By Black I mean having a direct connection to antebellum/US Slavery

For a variety of reasons this is a hard question to properly ask, but its something I've been thinking about. I see lots of people who are a part of the diaspora but I cannot ID the areas where the bend is (for lack of a better word) uniquely "African American" (tricky word in NYC considering the number of actual Africans here)


I guess I wanna know where the Black (capital b) people at who've been in NY for generations? I can ID areas where Caribbean cats are, I can ID areas where Africans are but I cant ID an area where capital B Black people are....is it (was it) Harlem? or......


shit does this shit even make sense anymore? This is what Im talking about, the more I think about it, the more it kinda falls apart


anyway, if you know what I mean, help, If i was super ignorant about the question, please teach.

Since so many people are both.

If your mom's people are B and your pops' people are b, what are you?

homie wants to know where the ___ @.

he knows NYC is FULL of African American ppl. but he also knows that a large # of those folks have known familial and cultural roots in the Caribbean or African. he wants to find the ppl who have familial and cultural roots in the American South (or Midwest).

he wants to know where they serve soul food.

sadly there is no word to easily identify these ppl in a way that distinguishes them from the other African Americans in NYC.

do you know of such a word?

Ive yet to meet the African or west Indian who isn't super proud of their heritage, country, culture etc...only we dont get to be the same. Fuck that.

We're both black considering all black people originated in the same continent there is no sense for a distinction, we all have different culture, heritage, blacks from carribean came from slavery too. I'm Haitian ,neg noir (black man), which means my race is black my ethnicity is Haitian and my ancestors are from Africa, just like yours. Blacks from foreign places distinct themselves from African-Americans culturally not from the race.

***
I'm tryna be better off, not better than...

not always notated with the capitalization, but it exists.

meaning the struggle for clarity of language when one wants to talk about Us specifically when one means to exclude them.

Chris Rock got caught up in it when talking about baseball recently

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

We out in Brownsville, Bed Stuy, East New York. Crown Heights. The thing is we don't really live separately from the islanders. We all live together as we should. But if you want to see B-lack celebrations during the summer go to any housing projects holiday (see Brownsville Day). Good time had by all.

now? uh...

the last time i was there looking for Us i couldn't hardly find Us. like when i wanted some actual SOUL FOOD in Harlem i had an easier time finding Caribbean foods. to wit - some storied soul food joints were on the verge of closing.

I'm sure there will be a few who chime and say they hate it tho lol

I've never had good soul food in Harlem. The best soul food I've ever had in NYC was at the now-defunct Princess Pamela's.

Like, I can find good ass caribbean food no problem
but I cant think of more than one or two soul food places off the top

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/nyregion/06soulfood.html?pagewanted=all

...i feel your pain.

the last time i visited Harlem i ate breakfast at some joint and i think it closed permanently a few months after. this was the morning after i'd tried to have some s/f for dinner and couldn't find a single place - i ended up eating Jamaican food instead.

>Like, I can find good ass caribbean food no problem
>but I cant think of more than one or two soul food places off
>the top

Yeah that always has been a prob as far as I know
Me and my fam just went down south or various aunts and uncles in NY
Shoot even my mom learned

Restaurant going wasn't a big thing in my fam so I'm not surprised
Matter o fact eating out regularly for me is a white people thing
I do it more now because there are more options in my area
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

This whole culture of eating out on the reg is still new to many of us. I grew up eating at home most of the time. I kinda always viewed eating out as white folks stuff too. Not saying it was but that was my view growing up (poor). The hustlers ate out a lot in my neighborhood. Those were the regulars in the coffee shops or whatever.

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Just looked it up because I forgot the name - Sugarhill Supper Club.

That place has been there since I was a kid. I always viewed it as the old folks get down spot.

All I know about that place is that it used to ALWAYS get shot up during their weekly club nights/parties.

>All I know about that place is that it used to ALWAYS get
>shot up during their weekly club nights/parties.

Lots and lots of capital B Black folks out yesterday, even in a rapidly changing tourist-friendly Dwntwn Brklyn

That would include my fam

They are in ENY, Flatbush and queens
1st gen northerners at this point moved to Cali, Jersey and some stayed in NY

They are still here just mixed in with the worldwide diaspora Blacks in the neighborhoods

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

and chicago is hella B.

thanks for the insight

I think Harlem is still largely Black, as far as the black community goes.

But NYC was maybe the main entrepot for West Indians after they started letting them in in the mid-60's, so there's not really many majority Black neighborhoods anymore. In fact, West Indians replaced white people in certain neighborhoods as they moved in in the 60's and 70's, like Flatbush. The 60 year old Irish co-worker who sits behind me was born and raised in Flatbush when it was all Irish, but his family bounced 40 years ago. As a result, there are lots of majority West Indian neighborhoods.

Also, even though West Indians moved into Canarsie in the 70s, there are alot of american blacks in east new york, all up and down Pennsylvania Ave.

i never worked with or had a class with a Black person from nyc the whole time i lived there.

>

.

/Thread

I miss Us and the way we do things a lot... specifically the food, language and southern cultural references. I found a handful of Black friends but Ive had a hard time extending it beyond the ones I met when I first moved here. Everyone says it's lots they in bed stuy but honestly in the past 5 years I haven't met anyone from bedstuy that wasn't West Indian. I really live too far from Harlem to be go on random negro hunting trips up there but that's where everyone swears they are too. I don't know...
My BF swears I'm not WOKE because I say the culture is similar but there are differences, yet he stays making fun of my southernisms. He was mad at me the other day because I got some properly seasoned and hard fried whiting at the Dance Africa and I wouldn't share. You know how hard it is to get properly seasoned hard fried whiting in Nyc? I get that shit like twice a year when the Muslims come up from philly for the street fairs. Touch my fish and I'll have a conniption.
___________________________________________________________


DJTB YOMM

I mean to ask them every year when I get the food (I think they do the Harlem Book Fair, too), but then I always forget, just like this year.

What's always tripped me out about New York, coming from Philly, is the lack of non-African-continent B(b)lack Muslims up here. Even with the legacy of Malcolm X, I almost never see girls wearing kemars or anything. They were and are part of the fabric of Black Philly and they're basically absent up here.

This being the home of the knowledge at one point it was so huge that Black people discussing Islam more often than not were Five Percenters.

I don't know where else you can find southern cooking black Muslims in the full hijab and abaya except Philly and Chicago.
___________________________________________________________


DJTB YOMM

On some long lost sister mode


Had been in nyc up from Philly for years at that point

Can't let that go by. I know exactly what you mean on the seasoning for the fish. That said, I always loved A Taste of Seafood up in Harlem on 125. I haven't been in years (since they moved from the corner spot) but it was always official.

I don't even like fish
But that was the second time I liked fish was at the BAM bazaar years ago

Why is it so difficult for people to get a hard fry down pat?
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

and not callaloo and coco bread.

___________________________________________________________


DJTB YOMM

during the late 90s and early 2000s.

and finally got some on monday at the dance africa bazaar
my face lit up when i saw the piles of whiting
and they had crinkle cut fries too?
if i had more cash on me i would've gotten wings too
i finished my last piece of fish yesterday and i want more

all the spots around home are gone :(

Y'all will get it one day


does it really matter?

wonder what bin's doing?
http://i.imgur.com/phECCMp.jpg

he is incorrect.

or, the views he expresses on this as related to the 'exclusivity' issue are solely his own. several of us (here and elsewhere) agree w/the b/B thing but not w/the rest of his nonsense.

he'll undoubtedly give you one.

go on and poke that bear - you know what's up.

Maybe not even intentionally
But its just such a tired trope, its a pointless tangent.

Anyway to add on, from what I know NYC Blacks have not hung onto their southern / midwest roots in a while. From the outside looking in, I have always felt the Capital Black New Yorker was almost a species onto its own. There is something about the culture of Black NY that was almost as super urban uncountry as possible. I think New York Blackness (even without the outside WI or PR influence) forged into something si so distinct that it was possible to exported to other cities. Hip-Hop is a big part of that culture. They have more allegiance to hip-hop culture than they do to any other signifiers of American blackness.

Thoughts?

Not sure why the concept is so hard to grasp.

But they know I'm right

But half the spots are owned by WI. or Asians w WI/africans in the kitchen



Them old school adam clayton powell groupies that be at every political organizing meeting and fish fry are generations deep negritude



Harlem week, Harlem book fair, african American day parade i feel are all majority Black


Although id say there is a (growing?) separation of the Blk folk that been here and the recent transplants(Negrentrification)

Or not separation but the 1st group is shrinking/dying/moving back down south 3 generations later

>Although id say there is a (growing?) separation of the Blk
>folk that been here and the recent
>transplants(Negrentrification)
>
>Or not separation but the 1st group is shrinking/dying/moving
>back down south 3 generations later


this is something I wonder about as a recent black/ Black transplant

>this is something I wonder about as a recent black/ Black
>transplant


~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

is it evil?