be more dialogue and exchange because there is a lot of miscommunication and ignorance related to many online exchanges I have seen between Black Americans and Africans.
6
@Sola Olosunde black immigrants made a decision to come to US even though they know it has racism issue. ADOS did not.
14
I don’t understand how someone who immigrated recently who would have zero ties to anyone or anything end up being more successful than people who already live here. Can someone please explain this me?
8
@John It's because their countries are poor and corrupt, they see the USA as a land of opportunity, they come to get a good education and make money, and they have the drive to do it.
5
@John Because they usually do have: cultural connections to and help from the people in their enclave, knowledge, skills, connections to their home country (useful for int'l trade), and for some, admission to a US college/university.
3
This is great for the GOP. They don't have to deliver anything to ADOS and they can get ADOS to suppress the vote, without having to resort to their usual racially discriminatory gerrymandering or voter-ID laws.
15
We’re not stupid. We’re the least likely group to be manipulated by the GOP. Don’t speak on something you don’t know.
5
I do not believe that people of a given race are monolithic. It has been my experience, based on interactions from those that I have encountered during my life, that many people believe that non-whites are monolithic (ie all blacks are the same or all asians are the same). You should see the look on their faces when they ask me about some Caribbean dish and tell them I do no know because my family is from Virginia. They give me a quizzical look as if they can’t comprehend my answer. (incidentally I am black).
I think was is really going on here is “identity”. I hear them: "Who am I?" “Who do I identify with?”, “To whom do I belong?" They’re trying to answer those questions. I do not know if ADOS is a positive movement or not but I do believe that by assuming their movement a nefarious one, we are attempting to deny them the right to ask those questions and in doing so we are in fact enforcing the idea that “all blacks are the same” which simply is not the case. We all have to answer the identity questions at some time in our life.
8
Black Americans descended from slavery are the only homogenous American culture that doesn’t (can’t) identify with the culture from where they originated from. You’re history being ripped away will do that. As such everything that black Americans have contributed to this country is uniquely black as it is American. There is nothing wrong with recognizing this.
11
Meanwhile, white people are given only one box to check - because, apparently, they all are the same and have had identical life experiences.
35
@Mrs Ming, point well taken. While undoubtedly both "privileged" in the sense intersectionalists mean, there is a palpable difference between Mayflower descendants and (for example) me, whose grandparents all came from the same region of what is now Poland between 1900 and 1910, bore children in America, two of whom married each each other and had me. (I married a woman with the same ancestry and we had a child.) I'm sure I'm descended from a melange of Slavic peoples, though before 1900, there wasn't so much mixing among the peasantry of those peoples as there would be today, or even immediately after WWII, but to consider me any kind of close to a Pilgrim except in skin color is just plain odd: They were speaking English 400 years ago and worshiping in a Protestant fashion; "we" just started 100 ago (believe me, my grands were never very good at it), and were Papists in an era barely removed from Blaine.
There are no tidy identities in America; this much the intersectionalists have dead-to-rights. Whether that divides us (as they would have it) or unites us (as I would and I think Obama the self-described mutt [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27606637/ns/politics-decision_08/t/mutts-me-shows-obamas-racial-comfort/] does) is the question we all must answer.
6
The vast majority of Caribbean blacks are descended from African slaves, just like their American brothers.
101
And this has nothing to do with the arguments in this article. Caribbeans have no claim to anything from the USA government.
35
David L,
You are absolutely correct; I learned thru my ancestry research that many early enslaved Africans were shipped back to Barbados when they died; I, an AOAS, am endeared to those people; they are our cousins; shipped to America while they were left in Barbados.
2
@David L
True. However, this article is about reparations from the US government to descendants of black people that it (the US government) systematically maltreated.
32
Ew. There’s already resentment between black Americans and black immigrants and ADOS will make it worse! My mother is Jamaican and I was born here; I did notice that a lot of black students at Ivy Leagues were African immigrants, but whatever! Who cares! Great for them! I moved on with my life, as I knew Ivy League wasn’t for me anyways. What the working class right and left needs to understand and agree on is that instead of modifying affirmative action, just push for “socioeconomic affirmative action” all together!! Then working class whites in rural areas get a chance at (better) higher education and black teens in urban areas too!! Jeez...
15
"Tensions between black Americans who descended from slavery and black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean." Hmm. So black people in the Caribbean are descended from . . . African tourists?
8
The early Christians debated whether one had to be a Jew first to be a Christian. Once it was decided that anyone could be a Christian who accepted the faith, this more or less worked until the Spanish Inquisition, when Jews and Muslims who had been forced to convert were not considered true Christians if their bloodline demonstrated Jewish or Moorish ancestry. And thus modern notions of identity politics began to take root.
As imperfect as the United States has been, there has always remained the notion that its union be built on ideas instead of one’s ancestral heritage or tribal distinctions. The Constitution has no provisions for foreign concepts such as “blood and soil” or blood libel. Making provisions based on ethnicity only encourages further segregation and division, and stokes a kind of Balkanization of the electorate.
Where do we then draw the line? A separate line for Japanese-Americans whose families were forced into relocation camps during WW II? A separate line for the descendants of Irish immigrants from the potato famine who suffered the gauntlet of ethnic hatred in the US? One for Jews whose ancestors were denied entry into the US during the Holocaust? Descendants of slaves who also owned slaves?
Once we decide division, not unity, is the answer, the opportunities for creating differences are endless—and ultimately un-American.
15
This sounds either like another way to keep 99% of Americans fighting over nothing while the 1% acquires more of the nation's GDP, or another way for AA studies professors to publish and get tenure.
15
Good grief. Identity politics taken to a new level. When will it stop?
Life is not fair. The past was a different world with different norms. The brutality of world history cannot be compensated for with present day reparations. It should not even be an aspiration.
It's a free country. Make for yourself the life you want for yourself. Nothing is stopping you.
My grandparents came here with nothing. Not even the language. My grandfather, who already spoke 6 European languages, taught himself English by reading the advertisements pasted on the inside of subway cars as he commuted to his job in a garment factory. He never took a nickel from the government and some people hated him for his ethnic identity. It never stopped him. Or me.
What do I owe you?
18
There needs to be another group, ADOSO, American Descendants of Slave Owners. Members of this group will be taxed at 90% with the money going to pay reparations to members of ADOS.
(In case it was too subtle, that was "sarcasm". There is way too much division in America already. All citizens who need help should be able to get it, in the most wealthy country on Earth. The ultra-wealthy are pitting the rest of us against each other by making life unbearable for way too many Americans)
13
For the first time in 50 years, a critical mass of Black people are ready to prioritize their own tangible, clear interests. This time, not settling for symbolic tokens and trinkets from either fake allies or open enemies.
11
Once again the proponents of liberal identity politics demonstrate how they all ultimately end up fighting among themselves.
13
this is divide and conquer. if one group of blacks attacks another group of blacks then all blacks will suffer. white supremacy will benefit greatly.
18
For a person or group to claim descent from slavery or persecution in general as such a major part of their identity, even wearing a T-shirt with those words is I think, sad and unhealthy. There's so much more to a person's ethnicity, culture and individual identity than being descended from victims and in need of reparations or preferential treatment. I think affirmative action has run its course and it's time to move on. Injustices being inflicted today need to be dealt with directly as they occur and not with preferential treatment or reparations for wrongs inflicted and suffered by past generations.
12
@Jill Friedman Why don't you ask the Native Hawaiians about reparations? I'm sure they will give you a detailed answer about the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 and whether or not they are needed today given what's going on there.
8
I am a descendant of slaves, but my grandfather "passed" and married a white woman. I am as white-looking as anyone can be, grew up identifying as "white" (I now identify as "mixed-race") in a lily-white, red-lined suburban community. My grandfather suffered from the nation's prejudices, as did generations of his ancestors. Do I qualify as ADOS? Can I collect reparations? Should I?
7
There would be a legal definition of who is ADOS, and yes, if you were greedy enough to take advantage and you met the legal definition, you would be entitled.
4
Yes.
@camcca The point is...these "definitions" are not adequate to describe the reality. This should not be us/them. No more divisions! Don't be manipulated into turning against others. That's what they want.
Peace.
Wow. 40% of freshmen at Ivy League Schools are not descendants of slaves but recent immigrants. And I bet they are a wealthier group than descendants of slavery. It absolutely disputes the notion that Ivy League schools are committed to what we have always understood affirmative action to be—something that helps make up for the legacy of slavery.
16
Hooboy. Descendants of black slaves in America vs descendants of post Civil War black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa.
How is a white-non-Hispanic white person supposed to decide how to take sides on this issue?
There is a never ending opportunity to feel guilty about the history of slavery in this country.
When I reflect on the initiation of slavery in North America in the 17th century I think of the phrase: "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."
Whether that is more true than false is beside the point. It is leitmotif will echo for centuries.
44
To be frank, I think this is one debate that is very sensitive to white people "picking a side", let alone having a say in what's right and wrong. Both sides have a history of struggle due to white racism and European imperialism. It's because of those two things Black Americans are still struggling, and is one of the many reasons developing countries are in such conditions that coerced those Black immigrants to move to America in the first place. I'm not saying that white people shouldn't listen or ask questions, considering white politicians will have to make a decision if the push for reparations is actually voted on. But their voice is not exactly welcomed in such a discussion because of the plight of Black people worldwide....if that makes sense.
18
@HH slavery in the Americas began well before the 17th century with the Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese bringing in African slaves.
Slavery didn't start with Americans.
7
Perhaps, non-Hispanic whites like us should step aside and let those of African descent (I’m using a broad description here) debate this issue. Discretion and sensitivity would probably best contribute to this important issue.
23
Call me obtuse, but I've still not heard a cogent argument as to why the descendants of slaves deserve reparations, but not the descendants of American Indians, whose land was stolen to create this nation.
I'm all ears.
19
@CB Evans Native Americans already receive benefits including free public college tuition (state by state based) and government payouts. I swear people outside of the United States must read these comments and laugh at the complete stupidity that runs rampant among Americans. Native Americans have been receiving benefits for quite a while and are still deservedly fighting for more.
10
@CB Evans Both groups deserve reparations. The confiscation of Native people's land and the genocide afflicted upon them needs to be seriously addressed, once and for all. The sins of slavery and apartheid/genocide/discrimination against enslaved Africans and Indigenous People on US soil needs to be acknowledged and their descendants properly compensated.
4
I am native to the Dominican Republic, and as your "average" Dominican I have African roots, in fact almost 70% based on a recent DNA test. However, for me that's where the similarities end with an "average" African American, therefore, I fully understand their demands and the need of having programs that directly benefit them as descendants of enslaved people in the United States. I came here because I decided to do so, nobody forced me, their descendants didn't have that choice.
12
Certainly if you live in a swing state, this election is way too important to sit out if you understand how toxic Donald Trump is, in so many serious ways.
If some of that were his supporters trying to mislead voters, it would not be the first foul play he’s done for this election, and almost certainly not the last.
8
I'm sympathetic. They have a case. But I'm also worried about the divisiveness and any hint of anti-immigrant rhetoric.
It could be more productive to focus on the effects. Anyone who was born and lived in an area that was "redlined" was robbed of opportunities for homeownership, mobility, quality education, and the possibility of passing down that wealth. Don't forget, education has typically been funded by property taxes, so redlining was horrific, systematic, and intentional oppression. While the government stopped redlining in 1968, the realtors and the banks didn't.
There may be other effects that can help. Connecting those who have had family members who were victims of the many massacres and lynchings would have a case. Those who had to migrate north because of oppression, with no pay for their labor. Census records since the Civil War could be helpful in tracking residences.
In summary, advocating for oneself based on these effects, rather than identity, might be healthier. It would also be an easier sell to many white people who aren't on board with a seemingly abstract idea of reparations (I know it isn't abstract to African Americans).
The Great Depression of the 1930s was leveling. Nearly everybody was in the same boat, poor. The modern, white middle-class was created by government programs like FHA loans and the GI Bill. African Americans were largely excluded from those programs. I support a Marshall Plan to fix that.
15
A few modest proposals for reparations and related immigration issues:
1. Cut immigration quotas for affluent Africans and increase African refugee numbers;
2. Make substantial investments in urban public school systems, including infrastructure and especially in STEM projects paired with local universities;
3. Establish more grade school to university pipelines for all historically and economically disadvantaged minorities. There is absolutely no justification for including affluent Africans in affirmative action programs.
4. Universities and other educational institutions founded on the proceeds of slavery should establish reparations programs for descendants of those slaves.
5. Haitians deserve serious reparations from France just as other Caribbean slave descendants deserve reparations from the UK.
6. While Coates is an excellent writer, he has completely missed the point on historical discrimination. African immigrants have not faced the same degree and extent of generational discrimination.
9
This is all about divide and conquer. The more sub divisions they create the weaker we are. The more in fighting they create, the stronger they are. The only conflict that matters is the class struggle.
18
I feel,sad and discouraged about the newish tendency for Americans to divide ourselves in ever more finely defined identity groups. The Women’s March was such a powerful experience and a significant social activism moment. But the organizing group subsequently fell apart over internal divisions based on racial identity, religious affiliation, and gender definitions. We will never again have a successful Women’s March due to this. At a time in our history when we need solidarity more than ever, it has become a distant dream because of our fractiousness and obsession with purism. It’s observable in so many different communities including the Disability Rights and the LGBTQ communities. Are we all Prima Donnas, uninterested in looking beyond our own narrowly defined self interest and self glorification? Frankly, I believe that’s how Trump won, and could again.
20
I so agree with you!
Thank you for stating that with such clarity.
4
Thank you for your message. I read about what happened to the March and it is a tragedy. If you are really for a cause you have to find a way to work together not divide a group. That is what oppressers do divide and then conquer.
3
Are these not similar disparity of views that exist among the white population? Do rich and poor white Americans not look upon eachother with the same distrust and suspicion? Is it not an issue born of one's financial stature more than political affiliation?
I think the economic improvement for average Americans is a side effect of historically low unemployment and resulting wage increases. Which is something Obama started and Trump is benefitting from. As it pertains to African Americans, it's not something Republicans intended or even tried to do. But it's certainly something Republicans are trying to take credit for.
2
The culture of ADOS is distinct from Blacks born in other countries or to immigrants to the US. ADOS suffer the legacy of slavery which has impacted our economic station and educational attainment. We also only have claim to America whereas immigrants and their kids often maintain rights and loyalty to their countries of origin.
ADOS need policies to address our specific concerns so should be considered a separate group for the Census and during policy development.
13
As individual stakeholders with specific agendas create a new I AM identity for both individuals as well as a group whose dimensions could also represent a range of diversities, how far back in history do these new I AMers want to go for their roots?
As they create a new I AM, asking/demanding “reparations,” what personal accountability, are each of them willing to take in their own roles in challenging or in enabling America’s ongoing toxic WE-THEY daily violating culture.
What enables ME to ALSO include lots of “others;” each with their own narrative.
1
ADOS has bought into the zero-sum game used by the Trump xenophobes. If you want someone to blame for the loss of jobs, blame corporate America and Wall Street. Wall Street demands profits, no matter the human costs, so corporations move their operations to low-cost labor countries and countries where environmental and safety standards do not exist.
7
Exactly. Racial profiling algorithms don’t care who your grandparents are.
Afro-Caribbeans are, not coincidentally, also ‘ADOS’, and are just as likely to be, say, to pick a random act of race-based violence, shot by the police if they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time as Afro-Americans descended from enslaved folks. And not being ‘ADOS’ probably wouldn’t offer any protection even for a fresh-off-the-jet Nigerian prince who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The US is rife with racist institutions (and individuals), and these do not distinguish between people of African descent. Racism treats us all the the same - that is, as less worthy and less deserving than our peers of European descent. Yes, we have different cultures, self concepts, experiences & communities, and those differences should be acknowledged and appreciated. But in the US, the most powerful economy in the world, the experience of exclusion unites us, or rather, it should. If we let it divide us, we become victims of the system that held generations of our ancestors captive all over again.
11
Trump knows little of politics and history but ‘divide and conquer’ is an easy concept to grasp. And he haas only to rely on his media supporters to effectively deliver the message, stir up the populace with discontent, and deliver him a win 2020.
6
Descendants of slaves are often descendants of slave owners as well. Reparations are only easily determined for those who can show specific monetary discrimination, such as housing / loan denial, or or injurious action. Some things can never be repaired or paid to be made better. And people face discrimination based on their color no matter where they're from. None of these divisions make any sense since we're all going to have to live together as citizens.
4
The amount of ways we twist and contort ourselves to avoid discussions of social and economic class always astounds me. The organizers of this movement have an important point to say, but maybe missed the mark as there’s plenty of African immigrants who aren’t well off. Social and economic mobility has stagnated in this country - Africa Americans being the hardest hit.
4
It has nothing to do with class and everything to do with a group of people who have been socially, politically and economically disenfranchised and terrorized since before this country was even the USA. Poor African immigrants who came to this country en mass for the last thirty years have no claim to this legacy.
4
@Von The raping of Africa and the legacy of slavery are different sides of the same coin...However, I do agree that for purposes of accountability, identity or the label is key.
3
The left has been trying to create ever granular identity subgroups for the last 3 decades. As minority, you can be anything but not simply as "American" as that's the "privileged" term the left reserves for Americans of European descent. It's funny (and sad) to see them crying that ADOS is divisive.
6
Affirmative action and similar programs should be directed towards people (and descendants) who were disadvantaged. Immigrants should accept the country 'as is' and should not receive special benefit from programs designed to ameliorate injustices in long-past American history.
Further, degrees of racism and prejudice occur across all races, countries and cultures. They are an unfortunate human behavior which we must all work to overcome. Racism is not in any way uniquely American - let alone uniquely white American.
12
Those who see merit in this approach to racial discrimination and mitigation need to be cautious of the company they keep. This is ripe for exploitation by reactionary conservatives and Trump proxies like Ann Coulter. People of color & much of the working class are right to question the Democratic party’s commitment to their needs. But aligning with the likes of Coulter whose support is the ultimate in bad faith will not promote their goals. I for one will not be dismissive of anything Cornell West the black Harvard professor, activist, author and speaker of truth to power says. If he said ADOS is giving a voice to working-class black people then it needs to be taken seriously. I suggest those who support the minority communities in this country take this to heart. And those behind ADOS remember that Republican support is nothing more than a false flag operation designed to undermine their very cause and empower their oppressors and heirs to Jim Crow racism.
7
If a racist saw you as a black person, they could care less if you were born in Haiti or in the Bronx. You don’t get any points by distinguishing your blackness. Rather we should celebrate diversity in being black whether you are from Uganda to Atlanta to Papua New Guinea. Don’t fall for that right wing divide and conquer.
26
@OnTheVerge You don't get it.
11
Conflicts between African American descendants of slaves and other diasporic Africans are centuries old. So the timing of this particular iteration's emergence reeks of Russian disinformation and Republican election-year opportunism. IMHO, ADOS true objectives are foregrounding a legitimate grievance, making it a damned if you do or don't issue for Democrats, and suppressing voter participation among a core Democratic constituency. Don't fall for it, black folk.
14
Any populist movement is very susceptible to being hijacked by the extreme elements. The leaders need to be careful of what goes on in their movement, or else disinformation will just derail the whole movement into something far from what the original goal was. It seems that's the warning here.
18
I think I understand.
Is there a difference between disinformation and information that waited too long? And can there be a time limit on entrenched discrimination that has not been solved?
I believe this is a cultural problem. I do not mean “my culture.” You cannot have a “my culture.” Culture is the accumulation of all the stories told and meanings felt. It is like a greatvbig ship and cannot change course quickly. For instance, i an old and know I will probably die without an Equal Right’s Amendment in the US.
I am an old white man who has seen stories that black people smell, and when the story was told they did not mean smell they meant stink. Does that smell which is not real real but only mentioned, does it go away?
Of course be careful of disinformation but don’t avert what you hear because it rings an old sound that clashes. You will know when that sound is heard equally by us all our whole culture has changed course in a better direction.
That is how I feel.
True diversity, it seems to me, has much more to do with socio-economic background than skin color. At least here in LA.
24
Wow, LA! What a place. I am an old white man from the Midwest and often felt oddly about LA. (Do you remember “Beverly Hillbillies” in the sixties? I do.) For instance, I thought LA had no real diversity. Then two winters ago my wife and I flew there for a visit. We stayed at Jerry's Motel. We walked and drove all across the biggest and most diverse city in the US.
And I had a distinct impression, that if I wax a black man, I felt this was the city to live in. I do not believe LA has a fair distribution of wealth for black men. I felt that if I was black here then a white person would respect me, more than I have seen in other big cities and all the small towns where the whites live a better life. LA is my favorite city now.
I won’t make it to LA, but I hope to move to Chicago. Thanks for reminding me.
1
It’s not just slavery; victims of Jim Crow, real estate redlining, and many other post- slavery abuses have just claim to special status and reparations.
But it seems to me that Caribbean and more recently arrived immigrants of color have perhaps somewhat less claim to such benefits.
Perhaps it is safe to say, that African Americans whose families have been here from before the 70s at least, have been deprived of resources and opportunities that were instead given to “white” Americans. Not to mention the truth that the country was built by the free labor of slavery, and this injustice, far from ever being redressed, was followed by systematic persecution and abuse. These people, along with ALL native Americans, are deserving of special attention.
These are very deep and troubled waters, but one thing is certain: MUCH IS NEEDED.
33
Caribbeans and Africans have no claim to any benefits.
10
It’s about time this growing discussion reached the mainstream. If, in an era obsessed with identity, you are not going to follow the facts and figures to see who is thriving and who is barely surviving in today’s America, you are being willfully ignorant in support of a political agenda and nothing more.
Every “racial” group in America has sub groups. And the performances of those sub groups actually subvert a great deal of the present groupthink on how to address inequality in America. Being black has nothing to do with your success in America. As this article relays, black immigrants and their children perform better at every level not just compared to ADOS but to white Americans. There are differences in Asian sub groups, white sub groups, etc. How many Americans know that Russian-Americans are much wealthier than French-Americans? The truth of people’s conditions are hidden by vague labels.
The reason academics and liberal officials will try to derail this group by calling them “conservative” adjacent is because at a fundamental level it rejects the status quo take on inequality in America that has been pervasive for generations. ADOS will get wise to all of this eventually and it will produce a rupture. One that will bring us all closer to truth and righting past wrongs.
12
@ Matt interesting that you mention Russian Americans are wealthier than French Americans. Is there some sort of injustice or bias in our system that makes it so? Is this something we as a society should redress? Perhaps we should tax Russians at a higher rate and allocate that money to poor, disadvantaged, clearly discriminated-against French people.
3
Reparations for descendants of American slaves? Why?
(The making of amends for wrong or injury done:
reparation for an injustice). I do not agree with the idea nor with establishing of categories of black people currently in the nation. A can of worms at best.
8
I’m also skeptical of using bloodlines as a mode of rewarding or punish the injustices and sins of those gone before. Far better is to trace where social and economic injustice still exists today and address it as it is.
5
Just think, who would this movement benefit? And think of the timing . . . Just before a major election where the black vote can have a major impact. Let’s just all be black and vote in 2020. We can pick up this discussion AFTER the election.
29
@DS We've always looked for the discussion after the election and it never comes in a significant way. The waiting time has run out. The time is now, not tomorrow, otherwise Democrats and liberals will continue to (exploit) our vote with no return.
6
@DS No what people need to think about is why so many are against this.
4
@DS "Let’s just all be black and vote in 2020. We can pick up this discussion AFTER the election."
Historically these calls for unity happen every presidential election. But after the elections, the plight of the poorest people in this country black or otherwise are pretty much forgotten. There is an increasing frustration among many black Americans that they do not get enough in return for their votes to the Democratic Party. The party would be wise to address this issue. It's obvious these frustrations can be manipulated suppress voter turnout.
5
This continual societal arguing over “I’m more aggrieved than you’re aggrieved”...well, it...aggrieves me.
Without diminishing anyone’s challenges/experiences, are we no longer able to recognize that what unites us must be stronger than what divides us?
9
In my opinion, this is an ignorant movement. My father's parents were from the Caribbean. My mother's parents were from South Carolina. Both of my grandparents came from people who were stolen from Africa. While I was at Fisk University, I was told I wasn't an American because I had grandparents who born outside the United States.
Instead of creating division between people of African descent, the founders of this movement should try to learn more about their African ancestry.
37
Yes. Malcolm X said, 'You can't love the tree if you hate the root.'
4
The U.S. was the last and least stop on the slave trade. The U.S. - Jefferson - signed into law a federal mandate outlawing import of African slaves in 1807.
Less than 90 years after America became a nation, a war was fought that cost 1 million young white males their lives and limbs to free African slaves. That war and the subsequent 13th amendment was supposed to free but did not did not the Asian and other race indentured slaves. And it certainly did not free or give any rights to females of all races.
8
Maggie what’s your point? America was among the last of the slavery nations to end the practice and established a system of brutal oppression and violence to perpetuate slavery’s abuses long after the civil war. Jim Crow has only ended in our life times and not wholly at that. So yes oppression and discrimination continued for other races and most certainly for women. & then there’s the native Americans whose plight remains dire and mostly unaddressed. Republicans love to pit people against each other while picking everyone’s pockets collectively. Or maintains their grip on power & wealth if you will. The consequences remain & economic injustice perpetuates racial, ethnic and gender oppression. So again what’s your point?
4
So Barack Obama would check on box and Michelle Obama would check another? And if their daughters marry men from Nigeria/Kenya, etc and have children? Their children would check which box? Here we seem to be getting to the one drop argument.....and that has proven to be ridiculous and counterproductive.
I hope this is the beginning of a constructive dialogue, but I fear given similar movements that division simply sows discontent and distraction.
28
As a descendant of former slaves of the U.S. I take exception with "it does not matter as long as they have black skin" argument. I am not asking for reparations or hand outs of any kind. I want fair treatment under the Constitution and to be respected, we toiled in the fields and plantation houses of this country, we have fought and died in all of America's wars.
We are far more "American" by force of the Black codes and Jim Crow that those who arrived since the 1870's be they white, yellow, brown or black, our language and customs were taken from us by use of the whip and the rope.
So, I am an American, I am not a fan of term hyphenated something -Americans. If your family came here, their birth country did not provide what they needed to survive. That is the true and only reason that they came here. Your allegiance should be to the USA alone. I know that this will offend many, but if not true, then why are you here ?
I here seen many times in the great melting pot that is NYC, other blacks and browns, separate themselves from "my people" by use accents, code words and what ever means possible. We are all one, when it benefits them, as soon as they gain position suddenly, they separate.
Positions for educational preferences and job hiring should go to the ex-slaves of the USA, we have earned them.
To the others, the countries that enslaved your people owe your people. My people suffered here, we should benefit here.
29
@arubaG "Your allegiance should be to the USA alone. I know that this will offend many, but if not true, then why are you here ?" You lost me there! I enjoy my life in the USA, I follow the rules, pay my taxes, currently looking to found a business, and consider the United States my home, but I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic, which I still call home and have a very special place in my heart and lifestyle. And I can proudly say that I am committed and grateful to both countries.
3
Reparations is a debt owed. Not a handout and is fair treatment.
12
"Positions for educational preferences and job hiring should go to the ex-slaves of the USA, we have earned them."
Earned?
1
Who is more privileged, a middle class black woman at Harvard, or a young white man in grinding poverty in the Appalachias? Social class determines privilege. All the rest is artefact.
42
Social class is important, but it’s not everything. Perception of others counts for a lot, too, and that is often based on race. In your example, I’m guessing that the young man from Appalachia will probably not have to deal with some of his peers and teachers believing that he is genetically inferior, can’t do college work, and was only admitted to college because of affirmative action, while the young black woman, no matter what her preparation may be, probably will. She will also have dealt with racism and its consequences from the day she was born, despite her economic circumstances. That takes a toll.
14
It's not that simple. Yes, the class divide is increasingly the fundamental division. However, there is no denying the particular oppression of Blacks in America. Even that Black Harvard grad faces a greater possibility of being killed by the cops, less chance of getting tenure, less likely to get a loan, more likely to have inferior health care, and on and on. What is very true is that today workers who are Black and White have more in common than at any time previously. They face bosses, cops, and rotten politicians who are white and Black, and who equally detest the workers they exploit. Out of this can come shared struggles that unite all working people against a common foe. Unfortunately, reactionary outfits like that described in this article seek to undercut this unity. The racist capitalists must be grateful for their services.
7
@Andrew Nielsen Poor whites in the United States are statistically hired over middle class blacks. They also have a better chance of ascending the corporate ladder quicker than said black employee. There's a difference between opinions and facts.
10
I feel like as a white person, I don't have a right to voice an opinion in this. It's like how I get wary when men want to tell me about abortion.
27
@Lauren If they demand reparations from for all those slaves you owned, you do, indeed, have a right to voice an opinion. And, really, America was founded on the right to voice your opinion.
1
This article is very interesting, though many truths about ADOS were discussed, a abundance of generalizations and misinformation was shared due to lack of research . Yvette Carnell wearing a Maga hat, WOW, had nothing to do with supporting Trump. The “blood and bone tweet” had nothing to do with nazis, but referring to the blood of ADOS in the soil from hate crimes against us.The xenophobic tone of claiming ADOS as a conservative group is like saying a Latino, Asian or White person only can be a Republican or a Democrat. ADOS is a lineage, people born to American Slaves, and can vote how they please, we fought for that, as ADOS I choose to vote for whoever benefits my cultural group through agenda and policy. To say we are xenophobic puts the same shoe on EVERY other cultural groups that votes as a whole for their interests. ADOS people have shed blood for freedoms and justice for all people who call America home. Show me what immigrant group has done the same work in creating policy that benefited just ADOS creating the same spaces just for ADOS. How about a decree to thank ADOS people for making it possible for them to be in America and enjoy its freedoms. Everybody wants to use ADOS to eat at the table then exclude us from the same table. All in all, this article opened a door again to invite questions and information about one of America’s foundational cultures of people, who's existence here created the wealth that made America one of the Richest Countries in the World.
28
Recognize and appreciate cultural differences between descendants of slaves in America and immigrants from Africa, but politicizing those differences is divisive. Race as a category was invented by white politicians in the American colonies in the 18th century. White racists like Trump don’t make distinctions among black people, and Obama wasn’t given privileged status for getting his skin color directly from Africa. How does ADOS categorize Colin Powell and Wyclef Jean, descendants of Caribbean slaves? It’s not surprising people treat ADOS like a fifth column—its divisiveness is custom made for white nationalists.
12
Nope sorry. These immigrate groups already come here with their tribalism. If anything ADOS is just getting hip to what these other groups have been practicing since they were allowed in this country in mass.
7
Seems like another attempt to create a fault line among Americans and exploit it. I would expect the Russians to be jumping in on this on social media. It can add to their exploiting Black Lives Matter to sow division. The bottom line is that we have a white supremacist in the White House and Americans who are not white should understand this is a danger to them and vote for someone else to be president. It could hardly be clearer. And whites who oppose white supremacy should do the same.
12
Hiring foreign actors to play black Americans is just there version of Hollywood hiring Italian actors to play real life Jewish characters.
8
ivcan understand the point - but didcrimination and racism doesnt stop a minute and ask whether the persons ancestors were slaves or came from somewhere else. The security person who followa the young black guy around the store doesnt ask him if he's African-American or Bahama-American. i serious doubt whether those guys in Texas dragged the black guy from the back of the back of the pickup truck stopped to ask if he was slave-descended or 1st or 2d generation African-American. The guy who shot Trayon Martin and the police who think its open season on black people dont stop and consider this before they shoot. Bigotry is bigotry and depends on how someone looks - not where a persons great great grandparents live. All of this is just very unnecessary from ridding our society of pervasive and endemic racism. Full stopm
4
@Andy It's about reparations. Re-read the article.
3
I would argue that the true African Americans are those whose ancestors were brought to America in bondage against their will; and if reparations are ever distributed, those should be individuals who receive the payments. Thank you.
29
Educated entrepreneurial immigrants from Africa are not beholden to the current Democrat party and that’s why they are considered such a threat. They might vote Republican (gasp!)
6
Furthermore, black immigrants were in the fore-front liberating African-American people - Marcus Garvey to Obama. Plus, setting good examples for black youths to follow. I guess when everyone can stand up straight now, you don't need people like us anymore. I am saddened that ADOS will fall for this clear manipulation. Sad.
6
What about the descendants of free people of color?
5
@MBDC
What about them? Do they want a check?
1
Immigrant children, across the board, do better than the vast majority of American-born children. I'd bet children of African immigrants do better than poor American-born white, black, and brown children; just like Asian immigrant children do. If Ms. Carnell & Co. think the source of black America's problems are poor brown people and Democrats, I have a bridge they may be interested in...
8
@Buck Biro Asian immigrants in the United States "do well" because the wealth from Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrant communities offsets the poverty of southeast Asian immigrants that live here. Because of this, southeast Asian immigrants don't reap the benefit of being a "model minority" and things like affirmative action actually does them a great favor.
4
@Buck Biro,
It is true that other immigrant children do better than many descendants of enslaved americans; but there is another more eclectic way of seeing the issue; our history is compounded by having every new group push us back due to our history of enslavement.
I am with ADOS.
5
@Buck Biro statistics supports this
NOTE: never, ever, trust a conservative on black issues. Never.
28
@Maron A. Fenico That sounds like political bigotry and shamelessly so.
3
What do you expect when for years black Americans have had their specific culture and it’s history white washed by PC standards and referred to as “African Americans”? As if there was no distinction between them and the cultures of African immigrants who also by the way don’t refer to themselves as African Americans but instead the specific country they immigrated from. Black Americans don’t have that luxury. They are the only homogenous American culture whose history begins with their enslavement. It’s totally justifiable that that fact has its members wanting to distinguish themselves from other “African” cultures.
15
It's really eye opening to see how dismissive liberals are of black Americans when they're asking for something that liberals don't want to give. All we're asking for is to have acknowledgement that we are a unique people and have the right to our own identity and culture. It's madness how arrogant and paternalistic you all are. Oh, I knew a black guy so I am fully qualified to tell black Americans how they should feel. That's what you all sound like.
29
Even the NYT, among many others in 2007, quoted notable Black Americans, who did not feel that Barack Obama was Black enough.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/us/politics/02obama.html
"The black author and essayist Debra J. Dickerson recently declared that 'Obama isn’t black' in an American racial context."
"Mr. Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, both former black presidential candidates, have declined to formally endorse Mr. Obama so far."
"The black columnist Stanley Crouch has said, 'When black Americans refer to Obama as ‘one of us,’ I do not know what they are talking about.”
It was not right wingers who were debating that question over a decade ago, it was many African-Americans themselves.
35
You do realize that race is “not being black enough” is not the topic of conversation here right?
1
As an African American woman, I can see the validity of both sides, the need for black American slave descendants to have a distinct ethnic identity, and the acknowledgement that racism also affects the lives of black immigrants to the States. This split partially results from the delay in allocating reparations to generations of African Americans. We have not been taken care of. Most black people that I know are comfortable acknowledging the shared blackness of our African and Caribbean brothers and sisters. What we're not comfortable with, however, is how black Americans will be mocked by newcomer blacks as lazy, shiftless, ignorant, and dangerous while they slide into the benefits of living in America that we suffered to build. I have experienced contempt from immigrant blacks who see this country as the land of milk and honey, thus scorning black American communities for issues of entrenched poverty and illiteracy, ones they don't understand. Slavery's legacy is robust in America, and yet black immigrants often show little compassion for the black American struggle. So many of the ones I've met seem to care more about money and obtaining status, not about the strife of people who look like them that have been here for centuries. Regarding reparations, America has not loved or cared for its black daughters and sons. Like any abused child, it's hard to see your mother encouraging your brother or sister when she just finished slapping you in the face.
340
@Nita nicely said. The many west Africans I have met over the years will tell you they are here to make money, send home in preparation for their eventual return to their home country and live large. The opportunities for them to get the capital they need to build a nice house are often not available.
African Americans SHOULD absolutely be able to work in American AND built up wealth through home/property ownership.
All Americans need to fight this injustice.
27
@Nita As a Jamaican-American woman, please let me know what are the benefits that we are sliding into? I am not trying to be facetious. I am serious. What are the benefits that being black in America gets us?
Life in America is difficult for us as well. It is not that we don't see the see or understand the black American struggle, we just know that if we spend most of our time focused on the struggle we will be eaten alive in this harsh capitalist system.
I also don't see this level of contempt for all the other immigrants that have come to America post-slavery, who have far more benefits since they can assimilate, such as immigrants of European descent.
Instead, the issue is always with Black immigrants that the ADOS community feels is doing better than them.
Also, what would the ADOS community like us to do? Not strive? Suffer more? What is the solution?
45
The fact that you were able to even to come to this country is number one. Immigration reform came courtesy of ADOS’ Civil Rights Movement.
43
This has such a divisive fingerprint on it that though on the surface there are very good motives, it makes me believe it would be a perfect topic for foreign influence to divide progressives. One of the most chilling quotes was the 30 something woman who said she had no problem with Trump being re-elected if the Dems don’t come out with a reparations program. Are you kidding? Do you think Trump has ANY thought of helping any Black person or person of color? He is a vicious racist/white nationalist who if he gains a second term will be unfettered in his prejudicial actions. DON’T BE FOOLED! I am not against descendants of slaves having their own group but always remember the motto Divide And Conquer. That is exactly what is going on here. Please do not go against your own self interest. If a person is racist, he or she does not stop and ask oh are you from Jamaica or Mississippi or Libya? They just see black, do not let them win. Racism must stop but won’t be slowed down with a Trump win, it will only increase!
6
@Sandra Have you ever asked yourself when exactly has racism ever slowed down? Think about that. Then think about why that person you mentioned would have no problem if Trump were reelected.
3
The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Nobody alive today is a victim of slavery committed by anyone alive today.
Many generations have passed.
If you want to talk reparations, talk about Native Americans.
This country was stolen from them.
Identity politics is antithetical to MLK's accurate vision of race:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
2
@Steve Davies
"If you want to talk reparations, talk about Native Americans.This country was stolen from them."
What do you call taking a persons, family, culture, history, and even their rights as human beings from them as African slaves bought to America experienced? Is that not theft?
I am not discounting the inhumane treatment and discrimination American Indians have experienced and continue to experience in this country. But they were not totally and completely stripped of their history, families and cultures.
@Steve Davies What reparations should the Indians pay for all the white slaves they held? There were also some unfortunate blacks who were freed slaves from the South, who were enslaved again by the Indians. What of them?
Ethnicity and culture are important concepts. The people who throw bricks through windows or drive into crowds of people, or worse, could not care less. They are same people who tell Native Americans to go back where they came from simple based on the color of their skin.
I get the premise but it's a conundrum as black students from the Caribbean are likely descended from slaves too, but if at school abroad, they're usually from a higher socio- economic group than most Americans.
Shouldn't all int'l students be separate from American students irregardless of skin color, as that is confusing.
3
The USA is not responsible for slavery in the Caribbean. So this argument makes no sense.
7
I agree with the pursuit of African American reparations. I am from the Caribbean and I feel for those who spent generations building this country and were never compensated. However, African Americans should be mindful that to separate and isolate from immigrants may be counter-productive for their/our cause. Look at the contributions of afro-Caribbeans to the civil rights movement. Marcus Garvey, MalcomX, Stockley C, Farakahn, Harry Belafonte, Sidney P, Billie Dee, Colin P, Eric Holder, Obama, etc are all descendants of immigrants. Think about how you can honor the immigrant contribution and still assert your unique experience/identity. In addition, African American culture, Rocknroll, Hip hop, etc has its origins in the islands - Haiti(through Louisana), Cuba, Trinidad and of course, Jamaica. Study your history and no one can every manipulate you...
6
@Zigzag Oh no Zigzag. You are quite mistaken. Our cultural music has its origins in the black American church and in the Deep South. How dare you even try to lay claim to our contributions. What if I said that black Americans can claim Jamaican reggae music because reggae music has influences from blues and jazz music? No, that is disrespectful to Jamaicans and their culture. Learn your history and stop trying to lay claims to black American culture because you wish to reap the benefits from black American cultural capital. And as for the leaders, while non-black American leaders were instrumental to the progression of the black American collective, black Americans had and have our own leaders - MLK, Rosa Parks, Bayard Rustin, Langston Hughes, Nina Simone, James Baldwin, the list goes on.
5
@Robert Don't forget W.E. Dubois... I am not minimizing the contributions of our AA leaders...I am just saying immigrants have made contributions also...helping to liberate black people.
About the culture, Rock n Roll has its origins in Afro Cuban music and HipHop has its origin in the Bronx(among immigrant youths) and yes Reggae was influenced by black southern music and other things...However, the common origin seems to be our African ancestry. Black southern string music form Louisiana is also the origin of Blues and Country. Not disputing you but it is important to know your history.
2
I got this far into the article before I had to comment on this:
"In Hollywood, Harriet Tubman is played in a new movie by a black British woman, much to the annoyance of some black Americans."
But everyone is more than ok with Robert DeNiro (0% Irish) playing Irishman, Frank Sheeran.
Everyone jumped on the poor caucasian HS girl in CA last year because she worn an "asian" dress to her prom.
Yet everyone lauds people of color playing white historical figures in Hamilton.
We are pathetic.
13
Actually Sheeran was half Italian.
What % ADOS does one need to be to qualify? No one is 100% descended from African-origin slaves.
3
If your descendants were treated badly, you expect to be compensated for it by people who never mistreated anybody?
3
@David Yes, but you are living off the benefits, my friend. This country was built off the free labor of African people and their descendants. Go read the history and it will help you make more enlightened observations
2
Those immigrants came here from countries they controlled. They never had to face “Jim Crow “ like laws that made them second class citizens. So the baggage of nobody-ness and self doubt that African Americans carried they didn’t have.
White Americans have always promoted immigrants as a way to Isolate Africans Americans, and to keep from giving them their due.
8
I really don’t think this is accurate. Colonialism had a huge impact in just about every African & Caribbean country, & it’s left a huge legacy. To say that the average person in Africa or the Caribbean really “controls” his or her nation’s government is not true. They’re just people too.
2
The ADOS have a valid point, for sure. I just want everyone to remember, though, that another four years of this madman we have in the White House helps NOBODY. Let's be unified in our effort to unseat him, because he's an existential threat to us all. With a functioning brain occupying the presidency again, then we can proceed with the badly needed work of making reparations to the ADOS citizenry.
8
This is how you reflexively get a growing white identity movements who are also "self interested".... sounds like this will create racial divisiveness in America rather than inclusion. If we travel down this path it will create identitarian movements that will inevitably rip apart the cohesive fabric of our society.
3
@Mystery Lits " If we travel down this path it will create identitarian movements that will inevitably rip apart the cohesive fabric of our society."
What makes you think we are not already there?
1
The only reason Ann Coulter and the Republicans are siding with African-Americans on this issue is because it's divisive on the left. The Republicans just lost their one African-American senator, does anyone seriously think they care about the state of black people in our country? They care about billionaires and large corporations - the rest of us are pawns to be moved around the chess board - and that's all this is to them - a chess move.
Ben Carson said Africans came here from Africa seeking a better life, he seemed to have missed the chapter on slavery. Dr. Carson is the highest ranking African-American in the Trump administration and he clueless of history. Slaves built the plantations, grew the cotton, and raised the families. Slaves were raped, beaten and murdered. After slavery there was segregation, share-cropping, lynchings - it's time American owned up to this tragedy and discussed reparations to the ancestors. And this has nothing to do with recent immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean, hence the need for ADOS.
4
BRAVO to this group! America needs you and needs to hear from you!
....from a white girl who was raised in a rich, segregated, Southern Baptist neighborhood!....
6
Black immigrants of Caribbean descent are also descendants of slaves. Possibly African immigrants aren’t, but they most certainly have been affected by white/western colonialism. While I understand there will be cultural differences, those differences are likely not as big as people would like to think.
10
I never thought I would see the day when Cornell West and Ann Coulter would be on the same page.The earth must be tilting off it’s axis.God help us!
7
And now we know why Lenin advocated for the destruction of ethnicity and religion, the two divisive opiates of the people.
2
This African American woman is soo, soo tired of folks who don't give a darn about us, suddenly becoming allies with our best interest. ADOC has been around too long and it's xenophobia is distressing to say the least. But the real reason, IMHO, it's gaining ground is because people of color are still fighting for crumbs. (What I have to say about white conservatives is unprintable, so I'll stop now.)
20
@Afi Why don’t you tell us about illegals who are absorbing the resources?
3
@Jackson, “Illegals” get precious little of America’s resources—as study after study has shown, they get way less in benefits than they contribute through sales taxes. The idea that “illegals” are costing us tons of money is a myth promoted by people who’d like us to spend all our time scapegoating “illegals” rather than focusing on who IS benefiting from America’s resources.
3
@Afi ADOS are not People of Color. Please don't erase our history in attempts to be inclusive .
2
The Democrats have kind of out done their push for reparation by bringing millions of African refugees into US cities. In MN alone tens of thousands of Somalians out number American blacks 100 to one.There's only a small hand full of slave descendants compared to the tens of millions of African and other Black immigrants refugees and citizens in the US. It's become about as many as you can count on the fingers of one hand to the amount of millions who will try to prove their inheritance once the process starts.How will they qualify the very few who's relatives usually left no legitimate trace in historical records.
I’m not an American, so pardon my ignorance, but how did African people appear in Jamaica, Haiti and the Caribbean?
3
The fact that their ancestors were slaves in other countries is addressed in the article.
4
@John - slave trade
2
Black people who are descendants of African slaves (of which I am) have been *called* everything-by everybody: Negroes, Colored, Black, Afro- (hairstyle)-American- African American. But...what is an African American? Are African Americans African immigrants? Are they the children (born in America) of African immigrants or 3-4-5 generations removed from the African slave trade?
Seems the problem lies in America and its need to define who and what *we* (all) are: First there were pretty much Blacks & Whites on the census, then Asians, then Native Americans; then Hispanics (white or non-white). Are we defined by race, ethnicity, national origin? What more categories will there be in- say, 50 years.
But...the last thing I want is the cheering-squad of the likes of Ann Coulter and others trying to make a quick name for themselves over a non-controversy.
2
As a descendant of slaves, I'm not really interested in the labels. I'm fine being defined as black on the Census or as African American but the growing identity politics in the US disturbs me.
I would rather be identified as American who has African (and Irish, because let's be honest, no one born in this country is 100% of anything). It's time that descendants be acknowledged as American, period.
314
@Teresa That is a great idea...if we make them Americans, then we don't have to give them reparations for the atrocities done to them and their ancestors...great
15
@Zigzag
I’m appalled by such suggestion.
African Americans are Americans and any acknowledgement of the harm done and continues to be done should be tended to.
16
@Teresa I am sorry but you are playing right into the hands of people who want to diminish the AA contributions in this society. The label is essential in order to keep fighting for parity and reparations...It is a subtle thing but it is the key to claiming the debt that is owed. Don't fall for the trap...You are African American and that is it.
10
I can see their point, but I think they’re attacking the wrong people. Making demands of the Democratic Party while giving a pass to Trump, whose policies tend to favor the wealthy and/or white? Really?
4
@TYO How do his policies favor whites?
4
@TYO Blacks have been voting for Democrats for 40 years with little to show for it. When the Tea Party emerged, they put the heat to Republicans. It can't be surprising that some black people are approaching the people for whom they've been voting with concerns. Voting is an exchange. You can't make demands of people who aren't getting your vote anyway. And, because Trump bad isn't a good reason for them not to have the conversation. Democrats will never think there is a good time.
Excellent reporting--thanks! Perfectly logical evolution of identity politics. This is a perspective that will not go away, but there are those who will try to suppress it. In the long run, it will inevitably prevail.
It would be great to hear more about the diversity among Black Americans. The NYT too often represents Black politics as monolithic. How about Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury (one article), Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, and many others. There is ferment and intelligence in this diversity. Thanks again!
3
ADOS has a point, the people of color label is effectively pulling political power from African Americans. It is interesting to read here how many Ivy League schools fill seats non-ADOS people yet claim African American representation. There has long been an expression in the Bronx "their not black, their like Colin Powells people". This article has captured my attention, I will read up on the ADOS movement.
13
When people of African/Jamaican/Haitian or any other person of racially dark descendants is pulled over by the police, before the officer speaks to them (in the event they have an accent), the officer is only thinking they are stopping a black person/person of color. Period. What someone sees first and foremost is the color of their skin, not their ancestral heritage, before any contact or interaction occurs. When they see a person of color, all of those stereotypes come into play without knowing the person's ancestry. Only after person to person interaction occurs does the officer realize they are not US born. Our society is not blind to race and that's the problem. So much interaction occurs before one has the time to figure out a person's ancestral history. It's a complicated issue.
5
This split makes sense. More and more people are realizing that class plays a bigger role in our society than race does. And Democrats should recognize that poverty affects all races and solutions to this problem should transcend race.
Same line of thinking applies to affirmative action. Race-based affirmative action really ought to be reconsidered as class-based AA.
12
' A September newsletter from Progressives for Immigration Reform touted the growing political clout of ADOS and praised it as “a movement that understands the impact unbridled immigration has had on our country’s most vulnerable workers.” '
Right, the struggle of so many African Americans is NOT caused by all the ills of racism in the past and present, no, their struggles are the fault of immigrants.
That's pretty much all you need to know about the motivation of this organization.
Right-wing agitators have already succeeded in convincing poor white people that the reason for their plight is NOT, for example, income inequality, NO, it's really affirmative action, and immigrants!
Now they are trying to pull the same with African Americans.
10
The response to ADOS is No and I'm a 70 year old African American woman, who has spent a lifetime working on and for justice issues.
1. You may say as long and loud as you wish that your agenda is different from right wingers or Republican, that argument is hollow. You've already been embraced by them and you're much too small not to be swallowed by their ideologies. Let me suggest the most recent iteration of this thinking in America. The Republican party in the 1970s deliberately set out to engage and recruit black folks. They came with money, more money than most of us had access to. There were some who bought it and became their sycophants. They're still employing the tactic. You don't have the resources to win this.
2. Set your own agenda and know your history. Start with hope enslaved people shared information throughout this hemisphere early on. African Americans revolted, in part, because of the inspiration of Haiti. South Africa revolted, in part, because of the Civil Rights movement. Our history or other realities do not speak to or from xenophobia. Does this mean we're monolithic? Absolutely not. However, the issues are greater than place of origin. Dr. Darity has addressed this as far as reparations are concerned. But, slave ships in Brazil, Barbados, US, Venezuela, Mexico is not the significant question. The question is enslavement and its oppressions; and, the response is justice for everybody.
We cannot afford this smallness and pettyness. Please do better.
29
@OColeman I will respectfully remind you that your generation of black Americans was the first generation that fully accepted integration in the United States. Arguably one of the worst movements that has ever affected black people living in the United States since slavery, as it was not truthful integration but rather assimilation into white spaces where black Americans were not (and continue to not be) wanted. That was the greatest downfall of self-sustaining black communities across this country. Do you know your history? Today, black Americans are picking up the pieces one by one, and I consider the ADOS identity as evidence that we are indeed doing better by pushing for exclusion and building up our communities to prosper.
8
There is a way to have this conversation without attacking your own allies.
The enemy is white supremacy -- not immigrants from the Caribbean. Yes, affirmative action benefits African immigrants, just as it benefits people of Latin American descent. That's a *good* thing. No one is out here playing Oppression Olympics -- all non-white people in this country experience oppression, and suffer from an uneven playing field.
This is what intersectionality is all about. Yes, African-American descendants of slaves are a unique social group. But it is NOT to our benefit to close the doors on collaboration with other minorities, to try to take benefits *away* from them for ourselves. We need to be pushing for supports that help ALL marginalized Americans, not just ourselves.
I will not be remotely surprised when this movement is inevitably exposed as funded by white, right-wing conservatives.
13
@Tara Do other marginalized Americans come together to support black Americans? No, they don't.
1
This divide is neither new nor particularly meaningful. Foreign paternal origins (Kenyan father) did not stop POTUS Obama from being widely acclaimed as the first black American POTUS. That said, immigrants from Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, and the Bahamas tend on average to be better educated and there is a divide between black immigrants and black Americans but it is no different than the cultural divide between Sicilians, Calabrians, Corsicans and Jews - as in the groups have much in common as well. What is important is to develop identity not for the sake of reparations or victimization but for the sake of creating a cultural imperative that values educational achievement as a stepping stone to upward social mobility as only that will level the playing field for native black populations with immigrant black populations. Of course, such a process requires decades to implement and it must be rooted in family and religion to persist long enough to make a transformative impact. Being poor is temporary if one is educated and motivated and afforded opportunities without regard to race, but if one is not educated or otherwise not
motivated to become educated, too often poverty is becomes a permanent state for multiple generations. Colin Powell was the byproduct of a Jamaican family that valued education and Barack Obama likewise arguably became POTUS only because of his education. Without educations, neither Powell or Obama would be household names.
2
ADOS candidates are very different from second generation African immigrants. The later generally come from college educated families, live with both parents in better neighborhoods and possess an ecosystem tuned for higher education. Any kind of affirmative action for them is not only discriminatory to ADOS but also to rest of Americans.
13
“A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South”...Abraham Lincoln.
No matter the issue, what is different in the year 2019 between all Americans and between the 7.7 billion humans on earth???
So, as a child, born in NY to Haitian immigrants, I'm an American, but also a descendant of slavery. The group should call itself Black American Descendants of American Slavery...or cease with this needless division.
5
This is a well-written piece with many interesting ideas to unpack. One that's not mentioned is the fact that (arguably) the most famous black American, President Barack Obama, is not an ADOS. His father was a well-to-do Kenyan college student living in Hawaii at the time of Barack Jr's birth and his mother is a white Jew descended from Lithuanians. And yet President Obama's experience growing up and as a community organizer resonates with many black Americans. Food for thought.
3
Clarification: Obama’s mother was not Jewish according to either family history or DNA. What fake news outlet did this inaccurate tidbit come from?
2
This was sad to read.
Unfortunately, throughout history some blacks have succumbed to use the tool of bigotry against others fighting the same oppressor, in hopes of gaining an upper hand: Freemen before the enslaved; northern blacks before brethren of the South, light complexioned before the darkest. History has proven that prioritizing our oppression only delays justice for all.
"In all things purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."
Made worse, this "debate" is taking place on the heels of the Barrack Obama presidency.
4
My 2 cents as an American of East Indian descent:
1. Identity politics is very divisive
2. Seeking reparations from colonial powers can be next to impossible - for example, India was a British colony for a few hundred years - to the best of my knowledge - India didn’t receive any reparation from England
It is what it is - let’s move on
6
I am ADOS and support our identity fully, every immigrant group and White women have benefited from our ADOS/Black citizens struggle and success. Yet none of them support or stand with us in our fight for reparations for ourselves. Instead they call us bots and xenophobic. But every other group can fight for their own group self interest. What’s wrong with making demands of those who seek our support and vote. Politics is exchange, not a gift.
24
Take a course in Native American history (it is November after all) and you'll see this strategy employed over and over by the American Government. Redefining who is and isn't - what tribes are and are not recognized, and finally what that is worth in terms of finance and/or land. When it's done well enough the subjugated will learn how to subjugate others for their own financial gain and create a sub category that they can look down on, fighting over crumbs while someone else is walking off with the whole pie.
13
@Megan well said.
@Megan First off, Native Americans already receive actual reparations - something that black Americans do not, and their communities are still struggling. Secondly, Native Americans themselves redefine who is and who isn't Native American in order to reject black American claims to tribal affiliations. Native Americans have no issues accepting white Americans who have little to no Native American ancestry via modern day Dawes Rolls/$5 and high rates of interracial marriage, but move the goal post for black Americans with actual considerable Native American ancestry including those who descend from black slaves that had Native American slaveowners. If a white American walks off with the entire pie, that's the fault of the Native American.
8
@Robert The irony of all of these anti ADOS responses is that they have a specific group they identify with while they tell us what we're doing is divisive. Native Amercans, Nigerians, Haitians, Irish - Americans, etc. But when we decide to take matters into our own hands to self-identify there is a problem.
4
Let’s be honest about who deserves help and who is jumping on the bandwagon.
I think it is important to make a distinction between people who have for centuries been systematically disadvantaged in this country and people who just got here, especially when institutions create unequal advantages for some, just based on the color of their skin.
The problem is that we have too many inequities in this country. Why is wealth not distributed more equally so that inner City schools can be improved. Why is our infrastructure approaching a third world nation? Millions don’t have health care?
If we had a more equal society we would not feel the need to fight over slices of pie and patch this or that inequity.
2
This is what happens when we focus too much on race and not enough on class. And this is why identity politics, identity affirmative action, identity anything will always fail. If we want a more equal society, we need to focus on class and opportunity, not skin color.
6
The US has rich people, middle class people (who are more like poor people than rich people), and poor people. We can't change our race, and we can't change the perceptions of others about our race. We can change the US economic system, which discriminates against poor and middle class people. Many of us are inches away from being economically decimated by a health care catastrophe. What exactly will a special identity for a specific group do to resolve the fundamental problem in the US, which is that rich peoples' lives are simply 'worth' more than those of poor and middle class people. Don't have good health insurance and you die? I'm sorry, say the top 10 percent. Rich people love this infighting about race, because it obscures the fundamental problem of a system that has disdain for any household that earns under $75,000. Our senators with their extensive federal health coverage don't care if you or I die of lack of health insurance - black, white, Asian. The deadliest inequities are economic, not racial.
6
A most profound and thought-provoking article. But there are so many variables and angles that must considered, for a proper analysis of this issue.
There can be no denying the vast difference between the brutality and inhumanity of American plantation slavery and that of British, French, etc colonial brand. While it is also true that the cry of "Black Power" originated in the USA; there can also be no denying that many of the strongest voices of the movement were that of immigrant Blacks. Marcus Garvey, Kwame Toure (Carmichael}, Carlos Cooks,
C.L.R.James, etc; prominent pillars of the Black consciousness movement, were all migrants. Even Louis Farrakhan, champion of the latter day militants is a migrant.
But it was also the blood of the young Black people that fertilized the Civil Rights Movement, and eventually led to some concessions. The cries for reparations came out of the Garvey movement. And many will argue that Garvey himself would not be deserving of any compensation because he was an immigrant. And on and on, back and forth.
Like I said, this issue a complex one but it should (not must) be confronted.
1
@masai hall Your analysis is off. American slavery affected American Blacks. Black Codes and Vagrancy laws affected American Blacks. Convict Leasing affected American Blacks. Jim Crow Laws affected American Blacks. Redlining primarily affected American Blacks. Jamaicans, Haitians, etc. were in their own respective countries dealing with their own issues.
And yes, Garvey would not be owed reparations from the US Government because his ancestors are from Jamaica. Garvey would be owed reparations from Britain.
Also, Martin Luther King Jr. demanded reparations.
This issue is not complex. You're simply trying to muddy the waters.
9
There is a difference. As a Black American attorney, I have many first and second generation immigrant friends. Although everyone likes to push the narrative that all immigrants come from humble beginnings, many of my African friends grew up far more privileged than I did. They had parents (aunts, uncles and grandparents) that went to college, medical school, nursing programs, and law school in Africa. They went to private boarding schools. Their families own land. And most importantly, they got to grow up in environments in Africa where they were not utterly and completely smothered with the idea of black inferiority. Their experience and relative privilege is just not the same and that needs to be acknowledged when people are supposedly righting past and current wrongs. I understand why many Democrats would want to silence this issue though. They need Black Americans to keep voting for them.
44
I am a first generationAfrican American and I think that African Americans are completely within their rights to differentiate themselves. In my Ivy League undergraduate class, I could count the number of African Americans who were not immigrants (or the children of immigrants) almost on one hand. They were welcoming and we were all black, but I always said that we immigrants should not be counted among the diversity numbers to show exactly how excluded African Americans are from the American “dream”. Nor should we have been eligible for scholarships for African Americans. That said, mind the company you keep.
66
Just thinking that the first African American president of the United States happened to be a descended from a man born in Kenya. I agree wholeheartedly that people who are descended from slaves here in the USA are owed reparations but this organization seems like a bait and switch because President Trump will never come out and back reparations so how could withholding your vote from the Democrats help?
And to make that point, next time Trump is taking questions from the press on the White House lawn while his chopper is waiting, someone should ask him does he support ADOS and does he therefore support reparations. I think it would be enlightening. And keep asking the question, to make sure everyone gets to hear his answer.
19
There are entire nations in this world that are owed reparations from colonial empires. Good luck with that.
36
I think it should be changed from ADOS to ADOAS (American Descendants of American Slavery). Further, this issue discusses the very real ramifications and impact on the lives and livelihood of the people that are descendants of American slavery. The systemic issues that American descendants of American slavery had and still have to endure throughout the generations following American slavery. Issues like denied housing, denied education, denied financial loans, denied medical care, etc. Why do you think there are very few cases of generational wealth among black American descendants of slavery? It's certainly not because we didn't work just as hard or long as our fellow white Americans. It's certainly not because we are not just as innovative and inventive. Most non-black people (liberals included) incorrectly like to think that when slavery ended, we all (black Americans) were immediately evenly yoked to his fellow white American. There are issues stemming from slavery that almost every American descendant of American slavery still deals with to this very day.
23
This is the end-game of the self-segregation of "people of color" in this country. This is a remarkable trend (underreported, of course, in the liberal press) that has now moved beyond the crazy-campus and into real life. It's one thing for the kiddies to argue for all-black dorms, "safe spaces," and "whites stay home" policies: nowself-segregation is intruding into the real world.
And so now we have the "who is what" argument out in the open. It begs a question that ethnic-progressive activists dare not ask: who IS "black?" Or any other race, for that matter?
Progressives (most in our school systems) are now developing the idea that gender is a matter of self-definition. If you buy that, then "race" and being a "person of color" is entirely self-defined. No big deal--until set-asides and "protected class" programs and "move to the head of the line" treatment starts to fall off the government table.
Then "race" becomes a matter of money and power. To use the now worn phrase: it's ipso facto.
5
The article mentioned that ADOS recommends black Americans not vote for any Democratic Party candidate who doesn’t forward a specific economic assistance program for black descendants of slavery. Doesn’t Warren’s program to fund traditionally black attended colleges and other institutions of higher learning at least partially fill the bill?
Otherwise, is this just another camouflaged anti-immigrant push? There are so few black immigrants, honestly. We should welcome them, but knowing America today ... :-(
6
No because most ADOS do not attend HBCUs and a large number of immigrants do attend those schools. So here again the benefit benefits someone else.
5
Getting goodies from the government based on race is wrong. Getting them based on poverty is a better idea.
25
Except this country didn’t use the forced labor of the poor to become the richest in the world.
10
It is based on an economic agenda and African Americans are at the lowest rung of the US economic caste system. Better yet educate yourself about the racial wealth gap and go to ados101.com to educated yourself on what the movement is about.
2
So conservative republicans /Trump supporters think that ADOS or other African American groups will vote for them? They are delusional and are in for a rude awakening next November.
3
“the time is always right to do the right thing” - Martin Luther King Jr.
5
I am 100% black American, descendant of black slaves purchased by slaveowners in the United States. Like most black Americans, my family has been in the United States for 100's of years. We are the original builders and backbone of this country. We are not and have never been immigrants in America (slaves don't immigrate). I have always said that the United States' biggest export is its culture, and that culture would be its distinct black American culture. Black American cultural capital and currency is worth billions. Everyone on this planet knows this and everyone on this planet is aware of black Americans and our contributions to the country we call home. It is only right that we respectfully defend our culture and rebuild our community so that we ourselves reap the benefit of said cultural currency. I don't care how anyone who is not a black American feels about this issue. Quite frankly, I'm happy that many of us are waking up because the inclusion of other ethnicities and races into our black American spaces has proven to be nothing but detrimental towards the progression of the black American collective. Distinction and exclusivity is most certainly needed and hopefully will be practiced going forward.
42
@Robert...
Hopefully there is more to American culture than pop music and athletics.
3
@TOBY Toby, why of course there's more! Black Americans contributed to everything in the U.S. from the 13th Amendment to the Civl Rights Movement so that immigrants can today call the United States home! From Hollywood so that Cynthia Erivo has a job, to cancer research with Henrietta Lacks! But aside from a black American woman's body contributing towards some of the most important and groundbreaking research for cancer that mankind is aware of, what's wrong with pop music and athletics if they are both billion dollar industries that many non-black Americans, including people that aren't even American, participate in? I'd like to read your response.
7
@Robert You said it best. Every immigrant has been able to capitalize on the backs of Black American Slaves. Is is infuriating, but, what is worse is when people tell you to basically get over it black is black. ADOS's have nothing in common with Africans or Caribbeans(they have their own countries, we don't have a country or a language) and the truth is they look down on us, but have no problem, like someone else said in the comments, checking the box to get money and status. Are not Irish Americans offended when you mistake them for Germans or Italians and vice versa? But, we are suppose to be okay about it when we are grouped with other people of color. ADOS's are still experiencing racism and generational trauma and poverty in this country that was built on our backs and had so much stolen from us. I support this movement and it is a long time coming.
9
“And the group has fiercely attacked the Democratic Party, urging black voters to abstain from voting for the next Democratic presidential nominee unless he or she produces a specific economic plan for the nation’s ADOS population.”
Ah, ok. Well that answers that.
10
@sedanchair Everyone asks for tangibles. Shouldn't ADOS?. Should they just expect an " I voted today " sticker? They focus on Democrats because the Republicans have already dismissed the Black vote. Group leveraging, ask LGBTQ.
4
Just what this country needs: more ammunition for Trump and his right-wing enablers.
Until I read this, I had admired Cornel West. But by lending his name, reputation and presence to this organization, Dr. West has seriously demeaned himself. It's great that ADOS gives "voice to working-class black people" Dr. West, but to do so while it also helps to advance the reelection of the abomination currently sitting in the White House and/or anti-immigrant policies is inexcusable. Trump no doubt appreciates your support of ADOS. This now former admirer of Cornel West does not.
How sad that as you near the end of your distinguished career, you would do this to yourself. I pray and hope you will reconsider your support of ADOS.
6
@Jamie Nichols
The simple solution is for Dems to stop taking the votes of African Americans for granted. Maybe if Dems cared half as much about African AMERICANS as they seem to about folks that are here illegally this wouldn't be an issue.
7
Aside from this topic how do any DOAS possibly think T is on their side of anything. He does have a history of racism. No? Today he calls Mr Bloomberg of NYC @ little Michael” in a pejorative way. He does this to anyone not of his ilk.
3
I was looking at some documents regarding my ancestors. It made me proud when I looked at a document signed by my maternal great gandfather's brother (1910) confirmed what his race was he wrote boldy "African." This affirmation stuck out with me.
2
@Mickie
Also boldly, African race men blocked all women, black and white, from having any rights - including the vote tha they were given in 1865.
My people were colonized: I am an ADOC.
Do I get a special category? Where/how do I apply?
1
@Whatever Go ask that question to the people or country that colonized your ancestral land.
3
@Whatever
Just proclaim it. If it's your truth then no application necessary.
Most forms of originalism in heritage arguments seem to constructs to favor one group over another. Few of us remember our great grandparents or know their stories. For most of us going back a few generations in the US, will uncover some form of subjection. Women were treated as chattel. Most immigrant groups were unwelcome/systematically harassed etc. Should Mexicans and Native Americans get reparations for the land stolen from them? Get into the weeds and you'll find a forest.
Anyone with dark skin in America suffers racism, the racists don't check birth certificates or lineages. Anyone who is poor IN America suffers a lack of opportunity as a result of their birth class. Does a child born to an impoverished ADOS family deserve something more than the child born to an impoverished Chinese immigrant or a child from a struggling family in Puerto Rico?
The lopsided success of certain groups of poor immigrants black/white/or asian over the rest of us is all about culture.
What nobody seems to want to address is the lack of equity for the impoverished and the lack of a culture that nourishes them. Rather than talking about one group I wish we would discuss education with the same urgency as we now discuss climate change or health care.
205
@PS Mom
Actually, as the descendant of African-American salves I know the conversation is more nuanced than you portray. While there is perhaps a bias against darker-hues people generally, there is no doubt a particular stigma associated with one's status as an African-American.
This is not unlike the stigma associated with being an untouchable in the Hindu caste system once prevalent in India.
Thus, any flattening of that peculiar prevalence against black Americans does a disservice to the real need for redress of the continuing psychological, physical, social and economic negative effects of the progeny of enslaved black Americans.
We as a nation do all we can do pres t sameness where none exists.
37
@PS Mom
Well said! That's much of what I wanted to say in my comment, but yours is so much clearer and more eloquent.
1
Yes. Educational culture is a Big Divide. It is also a battleground that looks like a long war and a stalemate. Successful educational culture and behavior (respected by most Asians and Whites and Nigerians and significant percentages of all groups) is now often characterized by bureaucratically entrenched racialist progressives as "whiteness." Testing for competence is often condemned as racially discriminatory. Traditional math is being exchanged for ethno-math in Seattle. Folks under Carranza's dominion in NY know all about this sort of thing.
The issues here are not simple. We need some real serious discussion about all this. I agree completely that this is an urgency as great as any other.
13
Asian Americans struggle with these distinctions all the time. E.g. Japanese Americans were interned but not all Asian Americans claimed the reparations that were afforded JAs 3 decades ago. 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc generation Asian Americans share similar experiences with Asian immigrants due to their common 'othering' by non Asians but progressive Asian Americans advocate for each other based on class and historical distinctions, e.g. the unique struggles of Southeast Asian Americans, survivors of the US-led wars in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. What we all share is a common interest in forcefully opposing racism, imperialism, economic exploitation in all their varied forms - and external forces constantly attempting to foment division among us.
6
There is almost nothing herein that clarifies why "conservatives" support any part of the DOAS agenda. What it does do is add a few quotes without clarification or context.
Moreover, it does not at all explain why conservatives would support a movement that explicitly calls for reparations to
African-American descendants of slaves (or more broadly?), something that conservatives have broadly criticized (eg take
mcconnell's attitude).
So the premise of the article (via its title) seems irrelevant to the content, which is curious.
If you are going to hint that DOAS is a dubious divide
and conquer wedge agent of mysterious forces, be they Russian or trumpican (is there really a difference?), then one is obligated to support such conjectures with at least some plausible evidence, say identities of funders or noted
web promoters. I'm not sure a worn MAGA hat photo qualifies as such without some additional explanation, which
was not provided, but some cited essays or quotes
would have been useful.
At present, this resembles the zeitgeist so convincingly captured in Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse films from the 1920s wherein an atmosphere of generalized paranoia reigns within a set of conspiratorial minded and trapped characters who are never sure to which side they should belong since
identities and true motives are so easily masked.
This is surely now the case throughout the social media-political activist universe, or at least should be given how it works.
now work.
2
@bl
If you are a conservative seeking to drive a wedge through the various coalitions that constitute the Democratic Party what better way to do it than to support a group that is calling for race-based reparations? Not only does it divide Democrats, it keeps race front and center for Trump supporters that endorse white supremacy.
I’m regard to the many comments mentioning an “emergence” or “creation” of this distinction between ADOS and Black Immigrants—please remember that Black Americans in no way “created” this difference. It is a product of the largest forced migration in history.
I think Black Immigrants enrich our experiences as Black Americans. Our collective interests, however, do not always align. That is natural. This article also makes me think of an interesting anecdote in Chimamanda Adichies’ novel “Americanah” where she muses on this distinction and highlights that in the 1960s, when ADOS were fighting for basic civil rights and dignity, many Black Africans were campaigning for seats in their respective national parliaments.
16
I'm afraid the ADOS movement is going to go the way of the Green party, taking votes away from the best chance they have of getting what they want and delivering the country once again to white republicans. If Ann Coulter likes your group, you should be worried.
A better strategy, in my opinion, is to go at this like the Tea Party. Grassroots, getting their local candidates elected as part of the Democratic Party and working their way up to having a voice in Congress. The Tea Party was effective at shifting Republican politics closer to their values even though they were still a minority in Congress.
But if this group continues to spar with the Democrats, they will not see the government change to help them. Instead of getting what they want by building bridges between themselves and the Democrats, they are extorting the Democrats. That will always leave them on the outside of Politics looking in. Such is the two party nation we are.
I can understand the frustration, they have supported Democrats for decades and still are lagging in education, income, and equality. But combating hundreds of years to racism hasn't been easy for the Democrats either, especially when conservatives gerrymander districts along racial lines and use the filibuster a record amount to halt legislation and judge appointments.
Speaking as a white person, I can't erase the past 250 years. But I can at least support the party that is trying to make the next 250 better for all Americans.
17
@Tom No, just no. Why can't white liberals treat us like people with emotions and our own thoughts. We don't exist just to be a part of your coalition. If you insist on treating us like children and refuse to actually work with us to improve our communities, we'll look elsewhere. I swear no other group in America is treated like this, like we have to prove our worth to the people who are demanding our support.
5
@Rena Watkins
You're free to look elsewhere, that's America. Politically, I can't imagine what that looks like or how it gets you closer to your goals, but I hope you can prove me wrong.
3
Classic "divide and rule" strategy - Putin and his Trumpista lackeys are using the genuine concerns and issues of Americans who are descended from slaves to splinter what should be a unified coalition of working and middle class people. It is regrettable (and a distraction) that this miniscule subset of ADOS, and I am one (as well as my 2nd and 3rd cousins, who having blonde hair and blues eyes identify as white), allow themselves to be aligned with Trump.
Keep the opposition divided and they will win neither the White House nor the Senate...
10
First, ADOS has a good critique of affirmative action. Why should the child of a wealthy immigrant from Nigeria be favored above a child of a poor immigrant from China? But under the crude categories of affirmative action, the first is labeled as “black” and the second “Asian” so is favored.
Second, the harassment that Ms. Mitchell describes is appalling. It also a tactic that fits in perfectly with “Cancel Culture.”
Third, when you emphasize a person’s racial/ethnic identity as a basis of politics, groups like ADOS are the logical result. As members from the group ask in the article, why are progressives so upset at their existence when it’s the natural result of identity politics?
12
I am an African immigrant who believes that reparations and affirmative actions benefits should solely be given to African America with slave ancestors. But there is a sweeping assumptions that immigrants blacks in elite schools are there because affarmitive actions. Africans immigrants performs academically better than anybody in US, better than White and Asians Americans. Africans approach to education is like religion, they sent their kids to private high schools, some even sent kids back to High schools inKenya, Nigeria Ghana to build strong science background. with or without affirmative action African immigrants will continue to excel.
2
As the progressive world of politics grows in the US, the splintering and ultimate collapse into hundreds of warring factions becomes ever more obvious. It reminds me, sadly, of the Weimar Republic, where the many leftist political groups fought among themselves almost as much as with the right.
The end result there was that the very powerful left utterly collapsed. The German left basically was able to force the abdication of the Kaiser and the end of WWII. They took over the Navy, they took over the police stations, they took over local government, but they could not stop from fighting each other, and a solidified right was able to come to power easily.
10
@Ernest Montague Darn it, I meant WWI. My apologies for my too rapid posting.
1
Affirmative Action should exist to benefit African Americans whose families and communities were deeply disrupted by the Atlantic slave trade.
While I absolutely welcome African immigrants to America, and I respect and honor the contributions of all immigrants to our society, the purpose of Affirmative Action should be to repair the deep multigenerational damage done to those whose ancestors suffered from the injustices of slavery, Jim Crow, and urban redlining.
Yes, it is true that black slaves and their descendants are not the only people who have suffered injustice in this country. It is also true that African Immigrants and their children can suffer from stereotyping as well, as do many other immigrants.
But as bad as the injustice of being stereotyped and singled out for indignities is, it is not the same in kind and gravity as the injustices suffered by the descendants of slaves, which have been systemic, institutionalized at times by federal, state, and local governments, and compounded over generations.
31
Many of the gripes and issues are real but as suggested in the article, some are grossly exaggerated when one considers the low number of immigrants of African descent that are in the United States as compared to other immigrant populations. There is more agreement with those that define themselves as ADOS than disagreements but also as suggested in the article, members, who align themselves with the group, become outraged when ANY disagreements arise.
One of the issues, albeit small, is how many within the group (whose presence seem to be more online than actual people) appear to find ways to distance themselves from any connection to African people in the Diaspora. Their argument seems to always be what have those on the continent of Africa done for us lately, without the consideration of colonization and imperialism that literally made a lane for the enslavement of African people throughout the world, a reality that has been highlighted by recently ousted African Union Ambassador for the United States Dr. Arikana Chihombori Quao and her calling out of France with their continuation of colonization pact and her reference to the Berlin Conference.
Whenever an example of immigrant African populations reaching out, like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar recent no vote for Armenian reparations is cited, it is immediately downplayed by ADOS members looking for conflict.
When it is all said and done, Africans collectively throughout the Diaspora will have to come to the table together.
2
Identity Politics exposes its excesses and discriminatory nature.
6
Like most demagogic movements, this one speaks to legitimate grievances, but does so in the service of a larger divisive and reactionary agenda.
As with so many questions, the absence of any serious discussion of class produces a distorted picture of reality.
The average wealth of immigrants from Africa or the West Indies may be greater than that of the descendants of African slaves, but there are plenty of poor and working class Black immigrants & most of the Black economic & political elite are NOT immigrants or the children of immigrants.
#ADOS seems to be a movement driven mainly by the anxieties of already better off African-Americans fearful that educational and employment opportunities intended to enlarge the Black middle class will go to the children of immigrants rather than their own.
But most Black people in the US, of whatever origin, are still poor and/or working class & unlikely to see their children benefit from those limited opportunities. They need free & universal healthcare, a living minimum wage, and a way to to send their kids to college without going to debt These are not things they are more likely to win by dividing themselves on the basis of whether their grandparents are from Trinidad, Tanzania or Tennessee.
The descendants of Africans enslaved within the US deserve reparations. But they will only win them by building alliances with other poor and working class people of all colors & not with the bigots of the anti-immigrant Far Right.
7
so, do they really think helping DJT get elected will help them?
my question - what do they really want?
1
Sorry, but if a racist right-winger like Ann Coulter is enthusiastic about your goals or methods, maybe you should rethink them. The party of voter suppression is NOT on your side.
8
I teach at a college with a significant student population of both Black students who have been in the USA for multiple generations and first & second generation Black immigrants. While the distinctions are real, these fade away within a couple of generations at most, especially compounded by elements of intermarriage, American-sounding accents, and public school attendance.
Additionally, from watching Henry Louis Gates' "Finding your Roots" tv program, it becomes evident that regardless of race, nobody knows much about where their families came, or what wounds or secrets they bore beyond about three generations. It seems to me that the present racism and microaggression that people experience end up being a common thread.
I fully understand the sentiment of the Cornell students, and don't want to discount them. On the other hand, this distinction, like all racial distinctions is too hard to draw, i.e. how many drops of slave blood would be required to establish that one is or isn't ADOS? What if, like many participants on Gates' show, one is mistaken about one's family heritage?
189
@mirucha Do your black students themselves say this to you or is this just your belief from afar? Frankly, a lot of folks are used to reflexively seeing all black people as part of one big monolith, so (assuming you aren't speaking about your own lived experiences) I am currently skeptical of your broad contention.
31
@mirucha Thanks to census records and slave registries, it is fairly easy to establish if 3 or 4 of your ancestors were enslaved in the American South. This is particularly easy for ADOS whose family did not participate in the Great Migration.
21
@mirucha Descent from an enslaved African-American is a pretty clear description. Having lived the African-American experience is too.
The Jim Crow Era's attempt to enforce apartheid on a population that had included mixed race people for almost two centuries failed completely at eliminating all memory of what came before.
16
I consider myself to be toward the left end of the political spectrum, and I think that it's healthy for Black Americans to assert their own distinct identity. It is undoubtedly true that elite colleges tend to disproportionately admit well-off students from Africa at the expense of disadvantaged African-Americans, and we can't begin to discuss such issues unless people are allowed to identify and declare their own identities.
244
@Tanmay Yes the discussion can be held but the presumption that"well off students from Africa are disproportionately admitted over disadvantaged African-Americans" is extremely problematic when addressing college admissions. I think this is similar to recent arguments made by some Asian Americans that they were discriminated against because they supposedly had higher test scores. College admissions is not one dimensional. Factors such as ability to pay, ability to score high on exams, pretense of diversity, school rankings and status, alumni donations (see US World and News report) all contribute to the sliver of pie "minorities" are given in this system. Its like fighting over bread crumbs versus unifying to build a table for future generations to sit at.
7
@Joyce I don't understand your point or your analogy to Asian-Americans. Yes, there are many factors that go into admissions, but if race is being used as a factor, can't we all acknowledge that it's perverse that the children of Nigerian doctors are getting admitted before poor rural or inner-city African-Americans these policies were designed to include? Of course, if we were being honest with ourselves about our quest for merit we'd focus on parent income and education attainment. The whole system is set up to benefit the wealthy of all races.
38
@Tanmay -- Everyone of us has many identities, and they are important to our personal interests, particularly when we are picking a candidate to represent those interests, NOT the interests of their big donors.
4
I know first generation immigrants from Africa personally, and I can tell you right off the bat, their children grew up as American as any other black child, and faced all the same issues, including the need to have a sit down with their parents about "driving while black", etc.
It's not really who one is, it is how one is classified and put in the same box by others that is the problem, and all black people in American face it.
296
@William Wallace. But the argument for reparations is that we owe monetary damages for unpaid labor and the harm slavery did. How could someone coming from elsewhere be entitled to that money?
83
@William Wallace As a Haitian-American I understand the sentiment that you expressed in your post. If I am pulled over by a racist cop my experience may be similar to an ADOS. But what you fail to realize is that as a Black person whose family were immigrants my family does not have a specific experience that is distinct to ADOS. The African family that you mentioned does not have a legacy where their ancestors dealt with American Slavery, Convict Leasing, Jim Crow, Red Lining, Crack Cocaine, Mass Incarceration, etc. Those experiences are specific to ADOS, not Haitians, Jamaicans, Nigerians, etc. ADOS were promised reparations at one point after slavery and the US Government reneged on their promise to them. After the US Government caused irreparable harm on ADOS it's only right that ADOS is owed a debt for what they suffered and continue to suffer from. A debt is owed to ADOS and that debt must be paid to them. This is what we would call justice in America.
137
@William Wallace And if I may add to TC’s comment... African immigrants migrate to America on their own accord. African Americans are here due to forced migration. Our lineage, culture and protective laws born of our unique history in the US makes us a distinct ethnic group. Saying so is not xenophobic or ethnocentric. We understand that Africans may experience racism on one level or another but our historical background make the comparisons between Africans and African Americans an unequal equivalent.
27
Another way to divide Americans to Trump's advantage. Frankly, I agree that American descendants of slavery are owed a special debt by this nation. And that that debt may not be owed to those of African descent whose ancestors were not enslaved. But determining who is in which category will be divisive. And, of course, the conservatives promoting the interests of American descendants of slavery never seemed to care much about them at all until the divisiveness of the issue arose. Another obstacle that needs to be overcome for 2020.
411
@Gordeaux That "special debt" was paid decades ago. It was affirmative action, hiring quotas, and the expansion of the welfare state.
How many more decades are we going to have to grovel and pay?
27
@K. It's been proven that affirmative action benefits white women the most in the United States. Hiring quotas? Please, companies are given leeway and hardly practice them anymore. I'm not even sure whether companies truly followed practices regarding hiring quotas since racial discrimination is real in the job search in 2019 almost 2020. And lastly, the majority of people on welfare in the United States are white. Poor white women in the U.S. are the real welfare queens.
39
@Robert
No need to call any group nasty names like "welfare queens". Actually this country barely has any welfare system since Clinton-era reforms. The book "$2 a Day" is very illuminating on this point.
10
Thanks for drawing my attention to the Medium article about ADOS by Omowale Afrika.
Another example of the Left being myopic: if it does not help their cause it cannot possibly be right.
I agree with this movement. Is like Latins born here, second, third generation of them born here, who feel themselves American with far distant roots elsewhere, and those who just showed up. There is a difference.
It's a good thing.
Also curious, Warren wants to pay reparations to blacks. This group is trying to say 'hey we fall in that category', but Liberals oppose them. Why is that?
It will be opposed by the left because it's not their kind of good thing.
Keep up the good work guys
13
For crying out loud: Barack Obama is the son of an African student and a white woman. Does ADOS want to expunge him as our first black president?
Cynthia Erivo was brilliant. Generally, British theatre training is stronger than American actor training in the use of language, which is why British-trained actors are in demand to play roles that rely on the use of speech in densely written scripts.
31
There is a difference between race and ethnicity. It might do to learn this difference.
10
Arrant nonsense. Black American actors trained at Julliard, Yale Drama School and other stellar music and drama schools are just as talented as RADA-trained alums. Black Brits such as C.E., besides their disdainful attitudes and remarks, have done little but benefit from the persevering efforts of generations of Black American actors, singers of every genre, playwrights, televison and film directors. They can't seem to succeed break down the barriers in Britain and the European continent so they look for other opportunities.
Furthermore, white Americans have often fallen over themselves in casting Brits as Americans, especially posh Old Etonians and Oxbridgers. Many of the current crop of white Brits in Hollywood got their start in Spielberg's Bandvof Brothers and Saving Private Ryan.
Finally, Barak Obama had a white American mother and grew up understanding the Black experience. Many recent Nigerian-Americans, for example are rightly proud of their culture. Does that mean they should benefit from diversity and affirmative action programs? Absolutely not as those programs were designed in attempt to remedy historical and current practices of discrimination.
10
@Lawyermom A considerable amount of ADOS are unhappy with Barack Obama and express their discontent with his eight years in office concerning black issues. I truly believe that he had the black vote solidified during his terms because of his wife, former First Lady, Michelle Obama who is ADOS. The only issue I have is that this entire ADOS movement should have happened during Obama's eight years in office, not now. However, it's never too late.
Cynthia Erivo is Nigerian and needs to play characters respective to her own Nigerian ethnicity. I have not and will not see Harriet. British-trained black actors are "in demand" in Hollywood because black American actors refuse to play roles of historical figures that inaccurately portrayed in these films.
7
A few corrections or clarifications:
ADOS is not an organization with leaders that one can sign up to join. You are an ADOS or you are not. It is a matter of lineage. Further, ADOS issues are separate and distinct from those of black immigrants, most of whom arrived in the US after slavery and Jim Crow ended.
Second, no one has objected to Cynthia Erivo's role as Harriet simply because she is Nigerian. The objection is due to the racial slurs and harsh negative comments she has made about black Americans on social media. If her name didn't appear atop her tweets and Instagram posts, one could easily mistake them for commentary from a white nationalist account. That is the reason for the backlash.
On the political side, it is time black Americans made a critical cost/benefit analysis of our collective voting record. We have supported the Democrats for years in numbers that no other group has equaled and what did we get for it in the past 50 years? We are now aggressively told not to ask questions of any candidates, not to expect anything, just shut up and vote. For what though? If I have to vote for a party that won't do anything for me, what is the difference between Republicans and Democrats? The Democrats haven't even spoken out on Comcast's attempt to torpedo the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which will be argued before the Supreme Court next week.
46
@Lynn in DC
well, you should vote for donald trump then and see how that goes in second term. I am sure he will see his victory as a mandate to turn his attention to the concerns of minority groups.
6
@Lynn in DC - Do you for one moment think the Republicans would ever nominate a black man for president? The Dems put a black man into the White House before they put a white woman in the White House. Could Stacey Abrams run as a Republican in the state of Georgia?
8
@tom harrison
Actually, Colin Powell could have been nominated by the GOP if he had sought the Presidency, which many encouraged him to do. Also, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina is a black Republican. So, yes, I could imagine that the Republicans might nominate a black man for a president.
2
Congratulations Black American.
You're finally becoming politically "The flavor of the Day".
My advice. Listen to know one. You have the right to figure out and formulate, join, whatever group whether it's political, social, or professional.
That Right is Yours by Law. A lot of people want to forget that.
8
They're right. I can go with affirmative action for verified ADOS (say, 50% traceable), not for the children of immigrants from Nigeria, Ghana, Mexico, El Salvador, or Vietnam. And I am generally *against* affirmative action.
14
@Snowball What if the slave ancestor actually aided and abetted slave-masters? Some were complicit.
Of course, none of the victims or perpetrators are here today, so of course today's people should fix the fact that they are not enslaved nor others are enslaving.
1
Can't say I'm really surprised about this happening. In think the U.S. is slowly realizing that race is much more complicated than white/black/latino/others.
The problem with "self-interested" movements is that they clump themselves together, call out anyone who is not part of their group, and also forget about other groups, especially Native Americans, who of all groups in America, have been completely marginalized and shut out from any debate (aside from being herded into reservations like livestock).
Instead of being a collaborative movement for actual justice and progress for all, these movements start resembling "cliques" of people who claim to be fighting for justice, and perhaps to a certain degree are (I don't believe that the whole grounds for this movement are invalid). However, in practice, they are really just causing more friction over things as banal as a British actress playing Harriet Tubman.
I understand why descending from American slaves is an important identity, but I don't see why they should get special treatment from other black people, Native Americans, Arab-Americans etc. who are also experiencing their fair share of economic and social hardships. If we start making special cases for everyone, we are going to cause more discord than solve any real issue.
7
@Yannik Slavery is bad, but indentured servitude wasn't great, nor being a victim of wars or of religious persecution, nor of being a vassal in feudal times, nor being a victim of indigenous tribal attacks, nor....
5
@Yannik Reparations are not special treatment. Reparations are literally what's owed to black Americans because black Americans built the nation known as the United States of America. Everyone who immigrates to this country is benefiting off of the labor that black Americans put in to build it. If you consider this a "special case", then you need to learn the history of the country that your family has decided to immigrate to.
2
@Yannik Reparations are not special treatment. Reparations are a debt owed to black Americans for building the United States. Everyone that lives in the United States reaps the benefit of what black Americans have built.
2
I can see reasonable arguments on both sides of this. It's true that descendants of slavery have been trampled over for far longer. It's also not the case that immigrants from Africa arrive to a country that accepts them as equals. Targeting immigration, though, is scapegoating. The problems faced by African Americans stem from Jim Crow laws, unbalanced application of the legal system, redlining, and tons of other tools that have been used over time for suppression. We need to fix the impact those policies and social pressures have had. However, targeting immigration doesn't make things better and likely makes things worse. I mean, do you really think there will be relief from historic racism by narrowing down who we have in our country to the same people that came from that historic racism? Getting some outside perspective seems crucial to finding new solutions.
11
@Jason The solution is to increase liberty and equal protection, not give out benefits to individuals. That's what's causing most of the real lingering race and economic inequality issues. America's real dream is to perfect the union, not abandon it for intersectionality and ancestral victimhood demands, special treatment under the law, etc.
4
While I understand the philosophy for ADOS, I am among those who believe formation of yet another subgroup is divisive. Simply put, the title of Farah Stockman's article represents an undeniable truism. Already, there is growing demographic of biracial Americans with African heritage who want 'other' identity box on federal forms.
No. So long as a person of African heritage, whether slave background or recent immigrant, it is skin color which will continue to define race and stereotypes. Remember the incident at the Philadelphia Starbucks? More recently at Buffalo Wings, a family was asked to leave because a white person did not want to sit near a Black family. It did not matter if their heritage was slave or recent immigrant.
Race and Gender will always remain the way individuals are defined. *Addressing identity bias [at colleges and elsewhere] should be an agenda in a broader platform specific to African American issues.
4
@Maizie Lucille James That wings issue was resolved as expected. And that person was mistreated; do we have to compensate that person's descendants too?
1
@Maizie Lucille James
They is no "formation of yet another group". They're just stating the obvious. We don't consider all white people the same so why do we keep ourselves in this prison of "all black people are the same".
3
Hooboy. Descendants of black slaves in America vs descendants of post Civil War black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa.
How is white-non-Hispanic white person supposed to decide how to take sides on this issue.
There is a never ending opportunity to feel guilty about the history of slavery in this country.
Reflecting on the initiation of slavery in North America in the 17th century: "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."
7
@HH - Why would I feel guilty about slavery? No one in my family ever had any slaves. I'm not even aware that my family was in the country during slavery.
2
@tom harrison "Why would I feel guilty about slavery? No one in my family ever had any slaves."
Don't be so sure about that, Tom. You'd be surprised what a thorough look at your genealogy might reveal.
2
Hooboy. Descendants of black slaves in America vs descendants of post Civil War black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa.
How is white-non-Hispanic white person supposed to decide how to take sides on this issue.
There is a never ending opportunity to feel guilty about the history of slavery in this country.
Reflecting on the initiation of slavery in North America during the 17th century: Truly, "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."
2
Great. Just what we need. More divisions and divisiveness in our country. More splintering among groups who might vote a certain way.
15
@Mossy A house divided has as much interest in modern petty tyrants as simple equal protection under the law and government ensuring our liberty.
Everything is special interest, hence the problems we continue to suffer despite most people being good, we have a corrupted political system that feeds on envy and mental victimhood.
1
This is what you get when you try to turn historical disadvantage into present-day advantage. If this country ever seriously considers reparations this debate will intensify ten-fold.
After all, who deserves a bigger payout - descendants of the Native American genocide, or descendants of American slaves? On the other side of the coin, do descendants of Italian immigrants who arrived in the 1920s owe the same reparations as descendants of southern plantation owners? Do white families whose ancestors lost limbs and lives fighting for the Union owe the same as white families whose ancestors raised the rebel yell at Gettysburg?
If we're honest with ourselves, we can't answer these questions - even if we had the right categories, we would need far more historical and genetic data to accurately place people in those categories. This means that reparations must inflict injustice on at least some Americans today to remedy the injustices suffered by other Americans in the past.
Maybe we will decide that social justice is worth the price. Personally, I doubt it. Any reparations regime will produce millions of Americans whose property and opportunity were redistributed without due cause, and millions more who simply reject the policy on principle. We would certainly enter a new era of race relations in the United States, but I doubt it would be the utopia that reparations advocates imagine.
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@CenterofLeft-Thank you for this summation of the way more than likely outcome of this issue. Those who advocate for "social justice" in these manners seem oblivious to any of the details of what it would look like. They cast broad nets over all racial groups and ignore any nuances that naturally arise. Truly, their movement is blind to the world around them and seeped in rigid ideology with little room for counterarguments.
8
@CenterofLeft
My "ancestors" of both Irish and Italian descent didnt arrive in the US until the late 1920's. We certainly didnt own any slaves as they had nothing when they arrived. As a young boy, my father had to go bar to bar and shine shoes to help support his family of 10 children. I'm pretty sure I dont owe anyone any reparations.
15
@bored critic Guess what, though. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you - and your Italian and Irish ancestors - benefited immediately from their white skin the minute they voluntarily showed up on these shores. You have the advantage in America now because America was set up for white people like yourselves to have the advantage.
16
One wonders if this outfit is going to try to draw distinctions between individuals descended from varying numbers of generations of slaves? What about house slaves versus field slaves? Wait — that guy’s not dark enough.... it’s just another version of Trumpian division politics. The concept is awful, and profoundly un-American. We need to address the problems of now, for the people living now, without manufacturing a new analytic that would be entirely unworkable at the start.
2
It's striking that the writer of this article seemingly can't even begin to contemplate that immigrant competition *might* have *any* negative consequences for native-born African-American workers.
It's as if that scenario is a priori impossible, and can't even be thought.
24
This is predictable - every grievance group plants the seeds of its own destruction the very moment that they declare themselves as apart and separate from everyone else.
Suddenly - within the group - there is a splinter that looks at the other members of the group in the exact same manner that the group as a whole looks at us.
See the infamous Women's March on Washington as a typical case of self-immolation.
2
Yes identity issue have importance but the really important reason the African Americans are always left behind is they do not vote! They usually have less then 25% turn out. They could win very important political positions especially in the South. Instead they allow the oppressors to always maintain power as they shirk the responsibility to vote. They could have won Mississippi easily if just 40% had voted. Focus on what could actually change your lives, organize and vote.
9
@Richard Head wrong. The parties do not offer a Black agenda.
2
In my experience in Medicine, overwhelmingly the people that one would be considered "black" that are Doctors are in fact directly from Africa. They are not the descendants of African American slaves, but rather new immigrants. For those that think parsing this issue is divisive, these are the types of distinctions that need to be made in order to enact effective social betterment programs. Giving the benefits of Affirmative Action policies to the children of a wealthy Nigerian American Cardiologist husband and General Surgeon wife (saw it happen) is much different than applying these policies to the poor descendants of slaves from Mississippi.
Far left social justice warriors have enacted a narrative around their movement where they refuse to look at the details of their arguments. There are large differences between African immigrants and African Americans as a whole in educational level, social behaviors, income level, etc. And on this line of argument, there are very different reasons as to why. Refusing to acknowledge this is sticking your head in the sand.
43
Divide and Conquer. There were in fact free Black people in the United States. This movement seems to by myopic overlooking the diversity of the black experience. At Howard University, all of the black diaspora was represented. Africans are more than 1.2 billion, double the population of Europeans and Americans. Realizing the reach and influence of this diaspora empowers us. More division, I’m Afraid, does the opposite.
4
@T
Come on. Were they really free though? A "free" black could be walking through Boston Common one minute and several days later find himself in the Alexandria, VA slave pen marked for sale. Claiming "Actually, I'm free" would be met with laughter or worse. Didn't you watch or read 12 Years a Slave?
7
Divide and conquer. Can't fault the Republicans for employing a winning strategy, especially if the targeted population buys into it.
5
@jyalan
Divide and conquer, a republican strategy? You must be kidding. Democrats have been dividing the American people into smaller and smaller groups and putting each groups rights against the rights of others for years now. See LBGTQABCDEFG....New terms like non-binary were not created by Republicans, it was created by democrats. My college son was called a cisgene white male the other day at school. That's not a Republican term. Republicans did not come up with the idea that schools now need a 3rd bathroom, Democrats did that. Democrats have been dividing americans into smaller and smaller groups to try to appeal to each and every group to make them all feel a part of the new progressive society and to basically just garner all those votes. And immigration and DACA? Just another democratic tool to ensure future votes.
4
For the record, the Caribbean is populated by black people because they were enslaved Africans before slavery they were freed like the US. The bangle bracelets many Caribbeans wear are called "slave" bracelets as a reminder of our past.
7
Why is it wrong to include descendants of slavery from the Caribbean? They were all part of the British/French system that started slavery here.
10
Absolutely! One couldn’t even call them North American descendants of slavery if the goal is to seek reparations and recognition for the myriad wrongs done to the Africans brought to the current USA. The Caribbean is part of North America. I understand the political expediency of the moniker, with its strong ties to the concept of Patriotism. It’s an imperfect term. But in this case there is an abrasive mismatch between the acronym and those children of slaves in the Americas ADOS intends to exclude. To say “American” but exclude Caribbeans and South Americans (e.g. Brazilians) is to ignore their brethren (possibly even actual siblings, parents, extended family) that experienced this horror in other parts of the Western Hemisphere. In my History/Africana Studies course on comparative modes of slavery In North and South America and the Caribbean, the South American/Caribbean model was absolutely brutal. To be blunt: In general, rather than wanting slaves to marry and have children to produce more slaves, in the Caribbean and South America it was more common to just work and beat a slave to death and then purchase a replacement. All slavery was and is horrific and wrong. In labeling their movement, it might be less callous to avoid co-opting “American” to mean just those born to slaves within the bounds of present day Continental United States of America.
1
@Miriam
Then maybe the French and British should be the ones paying reparations.
If my family wasnt yet in america until the 1900's, and never owned slaves, I dont owe anyone reparations.
3
@Miriam
Caricom is making a separate claim for reparations with the UK and European countries who enslaved Africans in the Caribbean.
5
People should be allowed to define themselves as they see it.
4
Absurd, really. I mean, that the Civil Rights Act was passed in '64, and that IS 1964, is beyond shameful. And I get it, to expect an entire race of people to catch up socioeconomically in the course of 50 years ? Laughable. But come on. ADO ? All that will do is give people a reason to feel 'victimized' and foster resentment.
3
People of African heritage from the Caribbean and Africa are majorities. They have the mentality of a majority member. And then they come to United States, and they check off “black“, and they get extra credit for admission to school. That is not fair, and it runs counter to any affirmative action argument. These people have not been prejudiced by racial discrimination. I’ve seen this first-hand at my law school, which claims a high percentage of minorities, but all the ”black” students came from other countries.
54
@BeeRock-Likewise, saw this while applying for research grants as well as applying for Medical School.
17
@BeeRock So its that they check off Black as to why they are admitted? Not because they worked hard? Not that they have good grades? Not because the school also wants to meet a quota for international students because it leads to a more enriching environment? No. It is because they checked off black.
Also, when given the option of White, Black, Hispanic or Asian on a form, what should someone from the Caribbean or Africa check off?
2
It seems so easy to manipulate well-meaning people into serving evil.
8
As a comfortable white I was glad to hear of increased numbers of blacks going to important universities in the US and am stunned to find that 41 percent of that number are from recent immigrants to the US. Slavery is the ugly stain on our history and we still have not addressed it.
12
But it doesn’t make sense. All descendants of American slaves are ultimately from other countries like Nigeria, Liberia, etc.
You can’t be serious. Someone who comes to this country post Civil Rights Movement has no skin in the game to benefits that should be given to people and their descendants who found themselves being raped, beat, lynched, hosed down etc in this country. It is that simple.
2
@Kita Yes, but the exodus from West Africa was involuntary and it happened centuries ago. The African descendants of slaves have had a horrible experience in this society, much different from black immigrants.
1
"Immigrant blacks," who come from families who have emigrated from the West Indies or Africa (mostly Ghana or Nigeria), make up 41 percent of Ivy League schools, according to a 2007 study by Princeton and University of Pennsylvania researchers. In contrast, black immigrants only make up 13 percent of the black population of 18-19 year olds in the United States.
https://www.theroot.com/black-immigrants-overrepresented-in-the-ivy-league-1790869651
Another reason why Affirmative Action -- or any kind of racial discrimination -- is wrong, doesn't work, and doesn't make sense.
24
@Mmm
The focus of the article you reference is about Ivy League schools. Maybe most black students are enrolling in local community colleges, historically black universities (hbcu), state colleges and universities. The point is maybe they're attending higher education at other institutions other than Ivy League. Maybe the discussion (relating to your comment) should be: are there fewer applicants for students of non-immigrant parents and if so, why?
@Mmm
41% of all black students at Ivy League schools, not 41% of all Ivy League students. Both you and your source are incorrect.
What is the difference between black descendants of slavery and blacks whose families have recently arrived that would cause leading universities to admit a much higher percent of the more newly arrived?
It is not a difference of "race". It is not that the newer arrivals are less racially and genetically "black". It is presumably a difference in culture, behavior, and values.
6
Or the more honest and less bigoted truth: It’s the best and brightest coming here...rather the “valueless” as you put it.
1
@Let's Be Honest The difference is the lack of exposure to Jim Crow, American Apartheid and the culture of White Supremacy. Essentially, although colonialism was awful, the lack of exposure to white culture, white racist behavior and white supremacy - was beneficial.
2
There was also terrible slavery in the Caribbean. That seems like something that should be discussed here.
@JMF
Why?
There was slavery all over the world.
Should I say that I am a descendant of slaves because Aztecs were slaves to Spaniards?
Can Spaniards say they are descendants of slaves, because they were slaves to the Moors for 800 years?
Can the Moors say...
It goes on forever.
I am all for giving the locals a better deal than to those who just showed up.
11
@JMF
Caricom is demanding reparations from the UK and European countries that enslaved Africans in the Caribbean.
2
@JMF said, "There was also terrible slavery in the Caribbean. That seems like something that should be discussed here."
No. Not before we discuss slavery, Jim Crow (Junior and Senior) and other ongoing forms of subjugation, most of them perfectly legal, that have plagued native-born blacks.
People from the Caribbean can, and perhaps should go back to their own countries to fight for reparations. But it would be inappropriate for US taxpayers to include them in reparations programs for things that happened generations before Caribbean and African immigrants chose to come to the US.
4
"Mr. Asante-Muhammad lamented that the rhetoric of the movement comes off as anti-immigrant and said that Mr. Moore and Ms. Carnell “over-dramatize” the impact of African immigrants on the wealth and opportunities available to black Americans."
ADOS might need a better PR plan because it is definitely dancing on the line of being anti-immigrant.
8
@Mich Wrong. ADOS position is that the data show that recent black immigration hurt ADOS. It is disingenuous to spin this as xenophobia.
2
Will the Descendants of American Slaves include those descendants of indigenous tribes sold into slavery? What of the descendants of Irish and British orphans that were herded together and sold to the plantations of the South ?
8
@Patrick If they have the records (including census reports, slave registries, and bills of sale), why wouldn't they be included?
2
Honest question, how do you prove who are descendants of slaves and who are not?
4
@Justin When you're black and see that no one in your family has ever immigrated to the United States. When you're black and see that no in your family can call another country home other than the United States. When you're black and understand that your ancestors either migrated out of Southern states during the Great Migration to not suffer through Jim Crow or stayed in the South to fight it. When you're black and your grandparents tell you which small Southern town they come from and what their parents did as sharecroppers. When you're black and your family has family reunions held in small Southern towns almost inevitably near the plantations (if they're still standing) where their ancestors once worked. These are only some of the ways that one can prove to be a descendant of black American slaves.
8
Honest answer, as someone who studies genealogy it is not hard.
4
This is truly a difficult issue at hand. However, and once again, Black people no matter where you are or where you came from, we must never forget that we was and still is highly influenced by the historical madness of slavery, colonization and white supremacists. I don't see the point in dividing ourselves when we should be using the term "Black" as it was intended to be used. To unity!
I fear that we are doing the same things over and over again. We're so focus on this system instead of creating our own. We're debating about who's this black and who's that type of Black when what is more real is that when we remove all the fluff we see that black people all over the world have more in common then we suggest we don't. I am a fearful of all of this because the ended of this familiar story is that our division is our enemies opportunity to advance upon us all. #All R All Black
2
@Dustin Baako No, I respectfully disagree. Black people have been using the black unity, Pan-Africanism, "we're all black" trope for too long. It sounds nice in theory but what happens in actuality is that non-black Americans just reap the benefits of the work that black Americans have done because we live in the United States. What would be a better idea is if black people in their respective countries and cultures, built up their own communities. Then perhaps there could be serious talk of global black unity. Right now as it stands, it's like a group project where black Americans are doing the majority of the work and the other black people are getting A's for hardly doing anything.
5
@Dustin Baako Wishful thinking. "Black" is a term invented by White people for their purposes. Reflect on what was their goal.
2
Sorry but when immigrant blacks come here they go out of their way to differentiate themselves from ADOS. So it shouldn’t be a problem now that we agree with them.
4
Seems to me divide then conquer is at play here....
2
The foundational axiom of white supremacy is that persons of African origin are genetically inferior to those Northern European ancestry. Given their racist underpinnings, acolytes of the Trump cult could not be more pleased over the emergence of this political divide and they will exploit it with all the cynicism and ill will they can muster. The very notion of reparations is already a non starter for them and it's certain that any advocacy of ADOS will only harden their resolve.
It's important that we first recognize the complexity and nuance of the reality that emigration from Africa was never simple, and African American descendants of slaves deserve recognition as such over and above those here by more recent immigration.
3
I don't believe those black people who are recent immigrants should separate themselves from the general community of black people, or seek in any way to differentiate themselves. The long-time struggle for equality in the US for black people that continues to this day can only be injured by stressing differences . If any among either group think they are superior to the other they are merely aiding the prejudiced. Unity !
And this unity of feeling must extend to whites who feel we are all basically the same, in every way, and work together to improve the status of both races. The distribution of wealth in the US is so disgraceful, with so many whites as well as blacks suffering from it, only by working together, blacks and whites from abroad, blacks and whites living in the US for centuries, can a just economic solution be found.
@JFP You are a romantic. The data show that we are divided and ADOS is undeservedly at the economic bottom. Focus brother and think of a solution for that. We are not here to solve the world's problems.
3
John Tanton. That name was all I needed to see in this article. It's really true that if you lie down with dogs you'll get up with fleas, and I bet if you dig even deeper this will turn out to be a puppet group funded by wealthy Republican donors.
5
I'm reading "Slavery's Capitalism" and I suggest to anyone interested in the latest scholarly research that clearly demonstrates how this great country was bootstrapped on the backs of slaves. American capitalists, North, south, east and west, and with the US Government created a giant concentration camp in the Southwest that was never fully disassembled or reconciled. FAIR reparations are due and any company or family fortunes that are derivative of slavery profits must calculate their bill and pay, with interest. It's the same country so there is no escape from the debt that is due no more than you can escape taxes. It's not FAIR that millions of slaves received nothing but contempt for collective horrors redeemed.
3
The use of broad racial categories and the handling of such categories have been scandalous for years. This is obvious to anyone with college experience who has observed the make-up of the minority student body. On the other hand, the way Obama was treated shows that Republican racists did not at all differentiate between immigrants and descendants of slaves. So should recent immigrants get a bonus for experiencing every-day racist attitudes and policies (school funding!!)?
The way out of this quagmire is to improve public education for all. America has imported academic talent for over 100 years instead of creating true opportunities for everybody (Germans after 1848, Russians after 1918, Germans after 1933 and again after 1945, millions of third-world students since the 1960s). Students complain about not being able to understand Asian Teaching Assistants because graduate schools cream off the better-educated applicants from abroad. Give people true opportunities and don't look at superficial race statistics.
The problem with the ADOS approach is that you can slice and dice the population into meaningless and helpless fractions. So someone of mixed race would then be entitled to half or fewer restitution dollars? How many generations do you go back? How can you prove that you are a 'pure' slave descendant? And should the funding of reparations be based on the immigration date of our white forefathers? Do post-1866 immigrants get a rebate? Should Southerners pay more?
9
An interesting movement. The trouble for progressives seems to be that African-Americans are often held up as the nation’s conscience. So when some African-American, ADOS are less than enthused about immigration it causes problems, especially for progressives. It’s turns the trope on its head that only racist white people are against immigration. Anyone who has been paying attention knows this is not the case.
11
Although I hadn’t heard of ADOS, the rest of this article is not news to me. Anyone who’s been around the professional and education fields was well aware that for decades, Black immigrants and their first gen kids have been statistically over-represented compared to American descendants of slaves. Anyone white Person who knows people from all these diverse backgrounds may also have heard the scathing comments about the “other” groups, or unwillingness to date across groups, for example. Reminds me a little of how the well established, often well-heeled German Jewish Americans of the late 19th century were disgusted and ashamed of their pious fellow Eastern European shtetl Jews, and sought to distance themselves from those backwards Yiddish speakers. Assimilation, education, White privilege and some from the German Jewish world who created vast charitable organizations to support the newcomers eventually dissolved these differences.
4
Further, it seems disingenuous to make a point that Russia could be using this group, as if that makes the underlying movement fraudulent. I do not agree with Dr. Cornel West on a lot of things, but I would not accuse him of intellectual dishonesty for the sake of a movement. Would you claim Black Lives Matter is fraudulent because Russian messaging focused on it?
Similarly, just because Republicans and right-wing personalities may cynically support this movement to further their own ends does not mean ADOS is intentionally fraudulent.
If you haven’t learned by now, politics makes strange bedfellows.
ADOS advancement and immigration were bound to intersect and clash for some people.
11
Division is exactly what will be our downfall. Yes, ancestors of black slavery deserve reparations, whatever form that would take. But it will never happen with a republican president. I want, especially Trump. Could we please focus on the present need. Once a democrat is in office, at least those in power will listen.
The whole point of elitism is to achieve separation between people by defining some characteristic as indicative of inherent worth, and using that definition to enable some to enjoy greater privilege and its concomitant wealth and prestige. It seems to me that the antidote to elitism is the assertion that all people enjoy an essential equality of being. To believe, or even suggest, otherwise is to support inequality.
Perhaps it is true that descendants of slaves have less wealth, which is an issue that needs to be addressed. I will even admit that distinctions based on national origin at least offer a more significant difference than skin color. Different cultures, from different places, are indisputably different. People tend to have a bias for the culture in which they were raised, so those coming from a different place bring often socially difficult cultural habits than can cause friction between groups. Skin color, on the other hand, is a difference only in outward appearance that has no demonstrable cause for bias.
So clearly it is inherently dangerous for the goal of universal equality to continue to create new distinctions. That is going in the wrong direction.
“All men are created equal” has always been more aspirational than accurate, and it left women completely out of the equation. So if we are going to become more serious about this aspiration, we ought to eschew distinctions rather than create more of them.
2
This reminds me of the situation in the pre-affirmative action 1960s when the number of African-American students at competitive colleges like Yale, Harvard and Princeton could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but there were far more foreign students from Africa. And as affirmative action became instititionalized, colleges took to reporting "minority" or "non-white" students, categories that could include foreign non-white students, Asians and anyone with a Hispanic surname or a Cuban grandmother. There is, of course, a great benefit from colleges and businesses striving to achieve diversity that reflects the entire American population. Nevertheless, we have lost sight of why "action" is "affirmatively" necessary to overcome the legacy of 200 years of enslavement and a century of Jim Crow laws and deep-seated segregation and discrimination. This needs to be faced squarely and honestly.
33
It is quite logical that when politics is dominated by what divides us and not what unites us, new subdivisions will be created until the whole society is splintered.
7
For all those in fear of this distinction, I recommend viewing sci-fi thriller and series “The Watchmen” to open your minds a bit. The distinction is a moral imperative. The African American Free immigrants do not suffer the PTSD tied to DNA memory of the suffering of slavery. Their experience of post slavery racial discrimination is different absent those memories.
7
@Dolcefire
Almost every single Caribbean country has a history of slavery, and the descendants of same, some of it dating back further than the American experience (see Dominican Republic). Not to mention the historic and lasting impact of the colonial slave trade on the cultures of West Africa. Is their "DNA memory" different or less valid? I see American Exceptionalism at work here.
5
@Brian33 Keep in mind that these are black majority countries with a different experience after emancipation than native blacks experienced in a post Civil War US. ADOS has a specific claim against the US government and we here in the Caribbean will let CARICOM spearhead ours.
5
And none of them have a claim in the USA.
4
I understand the concerns raised by ADOS supporters — they are honestly and factually derived from a US historical legacy of hundreds of years of slavery and oppression with lasting impact on the present circumstances of African Americans. And I worry — that in the context of this upcoming presidential election year it will be leveraged by those on the right who desire nothing more than the splintering of diverse progressive voices that must remain united around principles of justice (including restorative justice), equal opportunity and a sustainable future for all. ADOS has raised an important conversation that should continue, but let us all also not lose sight of the forest for the trees — especially not now.
8
A novel way dividing the minority into oblivion by the White Right. They have praise for ADOS not because the Right appreciates the ADOS self determination but to sew infighting between the minority groups. This scene was played before many times, a good example is the push against Affirmative initiatives by Asians against other minorities. Remember if the White Right was on your side to start with there would be no need for ADOS to even exist.
7
Chris Rock - Black People VS. Niggaz -Bring the Pain 1996 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4(3:00-3:50), reveals, in a humorous manner, the strong streak of anti-intellectualism within some segments of the African-American community.
Given the adverse effect of racism as experienced in this country, doesn't it stand to reason that people who have life experience in places where though, the overall society may be poorer, they don't have suffer from birth the adverse effects of inter-personal impacts of constant subjection, are much better positioned to deal with those adversities.
Though I've never read a study on it, I suspect the statistical relationship between African-Americans and blacks from other societies is similar to that of the U.S. white working class and non-black immigrants.
1
Slavery is one - horrible - but just one - form of servitude. See U.S. Code CHAPTER 77— PEONAGE, SLAVERY, AND TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS. Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Italian immigrants were all victims of peonage in the US South (Florida, Mississippi and Arkansas, and New Mexico in particular) Rather than continue to promote a race-based inequality story, we ought to be looking at CLASS-based inequality. White, brown and black people who were poor, uneducated about their rights, and unable to fight back against a system of law that supported owners, were all victimized for many years beyond the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation.
4
@Gaston Bunny all those groups you mentioned clearly identify as such and want for their groups first and make clear distinctions that they are not black.. Mexicans in the US are clearly looking for the ability to live freely in the US and send money back to their home countries. Thats their agenda. Why is it a problem when black Americans do the same?
3
What ADOS activists should be focusing on is class issues, rather than essentialist issues about whether there is slave DNA in someone's body. The disparity in fortunes between African Americans and African immigrants is a function of the intersection of racism and classism. Immigrants who come from more distant countries are often middle class. We come here with privileges many white people enjoy, including cultural capital and a college education. Our life experience is certainly not the same as that of minorities born under institutional discrimination here in the US. Still there are numerous exceptions and variations that are simply impossible to parse out. There are people of mixed (immigrant and native) origin. There are whites that come from generational violence, victims of institutional classism. There are ADOS that have worked hard and caught a break, lifting themselves to the middle class several generations ago. ADOS activists realize that identity itself is too simple a concept. But so is DNA, and who your ancestors happen to be. Only by considering race and class together can we reach real justice.
7
One possible counteraction to this distortion introduced by rote diversity policies would be a general opening of opportunities for higher education. We do not educate all who can benefit.
Another, more targeted, approach would be to place special emphasis on Historically Black Colleges which have been fighting the fight for advancement and community building among the descendants of slaves for over 100 years.
An interesting read here if the chapter on Justice Thomas' views on Affirmative Action in Corey Robin's The Enigma of Clarence Thomas.
1
I'd like to have another box to check on the census than "White". That box denys my cultural heritage entirely and lumps me in with all Europeans and some Middle Easterners. I'd like it pace down for all of us. Everyone gets a box. The census will be as thick as the King James Bible.
2
And yet all groups with black skin will have the same problems when they get pulled over for a broken tail light.
34
Only in America could you have everybody on one side of the political spectrum amalgamating every off-white person into a meaningless blob of “POC”, followed by a reactionary movement of sub-sub-sub dividing on group along the narrowest of parameters, all the while driving straight past the blatantly obvious class issue which underpins it all.
Doesn’t matter if this is an organic Black movement or a nefarious, secretly White conservative movement, it’s a moronic movement in uniquely American vein of stupidity, which crosses all race lines.
60
This is one of the inevitable contortions that a society experiences when it decides to award benefits based on skin color and not on merit.
Unquestionably, people who are relatively recent descendants of slavery will have been damaged by that process. But where do you draw the line? Most Americans who are descendants of Slavic ancestors are descendants of slaves, serfs in the Russian Empire who were only freed in 1861, a mere two years before our own Emancipation Declaration. Do they get preferences? Black Americans who came from the Caribbean are also almost entirely descended from slaves, and from a far, far more brutal slave experience than ours. Do they get preferences?
Should Barack Obama, with not a single slave ancestor, and raised in a completely white experience, be allowed to speak as a "black" man?. Or Kamala Harris, without a single American slave ancestor, and whose parents were both successful university professors (one from India)?
It's a distorted universe that we have created, and as this article exemplifies, the self-interested backstabbers are having their day.
84
@Chuck French My husband and his cousins are children (not relatively recent descendants) of Holocaust survivors. They received no preferences but are still subjected to anti-Semitism.
7
@Chuck French "This is one of the inevitable contortions that a society experiences when it decides to award benefits based on skin color and not on merit."
Agreed. If America had given GI Bill benefits based on merit instead of excluding based on color, and given housing loans based on merit instead of redlining based on color, and elected our current President based on merit instead of based on his crude xenophobic appeals against immigrants of color, we would be in much better shape.
18
@Chuck French No Chuck, history is not distorted. You are attempting to distort it in order to prove your point. What does Slavic descendants of slaves from the Russian Empire have to do with Black American Slaves of the US Govt.?
Yes Blacks from the Caribbean did experience Slavery. But Jamaicans were enslaved by the British. Why would a Jamaican have the same claim from the US Govt. as a Black American?
Barrack can speak as a Black man but the question you should ask is should he speak for ADOS? Barrack's family history is vastly different than that of the typical ADOS. Kamala Harris has an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. Kamala can speak as a Black woman but can she speak as an ADOS?
That is the point that ADOS is making. Blacks from the Caribbean, Africa, South America are lumped in with Blacks in America. Just because they share the same skin color does not mean they have the same wealth, education, family history, etc.
17
Did their ancestors not arrive in the New World in the holds of the same, or very similar, ships? Is cutting cane that much different to chopping cotton? Are there not already enough issues dividing people who need to be standing together against oppression?
18
@expat To your point, yes, Slavery was practiced in America as well as America. However, it was the US Government that enslaved Black Americans. Black Americans are owed a debt from the US Govt. Haitians were enslaved by France so Haitians are owed a debt from the French Govt. Jamaicans were enslaved by Britain so Jamaicans are owed a debt from the British Govt. Each ethnicity I mentioned all endured slavery but at the same time their history is distinct and different from one another. And those differences should be acknowledged and respected.
15
@expat It's not about the difference between cotton and sugar. It's about national borders.
The New Word is divided into nation-states. People from Caribbean nations who came voluntarily to the US do not, and should not have the same right to recompense as the descendants of those whose free labor built the richest country in the world. Any problems that they have should be taken up in their respective native countries.
9
Thank you NYT for linking the Talib Kweli blog post. This movement seems highly suspect. I look forward to the very serious Candace Owens being the group's leader in coming months.
1
Just a point of contention for the sake of accuracy, black people from the Caribbean and central and South America are in fact the decedents of slaves. Slavery was not an American specific institution. Haiti was the first Black Country to successfully revolt against slavery. Sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Brazil were tended by slaves. The difference between a Jamaican and an American black person ancestry wise is where they got dropped off. Many slave ships made stops first in the Caribbean before then going on to the US. This isn’t true for Africans of course. I’m not saying that other new world black people are owed anything by the US government since they weren’t in fact slaves here but let’s not pretend that they didn’t experience the brutality.
119
Thank you for sharing a bit of historical context, which this article should have provided. As well, those who are active in ADOS might find their political views widened by learning about the history of colonialism in Africa. Being “self interested” as a central principle won’t bring about actual change. And if the claim is meant to be one of unique suffering and injustice, where is the attention to the indigenous peoples of the United States?
18
@Roy Yes, in fact about 1.5 million African slaves were imported to the New World and three-quarters of those were destined for places other than the US.
10
@Roy ADOS isn’t denying this fact. However, every historian acknowledges slavery in the US was different and much more brutal. Having their descendants benefit from the legacy of US slavery seems to be wrong.
8
As my self-interest continues to be escalated in importance to dominate our self-interest, all will continue towards dystopia.
11
Jamaican--its important I put it out there. And yes, a top percenter. I started out in the drive-thru at McDonalds though. My high school years in Jamaica were spent wondering about the brain drain out of the Caribbean. What will happen when the brightest head north and contribute to America's dominance? What will happen to poor Jamaica? Barbados, Trinidad etc.
ADOS and Trump will help the Caribbean- we will take our brains, and money and head back to contribute to our dominance. Thanks ADOS
7
@Peter I am a traveler. It has never made sense to me that Black immigrants don't feel obligated to grow their own countries. I HATE when I am in countries of Black populations and folks are impressed with me solely because I am American (yet critical of me when in the US - that's another story). I always discourage adulation of what is perceived "1st world". I say be proud of and build your own. Gentry-fication in Jamaica is just as big a problem as it is in the US. Meanwhile, you guys are here. Does not compute. You should want to take your brilliance and build and protect your own. Just my thoughts. A Mother who cannot swim will jump in the water to save her baby, Jamaica and other of our Black populated countries are drowning. IJS... We ALL must learn to celebrate, protect & promote our own. That is what I hear ADOS saying notwithstanding anything trump and his maga rats are saying... I ignore them. We love you guys but trust and believe, Black Americans are brilliant too. We held it down so good that it attracted others to come. We've got enough brilliance to maintain... (smile)
9
There is no doubt that millions of black Americans, descendants of American slaves have rights to reparations. Enslaved, then subjected to Jim Crow laws, discrimination in jobs and housing, had land and possessions burned or stolen, denied employment, yes they have a good argument for reparations.
We have created ghettos with generational poverty for a myriad of reasons. Black Americans have never achieved even close to even ground with White Americans on all socio-economic measures.
The twist is this organization is focused on Democrats with little directed toward republicans. Reparations for descendants of slave owners has some traction in this country now, albeit very small. To make this issue a wedge issue for 2020 doesn't make sense. You would think the ADOS would demand both parties to address the issue. So, as so much in American politics right now, something doesn't smell right.
11
@Michael Piscopiello Michael, if you do some research you will see that Republicans are able to get voted into office without much support from Black voters. Democrats on the other hand NEED the Black vote in order to get into office. Black Americans have consistently shown strong support for Democratic candidates. One can argue the Democratic party has not delivered many tangible benefits for Black Americans despite the strong support. ADOS has taken notice and are demanding an agenda specific to them in exchange for their votes. You should be proud of the political maturation/strategy of ADOS. They're demanding results for their votes instead of simply hoping a candidate will throw them a bone.
6
Circular firing squad. Identity politics divides the left, unifies the right, alienates moderates. Trump and Putin smile when they read this.
208
@Lee That may be true but "liberals" should then stop taking the black american vote for granted.
3
@Curious One Agreed, but "Where else you gonna go?" is a valid question, and "Trump Show - Second Season" is not a good answer.
1
Two things immediately came to mind after reading this.
First, we need to have a serious conversation about reparations in this country, and ADOS seems like a useful distinction to that end. I think rebuilding black communities in ways that promote healthy families and livelihoods might be an area of common ground for the Left and Right. Injecting a bit of economic hope could have huge payouts.
Secondly, divisive issues like this were absolutely used by the Russians in 2016 to drive a wedge through society and suppress voter turnout. We should not allow that to happen again. What are the chances that ADOS will be used in this way? Well, they’re already suggesting black people not vote unless their demands are met. I have a feeling that Russian trolls will use this to their advantage even though they don’t seem to be connected.
75
@Luke
Reparations is a very American idea. Pay money, or rather have the government or insurance company pay money, and a grievance is resolved. Amends are made. The problem goes away - or does it?
Will black Americans no longer feel aggrieved? Will white guilt be expunged?
Will white Americans feel resentful? Will they be angry if black Americans don't feel appreciation? What about those whose families immigrated after the end of slavery - or who had ancestors who died fighting for the Union - or Americans who identify as members of other minority groups?
Should native Americans, Japanese-Americans and Jews make similar demands?
Will money make up for the social dysfunction and poverty that is a legacy of slavery and discrimination?
How much money, exactly, is the right amount? To what purpose will it be put? Will it heal our country's divisions or will it just divide us further?
As American as it is, reparations are a monumentally bad idea. As much as we would like to, we can't change the past. We can only live honorable lives in the present and work for a better future.
12
@Luke
Why do you immediately default to Russian trolls and bots as the reason blacks are questioning the Democratic party? What is happening is that blacks are tired of the same-old same-old where our votes are instrumental in the election of politicians and we receive nothing while they are in office. Obama was the final straw for a lot of people and we now are going to ask questions and have the same expectations of politicians that white voters do - meet our needs or we won't vote for you. Is there a reason why black voters should not have the same expectations as white voters?
6
@Luke That's not how democracy works. Black people don't owe you support and we're not children so easily duped by Facebook ads or Russians. The concerns that the people voiced in this article are real and will last long after Trump is gone. Just look at videos from the 60's of white southerners talking about how their blacks are content and outside agitators are the ones stirring up trouble. That's what you sound like. I'm sorry, you're just not on the right side of history on this one. You're asking black Americans to erase themselves for the sake of the American empire. Bump that, I would never.
5
For the life of me I cannot understand why progressives believe that disadvantaged people, black or white, who were born in the US should not receive targeted assistance.
Why are immigrants “better” or “more deserving” than the native born who are disadvantaged?
8
@Frank
That is not actually what progressives think.
2
First off, I'm white. However when I was in my teens I worked closely with two black men in my fathers company. One was African American, a nice guy and a hard worker. The other was a Jamaican immigrant. The later was also a nice guy and a hard worker; However, one day he asked my father if he could spend some time in the "front office" to learn how a business was run. Several years later when my father was forced to close his business the Jamaican opened a catering business in Harlem. The other man just got another job.
9
@LesISmore
I once worked for a company where there was this white guy who always had a story to tell that justified his highly complex system of personal prejudices about which races, nationalities, ethnicities and religious groups were lazy or hard-working or or sex-crazed or prone to drink or "good with money."
I won't tell you what we did to his lunch every day.
13
@LesISmore - And your point is? All Jamaicans are go getters, and all African Americans are not? This was TWO men you are talking about here, a pretty limited sample.
5
So begins the further identity politics splintering.
More divisiveness, more battling for who is the most aggrieved group. Less unity and less promotion of societal harmony.
The Democrat party is collapsing at an alarming rate.
Their nomination process is a joke. Way to many people without a chance of winning are still in the mix and there is less than year out. And the few at the top are selling promises that are scaring many people just to appease the ultra left.
If the Dems were serious about reparations they would have Native Americans at the top of the list.
This is a losing issue to rally behind.
9
I have very few steadfast rules in life, but one of them is, "If Ann Coulter agrees with anything, be very wary."
ADOS is an exercise in divisive hair-splitting. While there is apparently statistically notable difference in economic status between direct slave descendants and immigrants of color, our racist society has, in this one respect, been hugely successful in assimilation. Now, all people of color are treated with equal disdain by a significant segment of the country - Trumpers and Trumpettes particularly.
This "debate" is a terrible example of arguing about slices of a pie that is rotten to begin with.
155
@Barking Doggerel Is it? Because the children of black immigrants are doing quite well but the descendants of slavery are not. The latter are the folks who need a leg up because of historical disadvantages, not the former.
7
See I disagree with this article completely because the very bedrock of affirmative action policies does not come from a "reparations" perspective. It comes from the perspective of lifting black Americans, traditionally disadvantaged in our society, and giving them the tools to be successful regardless of what their 23&Me genealogy test reveals about their backgrounds.
To the statement that "not voting will result in another term of Donald Trump" shows how little the left cares about crafting answers to the countries issues and mostly cares about only pushing out Trump...
You are your own autonomous person, vote for who you believe in. Never listen to a person, organization or newspaper who tries to craft a story that you should believe otherwise.
3
This is ironic. As a second-generation Afro-Caribbean American, I observed during my life that it is usually black immigrants - especially, the first generation - who see themselves as members of a separate black ethnicity. Native black Americans, on the other hand, seem to have a more of a global brotherhood view of race, and feel close kinship with all black people regardless of origin. I have always found the latter perspective to be admirable and welcoming. However, it is also in its own way, provincial, failing to recognize the great diversity of culture and experiences of black people worldwide.
The very name of this new native black American group, "American Descendants of Slaves" itself reflects that provincialism - and a bit of ignorance. Many black Americans understand race purely in terms of the American experience, whereas black immigrants may have a more nuanced and cosmopolitan understanding. During casual conversation, I have met highly educated native-born black Americans who went their whole lives not knowing that Afro-Caribbeans - who form the majority of black immigrants in US* - are also actually from slaves. And some do not know American slavery was just a part of the larger colonial slave trade in the Americas that brought millions of Africans to Brazil, the Caribbean islands, and the American South.
*https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/24/key-facts-about-black-immigrants-in-the-u-s/
21
There is no doubt that the freed slaves and there immediate descendants should have received far better treatment and an aggressive effort to integrate them into society as a whole. But that should have been done 150 years ago. While I regret that that did not happen, the fact is 7+ generations have passed since that time. At what point does a population group begin to take responsibility for itself? Many groups of immigrants came to this country in little better shape financially or educationally than the condition of slaves following the Civil War. Yet these other groups do not blame there current predicament, good or bad, on their disadvantaged ancestors.
71
@Thomas Smith Except you're forgetting the aftermath of slavery including Jim Crow laws, red lining, lynchings, KKK, etc. Even now 150 years later and 55 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act we're still dealing with the aftermath of slavery. I have friends who try to rent apartments that are free until they show up to look at it and when the landlord sees their black, suddenly the apartment is taken. Facebook fell afoul for fair labor practices when want ads for jobs could be targeted based on race. I think when we as a nation deal with slavery and every community has claimed their memorial from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, then maybe your comment can be made.
24
@Thomas Smith - Seven generations have passed? Check your math. I've never thought of my family members in their 60s and 70s as "ancestors." Segregation and red-lining and lynching and poll taxes, etc., are much more recent than 150 years ago. As well, check your law books and your history books to understand why each wave of immigrants to the U.S. were treated better than the descendants of the enslaved Africans who built this country since before its founding. Within that history book, I recommend you don't miss the sections on Reconstruction and the Tulsa Race Massacre.
34
@Thomas Smith
Slavery was the original crime, but it was not the only one. African Americans suffered lynch law, Jim Crow, and red-lining well into the latter half of the 20th century and still experience pervasive and well-documented discrimination in housing, employment, and in interactions with the educational, healthcare and criminal justice system that seriously limit the life chances of millions.
While many immigrant groups have faced discrimination, most actually arrived with more resources, at the very least educational ones, than those possessed by freed slaves, and none have really faced anything like the vicious racial dictatorship that was only brought down by the civil rights movement.
The idea that Black people are blaming their conditions on ancient history and need to "just get over it" is a convenient one for whites who have been, and remain, the chief beneficiaries of discrimination against Black people. Black people are still demanding the basics of freedom, justice and equality. It is a fraction of the white population who are the ones who are making excuses for their failure to make good on those rights promised to ALL Americans.
25
It's the logical outgrowth of identity politics. Once you start splitting people into identity groups, the groups themselves will split into identity groups (as here) and then on and on and on.
269
... and exactly why the conservatives are cynically pushing it
4
@Mon Ray
Most of these “objections” are facile and you know it.
1
It's almost as if individuals part of a larger identity grouping are allowed to have individual opinions on specific issues that contradict the popular opinion of the categories that we put them in. Astounding!
25
It's somewhat interesting that the movement uses the name "American Descendants of Slavery" rather than "Descendants of American Slavery" but still excludes blacks from other parts of the New World (and, of course, descendants of non-black slavery). I suppose it could be argued that other regions had less multigenerational slavery and birth into slavery because of children being born free and the low life expectancy resulting in a reliance on imports (such that the enslaved populations of those regions at the time of abolition may have had a large proportion born free in Africa), but that seems like a stretch.
2
@Scott Oh Scott...look at you trying to muddy the waters. Haitians, Jamaicans, Africans know very well when someone says American that person is referring to the United States. Plus, Haitians are very aware it was the French who enslaved them. Jamaicans are very aware it was the British who enslaved them. ADOS does not need to change their name. You should stop trying to poke holes into their justice claim with the US Govt.
4
I am an obviously white man, and a liberal, but like most people of colonial southern descent, I have African-American ancestors. They were enslaved, and they have occupied a major part of my life experience and my worldview. I know and honor them.
But I have never lived the black experience. That distinction is all-important. I completely agree that the ADOS occupy a distinct category, and deserve to have it respected.
Many generations of white foreigners have immigrated to America and gradually been accepted by descendants of previous immigrant whites as full-fledged Americans. But none of them were subjected to an assumption that their race defined them and their descendants permanently, and overrode any possibility of their eventual acceptance. Distinguishing ADOS acknowledges the importance of welcoming anyone and everyone to these shores, regardless of race.
6
Reparations should be granted primarily to the descendants of American slaves but American slavery did not end at our borders. The international slave trade, which continued for generations to brutalize Africa and the Caribbean, led to the destruction of African families and communities for centuries. My family is from Cuba, which had legal slavery even after it was technically abolished in America. (Jim Crow was slavery by another name so it is fair for ADOS to argue slavery was in practice until one generation ago as a counter to my point.) Creating a system to return stolen wealth from ADOS (which is all that reparations is) should not be at odds with an acknowledgement that this wealth was also stolen from those immigrants now coming to our shores. Perhaps a good starting point would be to do financial reparations for ADOS in America and continue to allow universities to consider slave heritage for other foreign born people of African descent. We should encourage these immigrants into the US both because it is right, but also because they are a major benefit to our country.
3
@Robyn Ronen. So we owe money to folks harmed in other lands? Do we pay the descendants of Irish immigrants for the harm the Brits did to the Irish.
22
@Robyn Ronen Didn't Britain and Spain import slaves to Cuba? As a Cuban wouldn't your claim for reparations be with the British and Spanish Governments? Why would you attempt to merge your claim for reparations with ADOS who have a specific claim with US Govt? Haitians have a specific claim with France. Jamaicans have a specific claim with Britain. Am I missing something?
11
If reparations or affirmative action policies giving preferences based on race have any justification it is because of the generational damage inflicted by government-enforced slavery. People who did not descend from slaves have no claim under such programs, regardless of their color or national origin. ADOS makes sense to me as a representative of an aggrieved class.
16
This is part of the Republicans' strategy to fracture the opposition party. There is strength in coalition building.
35
As if the country were not already divided enough, this comes as we face the most important presidential election in modern history if not the most important presidential election ever. “United we stand. Divided we fall.”
16
@Tiny Terror The time for justice is always now...never later. ADOS are owed a debt. When the US Government pays their debt to them justice will be served.
4
@TC If you believe that, push for reparations and set conditions around who receives them. How does targeting other minority groups (who can just as easily be subject to, for instance, overpolicing) possibly help you long term particularly if it entrenches a racist president and party?
2
Certainly, it seems this group has been party to some of the unfortunate immigration views of the right. But much of the consternation toward ADOS seems to be around their refusal to commit to the Democratic Party.
I say this as someone who votes almost exclusively for Democrats: liberals have been promising the world to black Americans for a century and a half, and black Americans have gotten peanuts. And, those peanuts have often gone to well-off people who may not need it, and who weren’t subject to the stain of American slavery in the first place, as noted in the article.
Can one really blame the ADOS movement for saying enough is enough? That if they’re getting peanuts, they won’t promise votes to Dems? That we should DO better, not just pay lip service to a centuries-old problem?
Maybe it’s time for the Democrats to actually take action—for the centrists who quietly run the party to give a voice to the progressives trying to make a change. That would certainly be better than calling out an entire group for not automatically supporting them.
31
The GOP, being a minority party, likes to find interest groups it can take sides with in an attempt to garner votes. The GOP -- the party of deregulation and low taxes -- doesn't care about abortion or guns or vaccines or evangelical christianity. But pretending to defend the interest groups who do care about these things -- in fact helping to gin up passions among the members of these groups -- has been very beneficial politically to the right.
11
Anything supported by Ann Coulter is highly likely to be toxic. ADOS' rhetoric reads as anti-immigrant. However, this only proves that the underlying question surrounding black identity needs to be thoughtfully considered. Otherwise, more folks will end up resorting to the likes of ADOS by default.
My parents are immigrants and that had a sizable effect on my life trajectory here. I am one of those kids raised to think of himself as black American and Afro-Caribbean. I would be equally silly saying that my background is 100% the same as friends who are descendants of American slaves as saying they are 100% different. Thoughtful discussion within the diaspora won't diminish solidarity among black people but strengthen it.
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Do they think that supporting Republicans will help their chances of improving affirmative action policies or for reparations? Because there's fat chance of that!
I think identifying who are American descendants of slaves is a goal we should have. I support reparations and we can't do that without identifying who should benefit. But a group that doesn't see that this opportunity is with Democrats and not Republicans is not looking at facts and deserves to be looked at with some skepticism.
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Slavery existed in the Caribbean as well as in the US. An interactive map in the NYT a couple of years ago revealed that 96% of enslaved Africans were sent to the Caribbean and Brazil, and just 4% to the U.S. That said, Caribbean countries are majority black and have not had a history of Jim Crow, and the US is the majority non-black and has had a history of Jim Crow and other legal obstacles to equality. To put it bluntly: descendants of enslaved Americans have it worse than recent immigrants.
I can't comment about the various possibly nefarious forces that might want to get in on the ADOS movement, but I think that ADOS is a useful distinction. To the extent that diversity efforts in academia, business and government are interested in justice, as opposed to just creating a multi-hued community, we should focus on people who for generations were locked out of equality and social progress. I wish the best to recent immigrants and their children (I'm one of them), but their struggles are minimal compared with those borne by people whose ancestors were enslaved.
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@Mexican-American And will Mexico be paying money to the descendants of the quarter million African slaves they 'imported'?
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@John
They should. Many are concentrated in very poor communities in Oaxaca, Chiapas and Veracruz. Along with Mexico's indigenous communities, they deserve a reckoning with the crimes that have had such a lasting legacy for them.
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