African American Culture is Stockholm Syndrome

By:  Asher Primus

Last night I was watching The Grapevine on YouTube and the topic was on African American’s perspective on the rift between them and Africans.  The rift is real and the panel had it right.  Elder Africans and even the Caribbean look down on African Americans and are used as a measure of failure because they did not take their education seriously.  Africans have a superiority complex as I see this in the church that I volunteer,  Africans love (white) Jesus and money.  They appreciate eating crumbs that whites give them.  Whites give them a superficial title, suburban lifestyle, a bible and they are set; yet the old African way of life for the new generation may be changing as second-generation Africans become Americanized and lose the fear of being around African Americans.  Africans are spoiled, their parents have a decent income, the kids will live it up and admire the ‘nigga’ rich lifestyle that they see in media.  They want to be a part of the fast life of partying, flashing money and sexual expression themselves.

Part 1

Part 2

I guess African American culture is just dancing, trendy hashtags and pseudo-wokeness.  I tried agreeing with the panel from the Grapevine’s view on African American culture, but there is more to life than being cool and that is why it’s appropriated and not practiced because who wants to be poor?  Too soon, but let us be honest with what our supposed culture represents.  It is an offset as a social rebellion against white America and this is why black people are anti-respectability politics:

• Marriage is for white people and I do not need to get married to have children.
• Table etiquettes is bougie.
• Fuck what white people think.
• Only white girls are thin.
• If we use slang long enough, it will eventually become a real word.
• If white people are doing it, then it is Eurocentric.  You sound like a coon.
• We need feminism to resurrect our African roots thru matriarchy.
• You talk white, where are you from?

Black people fear agreeing with white people even in morals and common sense.  The only reason our culture is appropriated is because we are seen as children (even when we are adults).  So take Miley Cyrus for example, music around the world is trying to obtain street cred for being edgy and anti-establishment, but once the cameras are off and they outgrow their youth, black culture is trashed.  It is not like our culture is animalistic, it does not have a basis.  Why should I inspire to be cool when the reality is Stockholm Syndrome?  We lie to ourselves that keeping it real and 100 is blackness, so let me be that and tell the truth.  No one in the black community wants to be there.  It is a hellhole.  The inner city is boring and depressing.  Black males wonder the streets for life as zombies looking to be entertained until momma comes home.  Black mothers cry over street corners asking why God took away their child in such a cruel manner and black children do not even see the dream that Dr. King and Obama promised.  Black children have pipe dreams to move to the suburbs to buy mom a house where there is little crime due to the limitations on black residency.  Lastly, our children go to schools where coolness is more important than education, but then again that is all they have when it comes to their subpar school system that provides little opportunities and outdated resources.  Even black teachers do not think too highly of their students.

Personally, I do not want to be cool because I would have to remember the trials and tribulations I had gone through just for my own classmates to see me as normal.  Because they think every black kid is born with J’s on their feet and swag points over 9000.  Black boys are expected to master the bedroom before learning how to multiply.  I glance to past black radio discussions of black women turning down a well-rounded man for a jobless bum because he has an A-1 stroke game.  I got tired of the inconsistencies of black coolness as black girls with an education are praised, while black boys who excelled were rendered off as lames who wanted to be white.  Suddenly, SJW’s discard black men because we are supposedly broke, dumb and uneducated, but all of that was cool during the 1980s and 2000s.  Now black men are blamed for listening to black women and white men telling them that the street life was the new black masculinity because seeing black men in suits and ties (like the civil rights movement and Nation of Islam are too respectable).  We pay so much attention to ball players & rappers that when the discussion of colorism and interracial dating comes up black women look at the fractions of black celebrities pretending that they have problems with black women.  No, those men like Kodak Black are greedy and take black women for granted.  So, everyone overlooks the thousands of black couples they see in their circles and forget that black men are still marrying black women regardless of skin tone, size, shape, disabilities, mistakes and religious views.

I reject black coolness as it is an anchor to keep us down as if being poor and happy-go-lucky satisfies me.  Non-black people can appropriate our coolness because I am sick and tired of the projection that I am supposed to be an athlete, break dancer or rapper.  Music genres like Kpop should use blackness to their advantage because I don’t want it.  I would rather have an Asian stereotype than a black one.  Being lame and nerdy is the new cool for black boys as we take pride in being atypical without worrying about sexual desirability or having street cred.