#blackamericans

[afriblaq]

[lawofattraction56]

[blackgirlslivingwell]

Throwback: How to Stop Wasting Your Emotions on Things You Don't Care About - Shera Seven Reaction

Someone on a Shera Seven reaction video mentioned that they love that Shera doesn't invest her emotions into something that she doesn't care about, and I was prompted to upload a video about how to regulate your emotions.

[nappynewz]

Black Americans built this country from the ground up...literally. #whitehouse #slavery #blackamericans #africanamerican #blackhistory #america https://www.instagram.com/p/CXjEO2eLWx0/?utm_medium=tumblr

[tubbsmccracken]

Whenever I feel like giving up, I take a look at my ancestors and wonder how they survived such horrible treatment because of the color of their skin.

Today, I totally understand why most Black people have resilience and strength within their souls.

[brandonimhotep]

{Article} #BlackEnterprise It took seven decades, but a #LakeCounty Circuit Court Judge cleared charges for the four Black men known as the #GrovelandFour and exonerated them. The men, Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas, were failed by the justice system. Thomas was shot and killed by an angry white mob before he could be arrested, and Shepherd and Irvin were shot and killed by Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall. Last month, local prosecutor Bill Gladson set the move in motion when he filed motions to toss Thomas’ and Shepherd’s indictments and set aside Greenlee and Irvin’s sentences and judgments. “We followed the evidence to see where it led us, and it led us to this moment,” Gladson said. The case of the Groveland Four is a disturbing example of the racial injustice that has plagued #BlackAmericans since the end of slavery. Gladson argued in his motion that the state never tested Irvin’s pants for semen, which they were able to do at the time. Instead, the prosecution left the jury with the impression that Irvin’s pants included evidence of the rape. Additionally, the qualifications of the prosecution’s top witness are also in doubt. In the second trial, one of the defense witnesses stated that authorities made one of the casts intentionally tie Irvin to the scene. Gladson also noted an email from the grandson of the State Attorney Jesse Hunter, who prosecuted the Groveland Four, saying Hunter and trial judge Truman Futch knew the Groveland Four were innocent. Greenlee was sentenced to life due to a recommendation of mercy from the jury. Shepherd and Irvin were sentenced to death but appealed. In 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated their convictions and ordered a new trial for each. However, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall, who was transferring Shepherd and Irvin, shot both men, killing Shepherd and injuring Irvin. Irvin was retried, convicted, and sentenced to death again, but the sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Meanwhile, McCall, who claimed self-defense, was never indicted. In 2019, Gov. Ron DeSantis granted posthumous pardons to the men. ✨👉🏾 Kindly FOLLOW Our New Page @wonderwombman2 ✨ https://www.instagram.com/p/CXOEzaBpyGs/?utm_medium=tumblr

[myfriendandrea]

I know these are muddy waters, but is anyone else wondering why we can’t have an understanding that descendants of slaves in the US is a different and distinct group from Black America generally?

I ask because I realize the ADOS movement is xenophobic, and heavily criticized for it, so much so that I can’t find an article on my feed that doesn’t laugh off the concept as a bad movement that divides Black America, essentially as bad as Russian trolls. 

However, most of the discrimination I’ve received from white people is because they associate my darkness with descendants of slaves, not Africa. I’ve had African immigrant friends who did not want to be associated with Black Americans because they noticed it would tarnish their reputation with white peers. I’ve been told by white men that Africans can be just as good as “everyone else” but that descendants of slaves are inherently worse, either because of our culture, generational poverty, or the idea that slavery lowered the IQ of our population. They hate not just Blackness, but us in particular. Most positive Black representation I’ve seen is steeped in Pan-African positivity- think about the hype Wakanda got with it’s African excellence and bitter ADOS villain, and the Back to Africa movement birthed so much of “Black is Beautiful”. I didn’t see stories about how influential Black American culture is by itself until Trevor Noah, didn’t hear that freedmen were given the opportunity to go back to Africa and collectively said no until maybe 2 years ago. 

I don’t think nativism or xenophobia is at all acceptable and wouldn’t want that associated with this thought. However, I think it’s worthwhile to actually talk about this. It’s not divisive to talk about colorism, because we need to reckon with that to heal our community. It’s also not divisive to talk about how this experience needs to be addressed (sometimes in conversations about colorism! I’ve seen descendants of slaves called privileged (seen people pick out an ADOS individual and say they’re tired of seeing “this” as representation) for being “brown skinned” as opposed to dark skinned, as if the sexual violence and generational trauma of slavery disqualifies them from speaking on the Black experience?)

Is there a way we can talk about this openly? I feel like every conversation I’ve seen around this is either immediately shut down or pretty toxic, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to acknowledge this as openly as we do colorism.

[don-morado]