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September 7, 2008 5:12:17 AM CDT

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Are Black Immigrants Black?

Posted Mar 1, 08 7:31 PM CST in US 

(Newser) – The notion that a black American must be a “descendant of West African slaves brought here to labor for whites against their will” just reinforces the “invisibility that black immigrants face in America,” Debra Dickerson writes in Mother Jones. But she can’t escape it herself, she admits; she has said that Barack Obama isn’t black, endorsing “a politico-cultural reality which I reject.”

"'Black' is simply a label which obscures more than it illuminates,” writes Dickerson, who sees behavior from the streets to the Ivy League that puts a premium on a heritage of American slavery. Though studies show African immigrants to be the country's most educated group, blacks often shun them. African-Americans “don't want them taking 'our' jobs and affirmative action slots.”

Source Mother Jones

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Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., and his daughters Malia, left, and daughter Sasha enjoy the Iowa State Fair in this Aug. 16, 2007, file photo in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/M....   (Associated Press)
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Barack Obama  • education  • African Americans  • Ivy League  • black community  • West Africa  • African


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