CNN Talks About The Cultural Differences Between African-Americans & Africans

As an African-American,I can totally relate to certain aspects of the article(and this video) that CNN did on the cultural division between Africans & African-Americans.I have experienced firsthand the disdain that some Africans feel towards their American counterparts.

For instance,I once was on a date with a very successful African man who seemed to think that most African-Americans are champions of failure.I mean,we had an intense conversation about whether or not African-Americans hung out in front of liquor stores all day gambling,drinking 40's,& smoking weed.

He spent our entire time together trying to convince me that I was lucky that he had even bothered to pay attention to me at all.Because according to him,African-Americans are the dregs of society.It was like being on a date with a white supremacist.Needless to say,that was the last I saw of him!

Of course,there are a lot of blacks who do not want to be associated with Africans at all.They carry their own stereotypes,which the article on CNN.com discusses,about Africans.Some African-Americans really do think that all Africans are primitive,tribal peoples who have yet to enter into modern society.

It really does go both ways.And this great article that I have posted an excerpt from talks about the divide between Africans & African-Americans.Here's more from CNN:

"Nkosi's American classmates acknowledge their misconceptions. Cydney Smith, 17, of Nashville, Tennessee, said she once believed Africa was populated with "uncivilized tribes."

Raphael Craig, 17, of Hyattsville, Maryland, said the television misinformed him as well.

Before Craig visited the continent in 2005 and 2006, he thought of Africans as "half-naked, running around with tigers in the jungle," Craig said, confessing he was unaware tigers roam only Asia.

But in Ghana and Nigeria, Craig saw children playing the same games he and his siblings played. He saw many signs of modernity, including Mercedes and other brands of cars found in the United States.

"OK, this country is running how we're running, just two different schools," Craig recalled thinking. "It really opened my eyes to the point that everything you see on TV is not always the actual thing."

If the Western media are doing Africans no favors, then the African media are also a disservice to African-Americans because it portrays them as criminals, some immigrants say.

Sandi Litia, 19, a Piney Woods graduate from Limulunga, Zambia, said she was initially scared of African-Americans because the African media show them "wearing clothes like gangsters and killing each other."

Nkosi concurred that African media "made it seem as if they were these aggressive people that did nothing constructive with their lives except occupy prison space."

Trying to fit in

Chinedu Ezeamuzie, 21, of Athens, Georgia, arrived in 2003. He had spent the majority of his life in Jabriya, Kuwait, and came to the U.S. to pursue his education.

The recent Georgia Tech graduate said he considers himself Nigerian because his parents -- both from the village of Uga -- instilled in their four children strong Nigerian values of family, community, spirituality and self-betterment.

In Athens, Ezeamuzie found his ideals at odds with those who shared his skin color at Clarke Central High School, his first stint in a public school."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the article in its full context here.