Who is Black (Black American)

Black Americans Foundational, Indigenous, Aboriginal, and Native to This Land

Published in

AfroSapiophile

5 min readMar 13, 2022

A Black person in Washington D.C. during the George Floyd Protests of 2020. | 9 Jun 2020 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

Black Americans are the most unique individuals on the planet. The native, indigenous, and foundational populations with dark pigmentation of the skin who originate from the North Americas officially certify this as the definition of Black American. Black American is a culture, social structure, and political family.

Despite colonial rhetoric not all Black Americans denote from African heritage.

Black American culture is the culture of persons from the [North] Americans. From ancient times until the current age, the term Black American covers many different aspects including worldviews, literature, media, cinema, art, cuisine, traditional dress, attitudes, marriage, family, social customs, lifestyles, music, and dance. Elements of the Black American culture come from the collective populations with dark pigmentation of the skin who are indigenous, native, or foundational to the structure of today’s contemporary United States of America.

HERITAGE

The term Black American encompasses the foundational blacks native to the indigenous North Americas. The term Black pertains to the deed, practice, and identity of persons developed to represent persons indigenous and native to the Americans. A small significant portion of the population may include descendants of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Individuals who fit the definition of a Black American are the most unique individuals on the planet because they survived popularized genocide, massacres, and erasure of lineage. Black Americans were purposely and systematically robbed of genealogy, cultural heritage, heritage language, and inherited property. Virtually all aspects of Black American life, politics, and culture emerged as a characteristic of populations who were cut off from the bloodlines of native ancestry. Black American history was erased and the people physically displaced. Special consideration includes discouragement of socio-economic prosperity and freedoms through government policies and regulations. Despite the teachings of colonial rhetoric not all of these persons denote from African heritage.

Indians mixed with white were allowed to classify as Indian while an Indian mixed with Negro couldn’t (yet Negro is another general term for Indians who underwent paper genocide)

ETHNICITY

An ethnic group is a community or population made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent. The US Census recognizes six ethnic categories: white, Black, Asian, Amerindian/Alaska native, native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and mixed ethnicity. The American melting pot encompasses individuals from many different nations in Africa, Asia, and South America however each nation claims literally hundreds of distinct ethnic groups. Traditionally an ethnic group is people who share a similar culture language, religion, ancestry, or other characteristics often handed down from one generation to the next. Black Americans (or “Blacks”) are certain ethnic groups of, or from, the same country similarly stripped of a culture (beliefs, values, and behaviors), language, religion, and ancestry.

*Black Massacres in the US. Map by Jordan Engel*

HISTORICAL DIALOGUE

Disambiguation is the act or process of distinguishing between similar things, meanings, names, etc., in order to make the meaning or interpretation more clear or certain. The removal of uncertainty or confusion. The historical term Negro denotes persons who were once thought to be of African heritage. However, although the word negro means the color black in both Spanish, the Latin word niger, and in Portuguese, where English took it from, the colloquial term or political context of Black people does not include persons who are descendants from another region such as the Caribbean, Africa, South America, or more. Persons born outside the geographical boundaries of the country known today as the United States of America are generally of African heritage (e.g. Afro-Latino, Afro-Cuban, etc).

CUSTOMS

Black American culture is about survival, acceptance, and preservation of the code. “Black culture” is globally assimilated and its customs are widely accepted as cultural norms in love, traditions, and cuisine. Black American is sold to others around the world who relate to genocide, faith, oppression, and success in spite. In spite of white supremacist terrorist hate groups working in the fraternal order of police and distinct U.S. hate organizations dominating healthcare industries and medical associations, Black Americans survived the longest history of violence from the oldest and most infamous of hate groups who categorized human beings as a race first used in the late 16th century.

RACE

The concept of race was a superficial division of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) with an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The idea of race as a fundamental difference among people groups was buttressed over the centuries as Europeans and their descendants continued to rule over other parts of the world. “Race” became a distinctive, and especially powerful means of organizing a world view necessary to justify the social, political, and economic control of Freedman, American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS), and Foundational Black Americans under colonialism.

Racial classification schemes provided the most powerful framework for understanding the divide between white and Black. Most of us assume that racism led to the conquest of American Natives and to the enslavement of Africans. However, others argue that conquest and slavery led to racism because of the need to justify what was being done. The term “race,” was infrequently used before the 1500s and was used to identify groups of people with kinship or group connection. Modern-day use of the term “race” is a human invention. Outdated concepts of race include other uses for the term Negroid (not to be confused with nigger) African-American, Colored (or coloured). Colored is a racial descriptor historically used to refer to those in the United States. It is also considered a slur.