Hi all, this is my first post and I just had to respond... and put my experiences here. I'm black, and grew up in Europe and America, my stepfather being european. I find the discrimination in America from blacks upon blacks who in their eyes aren't 'real' blacks to be appalling. There is only one type of 'real' black, and they all dress a certain way (there's the ethnic black, hip hop black, or the I've-made-it suit and tie black). And you only listen to a certain type of music, otherwise you're a sell-out, trying to be white, and people become extremely judgemental. I don't consider myself a sell-out, I wouldn't know to what.
And there is most definitely a stereotyping of black people going on, in terms of clothing...you can't deny that. The image that is being sold worldwide - and this is what gets me the most- by blacks of themselves is unfortunately not a very positive one. And people out in the world believe these (by blacks self-made) stereotypes, believe me, especially when they see it every day on MTV and have nothing to compare their impressions to.
How these people can honestly sell their story that they are doing good to their community by glorifying gang life, poor education, etc. is beyond me (and are even more brazenly making money off of 'their own') - I know no other cultural group that has sold themselves or willingly portrayed themselves this way to the extent that black americans have been doing for years now. And I think they have done more harm to themselves than anyone on the outside could do. Just recently at my workplace, there were some women (who are/were married to black americans) discussing(!) how 'adapted' the blacks are that grow up here in Europe...once again as if there is only one way of 'being black'.
So I'm confused - is black just a race, a further physical trait as important as having red hair or black hair or is it a culture? If it is a culture, by whom is this culture defined? How is it portrayed? Well, there are a lot of people out there who don't really ponder questions like this, they are glad if they know about their own culture, and only too willingly accept the answers fed to them by Dr. Dre and Snoop, Li'l Kim and Foxy Brown, etc. For the world at large, there aren't any larger black faces. Not even Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice, they're not on TV every day over here. Being on the 'outside' I can easily see this. Expecting other people to learn about your 'culture' is utopia to me, most people don't give a hoot, they accept whatever that culture portrays themselves as being. I also can't see the vast majority of white people being racist anymore, I know so many that are just frustrated with the whole issue. And I see so many black people isolating themselves, and forcing others to choose between having white friends and 'being black'.
As to the label thing, I've seen white people slam their own label ho's, or refuse to wear labels - just take a look around this site, you'll find enough posts of people sick of LV bags and the like. And it's only this site.
As to stylegurrl being the 'good black girl', ugh. That's such a typical guilt trip argument that is effectively used to squash criticism. She just stated her valid thoughts, which are, unfortunately based in reality. That's another thing that annoys me immensly. No true black person is ever allowed to criticize black people, EVER. Never forget, black people are
victims, and
victims never do anything wrong, in fact they don't need to do anything, they're too busy being
victimized.
But all in all, I think people that represent your side of the story (Theory) extremely important, knowing and sharing the history of it all and trying to keep a critical eye open is for our race, of course invaluable. But so is being open-minded towards other points of view and working with them, keeping history history, moving past blaming (we've healed enough now, and we still have massive work ahead of us, that's just the way it is!) and moving into the real and honest situation as it is now. Our forefathers fought their battles, and they accomplished alot, it's not right for us to want to fight their battles over again, as if they never accomplished anything. We need to fight our own demons now, they fought the outside world to give us the space to fight our next battle in our growth phase - ourselves. And we can't run away from that, by continuing to look outside and blaming others...don't you notice, blaming and such comes across as being whiny = immature, child-like. Adults don't blame and complain, they accept a situation as it is, and if they don't like it, do what it takes to change it. Period. No buts, ifs, whens or whatever. Life isn't fair to anyone, no matter who, but whoever said it was meant to be? And people translate these everyday experiences to everything, including cultural groups, that's just human nature.
ENOUGH!!!
and all that for my first post, I'm sorree!!! I just had to put my thoughts down to this topic...! Hope I didn't scare you all off!
Peace
K
but I will try to be as brief as possible. 
