Has Black America truly if not completely lost its way?

[Secure Da Bag]

MSN

How Black Americans Are Raising a Generation of Kids Who Don’t Understand Blackness​

There is a tragedy happening in the Black community — like watching a car crash in slow motion. This generation of Black kids neither understand nor appreciate what it means to be Black. And it didn’t just happen overnight: a quick history lesson to show us how we got here.

The Great Migration occured from 1910 to 1970. During that time, more than 6 million Black people from the South moved North with the hope that they would encounter less racism and more job opportunities in the Northeast, Midwest and Western parts of the United States.

They found that racism in places like Chicago and Los Angeles was just as bad as in the South. It just manifested more often as redlining and microaggressions more than the overt, blatant anti-Blackness they were accustomed to below the Mason-Dixon Line.

As a result, thriving Black communities were formed in the cities these refuges of American racism escaped to. As a result, many of us found economic success...which was a good thing. Mostly.

We moved out of the Black communities we had formed and started moving to the suburbs. Our houses got bigger and our cars more expensive. Because of where we now lived, our kids started attending predominantly white schools. We thought we’d made it…then we saw that there was an underside to this success.

It started small. One or two of the Black kids raised in the suburbs would show up to a family reunion not knowing how to play spades or dominoes. Maybe they would ask that Taylor Swift is played at the cookout instead of Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye.

Not a big deal if that was the extent of it. But it did not stop there. It got worse.

There are many Black kids who feel more comfortable around white kids than they do their own people. There have been copious amounts of research to support this.

We once joked that it was Black athletes who dated and married white girls. That has now shifted. No longer is it only a star basketball player here and there. Many Black boys who do not want to befriend, let alone date, Black girls. And that should not be surprising. The more successful a Black man is, the more likely he is to date and marry a white woman.

This also influences the way young Black kids that were raised around mostly white people vote as well. Pew Research reports that 7% of Black voters over 50 currently identify as or lean conservative, a relatively small amount. But 17% of Black voters under 50 align with the Republican Party. And much of that has to do with where they were raised. And yes, many of them voted for the man who is currently in the White House.

Let’s me just get personal for a second. I help lead the Center for Africana Studies at my university and year after year I see black kids walk into my classroom who do not know Black history; they could not tell you anything about our culture; and they are shocked to learn that there are Black Greek Letter Organizations.

Black parents who raised their kids this way now see that there is a problem. Many are trying desperately to talk to their kids about Black culture. Some turn to organizations like Jack and Jill of America, Inc. as they try to reconnect their kids to the Black experience.

But I think the damage is largely done. We must come to terms with the reality that there will be a generation of Black people who are largely disconnected from the Black experience. We must learn from our mistakes and do better.

 

[Secure Da Bag]

MSN

Why Gen-X and Millennial Black Folks Are What’s Wrong With Black America​

It’s easy to blame President Donald Trump for, like, 82 percent of contemporary Black America’s ills. But is he really the one to blame here? Are members of Generation X and Millennials unknowingly dismantling Black America?

Heavy question…so let’s step back for a second. We need definitions.

Generation X (Gen X) are born between 1965 and 1980. Now, Millennials are born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. There is disagreement about the exact years, so let’s just say 1981 to 1996.

Now here’s the issue: The history of Black people in America is one where the previous generation paved the way for the younger one. The last generation of slaves toiled and fought so that their kids could prosper. The same is true for people that the younger generation derisively call “Boomers.” Say what you want about their inability to drive, homophobia and dated taste in music…Black folks who are Boomers and members of the “Greatest Generation” laid the foundation for the comfortable life Black America enjoys today.

They were the ones who fought valiantly in World Wars I and II, the Korean War and were sent off to Vietnam. They were also the ones who protested during the Civil Rights Movement and participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, ensuring that Black people today could enjoy freedoms they themselves never were able to access.

But what have we done? Millennials and Gen Xers?

Let’s just tell it like it is: We are a generation of Black people that our ancestors would be ashamed of.

The majority of us are politically inactive, and those of us who are mostly share our political outrage on social media where what we say carries minimal weight. We tweet, post TikToks and share Instagram reels like we are actually doing something.

We live comfortably in McMansions surrounded by white neighbors that earlier generations fought for us to have and we work jobs that require us to sound like white people when we answer the phone. And our children? So many Black kids are growing up disconnected from their heritage.

And Black boys are out here clamoring for “exotic” or outright white girls, which is going to set Black girls up with an impossible choice: either marry a man of another race or face the possibility of life alone.

Black America is in a precarious position. We have a President who is directing his administration to do all it can to attack us. We have a Congress and Supreme Court who are just letting him do what he wants. And make no mistake, the police are still killing us in the streets.

Older generations understood something that many of us have forgotten. We are not white people. It may be 2025, but we still must fight so that the next generation of Black people will have it better than we had it.

Gen X and Millennial Black folks, one question: Are we the problem?

 

[Lucky_Lefty]

Let’s just tell it like it is: We are a generation of Black people that our ancestors would be ashamed of.

I stopped reading right here but I’ll say this. I live my life in the way I see fit and not to where if my last name is mentioned, it’s not embarrassing or sullied. I’ve passed this on to my child and reminded the youngins in my family to carry themselves with pride and honor. I also remind them to never live their lives trying to appease some dead kinfolks, some of them they have never met before. Most of us are forgotten within our bloodlines within a generation anyway. As long as you’re not c00ning it up or selling out your peoples, that whole “shaming our ancestors” stuff can fukk off.

 

[cyndaquil]

So basically parents failing to put their children in black environments and raising them around cacs is fukking them up? No shyt.

 

[WIA20XX]

I was about to go off on this dummy but

Lawrence Ware is a professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University and co-director of the Center for Africana Studies.

 

[Jaguar93]

How the saying go…..we’re not our ancestors

 

[Secure Da Bag]

Both articles are from the same author and publisher.

This breh wants blame the state of Black America on Gen X and later, but forget that the Boomers and generation before them wanted this. They're the ones who fled Black neighborhoods for white ones. Stopped shopping at Black stores for white ones. They're the ones who pushed for getting into white schools and corporations.

Not to mention doing all that and getting hit with the crack epidemic.

How quickly we forget.

 

[ba'al]

Whoever wrote this smoking that good stuff.

Older generations understood something that many of us have forgotten. We are not white people. It may be 2025, but we still must fight so that the next generation of Black people will have it better than we had it.

 

[King Poetic]

Blame is on Late born baby boomers & Generation X( my generation at that) aka the crack babies

Remember before gen x and boomers how black people fought for their neighborhoods.. to keep the street clean, lawn cut and most importantly neighborhood watch and all the parents on the street fought to keep the negative shyt away

Then here comes the late born baby boomers ones born after 60 and generation x..

 

[Gloxina]

Both articles are from the same author and publisher.

This breh wants blame the state of Black America on Gen X and later, but forget that the Boomers and generation before them wanted this. They're the ones who fled Black neighborhoods for white ones. Stopped shopping at Black stores for white ones. They're the ones who pushed for getting into white schools and corporations.

Not to mention doing all that and getting hit with the crack epidemic.

How quickly we forget.

I was bout to say…


Millennials literally getting blamed for every GotDAMN thing since we were like 20-now. We didn’t set this shyt in motion



I’m one of those kids who was thrust in white environments when I made it clear I didn’t like it. Some ppl are literally just doing what their boomer parents did with them when we were young. TF?!


How do they always skip over the elders?? This is always my question, even when ppl talk about Black women and dating/marriage. NO ONE EVER SAYS SHYT TO THE ELDERS!
And I know we ain’t supposed to question them…whatever.

How the hell are we supposed to have all the answers when we’re literally living through this shyt and trying to survive and hopefully thrive??

 

[Dwayne_Taylor]

We once joked that it was Black athletes who dated and married white girls. That has now shifted. No longer is it only a star basketball player here and there. Many Black boys who do not want to befriend, let alone date, Black girls. And that should not be surprising. The more successful a Black man is, the more likely he is to date and marry a white woman.

The whole first article was just an excuse to type this paragraph, they know who's in their audience.

 

[Strapped]

Americas racist nature has destroyed the black semi family structure , way too many unfit moms raising kids

 

[ba'al]

So I googled the author and he's affiliated with theroot.com.

The Root is the shaderoom and WSHH for boule nikkas who feel it's their personal duty to talk at and scold other black folk they feel are beneath them .

Than cook up these clickbait think pieces "Black men are the white men of the black community"

 

[Lucky_Lefty]

I was about to go off on this dummy but

Bruh, some of the most pretentious, over the top mf’s I’ve ever met were those in Africana studies. Some of the most performative mf’s on campus be in that department.

 

[Bunchy Carter]

This also influences the way young Black kids that were raised around mostly white people vote as well. Pew Research reports that 7% of Black voters over 50 currently identify as or lean conservative, a relatively small amount. But 17% of Black voters under 50 align with the Republican Party. And much of that has to do with where they were raised. And yes, many of them voted for the man who is currently in the White House.

Let’s me just get personal for a second. I help lead the Center for Africana Studies at my university and year after year I see black kids walk into my classroom who do not know Black history; they could not tell you anything about our culture; and they are shocked to learn that there are Black Greek Letter Organizations.

Black parents who raised their kids this way now see that there is a problem. Many are trying desperately to talk to their kids about Black culture. Some turn to organizations like Jack and Jill of America, Inc. as they try to reconnect their kids to the Black experience.

This is a propaganda piece for the Democrats.

The author is saying that the Black American youth (FBAs) do not understand their Blackness, because more Black American youth are aligning themselves with the Republican Party, and not the Democrats. Blackness is not the Democrats, Republicans, or any political party, being Black (FBA) is your culture and your lineage and that does not tie to any political party. The Black American (FBA) youth understand they do not have to vote for the Democrats; There are other options. Also, the Black American (FBA) youth understand that you need to receive something tangible in return for your vote #No Tangibles No Vote.

The author talked about Jack and Jill of America, and Jack and Jill of America is not the best example of a organization which promotes Blackness lol. Jack and Jill of America were well-known for the "Paper Bag Test," and had a reputation of only being for elite “light-skinned Blacks” who wanted to be White.

Jack and Jill: Elitist, effective, either, neither, or both?

Exactly 81 years ago on January 24, 1938, the idea of Jack and Jill of America was birthed in Philadelphia (before the group was incorporated as a national organization in 1946) when twenty-one Black mothers who had grown up in South Philly established an association “to provide social...

newpittsburghcourier.com