> They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship
Do they, though? I think African Americans and African immigrants face very different problems in America. My next door neighbors on one side are from Ghana, my next door neighbors on the other side are African Americans. They have very different issues that they deal with and their lifestyles couldn't be more different.
My Ghana neighbors:
- Struggle with things like renewing work visas, applying for citizenship, immigration-related issues
- Buy/cook all their food from raw ingredients from African grocery stores
- 2 parent household
- Pay their own rent
My African American neighbors:
- struggle with substance abuse, truancy, obesity, unemployment
- Eat McDonalds/junk food/drink astronomical quantities of soda pop daily
- Single parent household
- Rely on the state for rent (HOC)
These are not isolated incidents - out of my neighborhood block here in Montgomery County, MD, there are multiple points of data that point to this segregation of lifestyles between African and African American. I see the police all the time at my African American neighbors' house (at least 3-4 times per year), whether it be because one of the teens was caught shoplifting, or they were making tons of noise in the middle of the night, or because of a domestic confrontation turning violent, etc. I've never seen the police once at my Ghana neighbors' house.
There are selection biases when it comes to immigration to the first world that select for things like emphasis on high educational attainment/striver mentality, plus common cultural differences we see with immigrants from all over with respect to the relative strictness of parenting. Recent immigrants from Africa are also not coping with the multigenerational trauma of slavery, Jim Crow, &c., in the way that black Americans generally are.
None of that means that recent Ghanaian-American immigrant families aren't also subject to anti-black racism in the United States in a way that is important, potentially unifiying, formative for their children who grow up experiencing it, etc.
Do they, though? I think African Americans and African immigrants face very different problems in America. My next door neighbors on one side are from Ghana, my next door neighbors on the other side are African Americans. They have very different issues that they deal with and their lifestyles couldn't be more different.
My Ghana neighbors:
- Struggle with things like renewing work visas, applying for citizenship, immigration-related issues
- Buy/cook all their food from raw ingredients from African grocery stores
- 2 parent household
- Pay their own rent
My African American neighbors:
- struggle with substance abuse, truancy, obesity, unemployment
- Eat McDonalds/junk food/drink astronomical quantities of soda pop daily
- Single parent household
- Rely on the state for rent (HOC)
These are not isolated incidents - out of my neighborhood block here in Montgomery County, MD, there are multiple points of data that point to this segregation of lifestyles between African and African American. I see the police all the time at my African American neighbors' house (at least 3-4 times per year), whether it be because one of the teens was caught shoplifting, or they were making tons of noise in the middle of the night, or because of a domestic confrontation turning violent, etc. I've never seen the police once at my Ghana neighbors' house.