I'm sorry but i'm beginning to feel strange on this forum. I'm not African American, i'm black British of African descent. When I first found the forum, it was great, I was comfortable to just communicate with other black women about issues that concern US but lately i've been noticing some 'anti-Africanism' (for lack of a better word). I guess it's perhaps an African American thing, for example, when I watched the mini documentary 'A girl like me', one of the girls that went natural's mother said something to the effect of don't do that, u're starting to look African! It seems like a strong will to disconnect from Africa/Africans and as both my parents are African - directly, it makes me feel funny.
I have nothing against people claiming all of their heritage, I think if it's done out of pride rather than rejection, it's great, it's always interesting to know such things. However, when the mix is unknown,and saying well all AA's are mixed somehow so none of us is really actually 100% black somehow sounds like a bit of a rejection to me. If AA's are mixing, they must be mixing with other people and I don't know anyother race for example white that would say well, i'm mixed with black/ anything else for that matter when looking predominantly white. I guess it has to be done to fit in, I don't know.
African's are a diverse people ... even West Africans. We're not all stereotypical. e.g.
View attachment 21203
View attachment 21205
(pics would be going down soon as they're family member's and might not appreciate having their pics on a public site) (that's not their hair btw)
They don't look stereotypically west African black but there's been no mixing in my family as far as we know. Where my mum is from, they tend to be very light skinned. Rumour has it that during colonization, they mixed more with the white people, who knows! One of ther major groups in the Country, although dark skinned, have very pointy slender features, straight noses, e.t.c. ... rumour has it they mixed with the Arabs because the North of the Country is close and they share the same religion, who knows! No one actually cares.