*Serious Opinion* African Americans (youth) are losing our tradition/culture

[igottabaldhead]

I can post a million links, but you get the gist.

Please just respectfully hear me out first

For the older brehs here, this may seem a bit ridiculous since you and your peers live in our traditional culture daily, but for my generation (those born lets say 1995 and onwards) i honestly feel like we're losing our distinctive "African Americaness" each passing month.

it seems from my perspective as an early 20s breh in 2019, "black culture" for our youngest generations has been reduced to:
- Funny Black slang, and memes on instagram, which get leaked out into mainstream use anyway.

- Trap music

- Modern RNB: "I aint sh-t/my babydaddy aint sh-t/ i can pull up to the club and steal your b-tch/shawty mess with a real n-gga/im over all these f--kbois and n-ggas" type of Music that i hear on the radio daily.

- NBA

- NFL

-The latest dance, that will soon be copied by mainstream america and reduced to a trend that corny newscasters do on Good Morning America.


So, with all that being said. this is merely my perception of being out and about in the NYC Tristate area. I'd love to hear different perspectives and opinions from everyone's own walks of life. do you truly see an EFFORT made in your area to give African American children a strong foundation in our culture? It seems like our culture is being WATERED down so much, which I also believe contributes to the 6ix9ine, Lil Pump etc trend we see.

And don't say "times change" because i promise you, Dominican and Puerto Ricans my age and younger ALL are well versed in traditional Bachata or salsa music and dance, from the 80s and 90s. While many of our African American youth have the "that's dusty" perspective on our traditional arts.

Why is Bruno Mars doing traditional black music WAY better, while guys like Chris Brown make trap songs about TYB'ing. I can't be the only one who notices all this?

 

[thekingsmen]

U mean music culture?

 

[Donald J Trump]

I agree

shid most of these youngsters dont even have a big grandmaw anymore


grandmaw is 42 years old and still hittin the club

 

[igottabaldhead]

U mean music culture?

Including Music for sure, but just in general really.

Here's another way of looking at it. Picture all your aunties and uncles and granddaddies and big mamas at the cookout, getting down. Or at church. or making sunday supper after church, whole family at big mamas house.


Now picture that same image, but with the current 20s and younger generation in like 50-60 years. Sunday supper with Future hendrix bumping in the background? Nah, It won't be the same man.

 

[TNOT]

Culture evolves breh

As long as there are white people in America they will copy black people.

We straight

 

[Knowledge]

I keep seeing these young brehs act more and more like cacs or bytches

 

[7th Letter Specialist]

I agree. And social media dosent help. Everytime we create something (dance, saying, fashion etc.) Cacs already adopt the shyt day one and play it out. Back in the day it used to take a minute for cacs to figure out our lingos, fashions, mannerisms, and all that. It felt like it was more of a code culturally. Also, the pro black msg we used to line most of our creations w/ (sitcoms, movies, fashion) has been omitted

 

[thekingsmen]

Including Music for sure, but just in general really.

Here's another way of looking at it. Picture all your aunties and uncles and granddaddies and big mamas at the cookout, getting down. Or at church. or making sunday supper after church, whole family at big mamas house.


Now picture that same image, but with the current 20s and younger generation in like 50-60 years. Sunday supper with Future hendrix bumping in the background? Nah, It won't be the same man.

Technology has created a huge gap in mindset. Growing up...i respected the music of the elders bc it was woven in my life. These kids dont wake up or go to bed to that music. They wake up and go to bed with their music.

They are totally disconnected all the while wearing the yesteryear culture style.

 

[010101]

it all amounts to nothing in the end so let the children turn up however they choose*

 

[Cloutius Maximus]

yeah tech plays a huge part

everybody and they momma use black slang now, it's corny. social media got everybody trying to be like us while we trying to be like everybody else

 

[igottabaldhead]

I know I mentioned Music alot in my post, but I mean in general.

Why in 2019, do we still have to pull back to the 90s for like 75% of Classic black cinema and televison shows.

why can't we have more classics in our current age? Black panther and Get Out are dope!! But why are these once in a blue moon nowadays.

our culture used to churn out shows and movies like water. fresh prince, jamie foxx show, one on one, living single, in living color, cosby show, my wife and kids, etc.

Where did all of these writers and producers go?? Power and blackish are good, but why not a plethora of those?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Do any posters in this thread pat juba, play ragtime, holy roll in Church or make quilts?

 

[K.O.N.Y]

So, with all that being said. this is merely my perception of being out and about in the NYC Tristate area.

Afram culture in nyc has taken a huge hit in the past several decades. There was a time when our culture was palpable, that time has long passed

 

[AlainLocke]

Things change, you act like we been around 3,000 years.

Culture is not meant to stay the same. Traditions aren't meant to stay the same. Humans aren't stagnant.

Let's stick on music.You know, the old old old heads used to just sing field songs gospel songs. Then the old old heads had jazz and blues and the old heads had Soul, RnB and Funk. And then the new old heads got New Jack Swing and 90s Hip Hop.

All of them were some haters and hated everything that each new generation was doing because it wasn't like the old days. Blues was called the Devil's Music. Jazz was considered just a bunch of noise. Hip Hop was responsible for everything that was wrong with the Black Gen Xers.

Do y'all wanna bump some field songs and some rag-time? You gonna call your homie a jive sucker? White people always been around and absorbing Afram popular culture. It's the only way our artists get paid.

The key component of popular Afram culture is reinvention. That's what we do. We don't stay the same and we have no desire to keep doing the old ways of the generation before us. We reinvent ourselves and our perception of ourselves and how others perceive us by creating new cultural products. By adapting to new ecosystems that the mainstream creates. By adapting to new surroundings. I don't see the problem with this. I would be more bothered that a group of people created 400 years ago kept doing the same thing.

We are less than a thousand years old and our country is less than a thousand years old, we are trailblazers - out with the old and in with the new.

 

[igottabaldhead]

Things change, you act like we been around a 3,000 years.
We are less than a thousand years old and we live in a country less than a thousand years old, we are trailblazers - out with the old and in with the new.

I agree breh, that change is natural and good. But this bolded is kind of the premise of my thread exactly. We can have our new traditions without completely throwing away the things that historically have made us, us.


Other cultures aren't doing this in the speed and manner our youth are doing so. I also believe this has to do with us not having a seperate language as well, but that's a different conversation.