Let A Fro Be A Fro
Superstar
Choose to grow up during the crack era, brehs 
If i had to choose, id be born in 1975.
- Thread starter Ezekiel 25:17
- Start date
murksiderock
Superstar
With all due respect. I think life sucked for black people prior to the mid 90s. Like I honestly can't think of a golden age to (either) live in or be born in accept maybe the first 5yrs of reconstruction.
Like seriously, you'd be crazy to wanna travel backwards in time in the United States of America.
I mean seriously. Everything before civil rights is straight ass for obvious reasons . Furthermore That period from civil rights to late 70s is plagued with stupid wars and drafts. Like imagine being born just in time for your father to be sent to Vietnam. Eww.
Next The 80s is filled with Reagan's plan for black America, which Clinton promptly finishes in the 90s.
This is all subjective. I'll say this for myself personally----->I don't have any scenario in which I'd want to be younger...
I got to grow up in the 00s, one of the few posters on this board who have nostalgia for the era I actually grew up in, rather than eras before or after mine...
Every era is filled with relatable hardship for black people. It's all relative. By definition yes, life has advanced for black folk than in generations past but in this era we're behind everyone else in everything statistically still, so if you're looking for the era black people shoot to the top of all the quality of life categories. I think you know that hasn't happened, and probably will never happen in the United States for a very long time, if ever...
…and a semi-old fart now…speaking from experience
I would’ve loved to be born in '95 then I’d be the age I was when it all started to really click for me…start of my prime
Emotionally and in maturation I was a late bloomer. I don't think things even started to click for me until I was 29, and I'm still in the early stages of putting all the pieces together...
I do NOT think I've hit my prime yet and I'd never want to be younger! Different strokes and all but those years were cool when they were here. I love getting older, I'm such a significantly better representation of everything and everyone I love than I ever was in the past!
Same shyt...
Born in '89, I don't really give a fukk about the 90s like that. But if I was born in '69, I would have really LIVED thru the 80s, that would have been dope. I'd have been turning 11 in '80 instead of '00, woulda really seen the decade and done shyt in it...
If I was born in '79 I woulda been a child in the 80s, couldn't have really lived it. Being a child in the 90s, about two or three years ago I had someone a decade or so younger than me ask what the 90s were like. I told them "overrated".
but the 80s? I really wish I coulda seen that shyt!I also think it would have been interesting coming of age either directly after Reconstruction, or during the beginning of Colonialism slavery in America. I wouldn't mind going back and living thru those eras just to see and feel what it was like...
I'd never want to be born 5, 10, 20 years later. There are too many relics of the past that we legit grew up with and shaped us that aren't identifiable to people younger than us. Like, people our age are the last pre-cell phone era, where it was still common for people to NOT have cell phones (I never even knew a kid my age with a cell until '02 or '03 and it was ONE girl; I'd be interested in your remembrance on this since we the same age)...
So I was 13-ish when I saw someone my age with a cell. My last year of high school was 2005-06 year, access to them was beginning to accelate but I would still estimate maybe only 25-30% of juniors and seniors I knew that year had them. They weren't too unaccessible then but still weren't an "everybody has them" thing yet...
I value this man, being able to remember growing up where cell phones weren't much of a thing, or even a thing at all (amongst our age group) pre-02 or so. So I'd never want to be born later where I don't have this knowledge...
Cell phones and internet existed but I only knew a few kids with computers and internet access at home, and only a few parents with cell phones. My parents had cells first in the mid-90s sometime in the Geo Metro my dad used to drive, then I didn't know any adults who had one for awhile. So even back then it wasn't like everyone's parents had them either, it was rare...
We the last era that didn't grow up with social media. I never even heard of MySpace or Facebook until '05 and I was already 16. Didn't grow up with them and when they came they certainly didn't look the way FB does now. Growing up in The pre-social media days, I value this shyt man. I do NOT wish that I was born in a year where I'd have no recollection of life before social media...
These are just two things. I miss actually grabbing newspapers and reading them. I value some things that cats younger than me just weren't around to place value on, so I understand when people older than me have said "you just had to be there" to understand the love for whichever period they grew up in. I get it.
I think one thing folks gotta understand in this convo, it's hard to miss what you didn't have or didn't exist, or didn't know existed. All the technological and social advancements that overall make the present better for us as a people, when those advancements didn't exist, you can't miss them to know what would make life better...
Who Not How
Superstar
I don’t think they family from America talking like that bruh lolsome of these comments talking bout 1975 like OP said 1875...
Early 00
OperationNumbNutts
Superstar
It really depends where you were in the 80s and 90s. With crack it was like the wild wild west. Outside of that it was a treat seeing hip hop take off and black sitcoms that were positive.
ReturnOfJudah
Veteran
1940- 86 gets props. Old heads be having some wild ass stories from back in the G
BaldingSoHard
Banned
I was born in 78. I got to see the beginning of Hip Hop, the Golden Era of black stand up comedy and sitcoms, our people become stars and household names, what life was like before cell phones and social media made people boring, experiment with various substances before fentanyl become a horror story ending for a lot of people, just off the back of the Civil Rights movement when we were more militant and more aware, got to the see the Legends play and perform in their primes too.
The styles we popularized are still being worn today too. Jordans. New Eras. Chains with medallions. The world was on our dikk back then and we were less inviting to outsiders.
78 here as well and I cosign all of this. Best time to be born to have enjoyed the 90's, imo.
Ezekiel 25:17
Veteran
Yeah I got negged by @BaggerofTea
These dudes are legitimate nerds. I'd love to talk to some face to face.
Gritsngravy
Superstar
The grass is not greener on the other side, maybe it’s different mentalities but I would rather be born later versus earlier, y’all willing to miss out on potential tech and industrial revolutions
Like social media really scares y’all that much yall would rather live through the drug wars, objectively 80s and 90s were way worse than 2000s 2010s across the board, the only argument is maybe the economic crashes but still
Like social media really scares y’all that much yall would rather live through the drug wars, objectively 80s and 90s were way worse than 2000s 2010s across the board, the only argument is maybe the economic crashes but still
Who Not How
Superstar
The problem is we have Black people who lived during the era yall think was terrible and no fun. They have good memories and bad memories...just like we do.
We have no idea what the future is gonna be like. Yall seem focused on the crime aspect and that is a significant issue. But if you aren't in the streets, your chances of surviving in any era is high. My older family members who stayed out the way are all here. I like tech but I've also seen how tech ruined my hometown and gentrified the historically Black neighborhoods.
Gritsngravy
Superstar
So you would rather deal with crack ruining neighbors versus living during the time we’re tech gentrified the crack ruined neighborhoods
Again it’s different mentalities but I would rather live in the future than the past, I want to be part of advancements
Soldier
not redeemed with gold but with His Blood
By comparaison the worst year to be born as a black person in America (excluding slavery times) is probably 1875. So one century earlier.
You’re just 2 years old when reconstruction officially ends and federal troops leave the southern states.(1877)
1880s : lynching statistics are recorded by the written press for the first time in 1882. Race relations regress. Social mobility is restricted and opportunities for black folks decline. Jim crow comes into your life next Decade.
1890-1925: the prime of your life happens in the nadir of race relations. Jim Crow at its worst. Popular black leaders such as Booker T Washington appease white racists. c00n songs are popular nationwide, millions of segregation laws are written into law, black soldiers fight in Ww1 in segregated units, race riots, Rebirth of the kkk. Jim Crow cars, social etiquette etc. You can’t vote because southern states passed laws and used strategies(poll tax, literacy requirements, grandfather clause, etc) to disfranchise specifically your kind. And if you even try , you will be lynched.
1925-1965 ? : Jim Crow laws are still firmly here in your advanced flabby n sick years. You die at 89-90 when Lyndon Johnson finally signs the civil rights act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965 into law .
You’re just 2 years old when reconstruction officially ends and federal troops leave the southern states.(1877)
1880s : lynching statistics are recorded by the written press for the first time in 1882. Race relations regress. Social mobility is restricted and opportunities for black folks decline. Jim crow comes into your life next Decade.
1890-1925: the prime of your life happens in the nadir of race relations. Jim Crow at its worst. Popular black leaders such as Booker T Washington appease white racists. c00n songs are popular nationwide, millions of segregation laws are written into law, black soldiers fight in Ww1 in segregated units, race riots, Rebirth of the kkk. Jim Crow cars, social etiquette etc. You can’t vote because southern states passed laws and used strategies(poll tax, literacy requirements, grandfather clause, etc) to disfranchise specifically your kind. And if you even try , you will be lynched.
1925-1965 ? : Jim Crow laws are still firmly here in your advanced flabby n sick years. You die at 89-90 when Lyndon Johnson finally signs the civil rights act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965 into law .
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