Throughout this week’s articles, a prevailing theme appears to be the relationship between African-American and Afro-Carribbean minorities living within New York City. One of the main questions that arises is, “why do Afro-Carribbean immigrants choose to distinct themselves from the African-American community already living in New York City instead of unifying with them to gain some sort of power?”
Most scholars and political scientists seem to share the perspective of the minority view, where people of the same racial status seem to unite to gain more political power. However, this has shown to be a common misconception, at least in the case of the Afro-Caribbean and African-American minorities. To put it bluntly, scientists assume that because two groups of people hold a similar racial status automatically means that they would want to unite in order to gain some sort of power, whether its political, economical, social, etc. In my eyes that seems to be somewhat racist. People wouldn’t assume that Italians and Greeks would unite just because both people are of similar race and have the same color skin in order to gain power, so why say that about black people? People’s cultures are very unique and distinct and should not be determined purely by the color of skin or racial status.
There are numerous factors that makes it understandable as to why Afro-Caribbeans would want to distance themselves from African-Americans. One is to merely hold on to their culture and values. Now that they are in America, I don’t believe that Afro-Caribbeans would want to lose their identity and be recognized as an African-American. This urge to culturally diverge from African-Americans is shown by the Afro-Caribbean enclaves that form within the African-American communities. Instead of blending and integrating into the community, Afro-Carribeans literally isolate themselves from the rest of the community. Second of all, some Afro-Caribbeans like to use their distinction from African-Americans to obtain certain jobs. In one of the articles, it stated how employers prefer to hire Afro-Caribbean employees due to the stronger work ethic they adopted back home as opposed to African-Americans who seem to be less diligent. These are just a few of the prevalent factors that seem to justify why Afro-Caribbeans choose not to unify with African-Americans.
Afro-Caribbeans and African-Americans are not the same people. Conflict and turmoil between these two groups can prove it. To become united may or may not gain them some sort of newfound power, but would it be worth the cost of losing their identity. As of now, I don’t think so.
