There is a long legacy of people coming to the United States and trying to assimilate as much as they can in order to become Americans. When one talks with people about why they chose to remain immigrants rather than become nationals we get a peculiar response. They need to make decisions which affect their Black identity.
Associated with this is seems to be a certain element of danger that black American children experience in this country.
Many black immigrants assimilate and acculturate and become black Americans. But those who do not do this are apparently afraid of sharing an identity with blacks in the USA. To them, the negatives might seem to outplay the positives. In fact other immigrants might seem to have an advantage.
A study out of Stanford suggests that a one-dimensional definition does not fit the current demographic mindset. According to the 2010 Census, 10 percent of the U.S. black population is immigrant, and an increase in those who identify as mixed race is black. While these changes have helped to broaden the definition of identity, scholars are designing a representation of black identity that continues to use an outdated and “one-dimensional” definition of the term.
In an article from Tuffs University, Clerge talks to Tufts about how the demographic shift in the African-American community has changed black identity over the past 40 years and what that means. Clerge in response pointed out that the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism has left a lasting mark on the way race is defined today. African descent has relegated blacks in America to a low social status, aided by white racial attitudes and a systematic policy that denied them full participation in American society.
Moreover, in a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, most black adults (81%) said they felt at least some connection with the broader black community in the US, including 36% who said they felt “very connected” to the black community. By contrast, 18% said they either didn’t feel connected or didn’t really feel connected.
Critical Findings
Collins has been reading and writing about history since she was nine and won her first writing prize at the age of 11 from a local newspaper. She continued to write during her studies, but in 2014 she decided to do something else, shifting her focus from academic writing to writing for a broad audience.
She wanted to share her scholarship on U.S. history, race, and African-American and American identity with as many people as possible, even those she would never meet in real life.
In support of her findings, other scholars have spent a lot of time documenting the racial discrimination experienced by blacks. The centrality of racial identity for black Americans must be taken into account in many contexts. Most media outlets report negatively on blacks. We need to know why discrimination persists.
Looking around us it is interesting to see how much black identity meant over the years to those identified as black. Not just sociologically but also politically. I believe that African-Caribbean attitudes are very different between black Americans and African groups in the sense that they feel they are successful in the United States. You can see that they sometimes stand out, for example by identifying as Haitians or Jamaicans. But they are also a group that strongly supports a common black racial identity. They also have a tendency to articulate injustices that are persistent in the Americas.
What is interesting is that Pew Research 2020, tells us that Black adults with an annual family income of $30,000 or more are more likely to feel connected to the broader black community in the USA than those with lower incomes. Those with at least a bachelor’s degree were more likely to feel connected than those with less education.
The value of research
Awareness of other such concepts rather than the one-dimensional approach, is crucial in helping therapists explore Renée’s “cultural identity and career concerns”. The notion of attributing race to individual achievement rather than to the potential of an entire ethnic group (cf. Harlow, 2003) has its limitations. One finds that shackled African-Americans feeling pressure to demonstrate their competence need to project themselves as the best representatives of their entire people, not only themselves. A good example is in those fields like engineering where Black people are universally under-represented.
Future research needs to provide answers to this range of questions. Black cultural identity has been posited as one of the most influential factors in how self-evaluated environments are perceived and interpreted by African Americans. The research results cited here illustrate the role of cultural identities in assessing the self-belief of African-Americans, the perception of their own talents and abilities, and the contexts and perceptions of barriers.
Sociologist Orly Clerge, 2021, in reflecting on her research makes the point that her research has focused on how middle-class people manage and negotiate being black within limited structural arrangements. Attachment to blackness is related to a variety of competing identities. This includes gender, generation, age, sexuality, place of residence, and contact with non-blacks.
I have found that both foreign and native blacks define their black identity in different ways. Some cling to their black racial identity, while others participate in contextual and situational racial identities related to how the outside world perceives their skin color.
These factors explain the collective reaction of blacks to what has happened in America in the last two weeks. An overwhelming majority of black Americans regard their racial identity as a core part of their overall identity. Also, black identity and kinship with other black people has intensified since his (Floyd’s) death, leading to a debate about the status of blacks in the United States. Part of the black reaction can be explained by partisanship.
The Democratic Party’s general position is that Floyd’s race was a factor in his death and that the criminal justice system is biased against blacks. Not surprisingly, black Americans hold this view, as 90% of them voted for Democratic candidates in recent national elections.
Of the six intentional acts of violence linking extremists to black identity, it excludes violence against police officers on normal police duty, citing the shooting of 11 Dallas police officers in July 2016. The shooter, Micah Johnson, was angry about police violence. The shooting occurred during a Black Lives Matter protest against police shootings, but the group is not mentioned by name in the report.
Historians and academics have looked at the history of the FBI’s surveillance of black Americans, and the reports smack of the kind of blatant racism the bureau has left behind. There have been concerns in recent years about increasing violence by black separatist groups, but they are not approaching the threat of right-wing extremism.
Those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement have also raised concerns about FBI surveillance. Deray McKesson, an activist involved in the movement, learned that the FBI was visiting his home ahead of the Republican National Convention.
Black identity remains a complex issue not to be glossed over or built on stereotypes.