African American culture - the great bamboozle of an American people.

I was a kid growing up in Detroit Michigan when Jesse Jackson went on a nationwide crusade to have black Americans be recognized as "African" Americans. His reasoning was that "we" black people of the United States would somehow be better off (as a group) if we related culturally to the continent of Africa and its people living there. His theory is that because other ethnic groups embraced a different country of origin, doing the same as black Americans would somehow bring a culture we could finally be proud of, because (in his opinion) black people did not have a culture in the United States. This was during the turbulent 1980's, a time when the crack epidemic created  violent hell holes in urban neighborhoods across the U.S. The new narc-economy increased prison population due to the number of young black males chasing dreams of becoming urban crime lords. The rate of black unwed mothers increased and coincidentally, the abortion rates of black American women increased to epidemic proportions as well. Fatherless homes and black children exclusively being raised by women became the norm. 

Jackson gave us his "solution." His solution was a cultural identity - a cultural identity that Jackson was convinced he needed help by white liberals to force upon society and upon black America. Jackson had run for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, and had reached the apex of his popularity with black people who were desperate for a modern "black" Moses to lead them out of the turmoil of the 1980's. Even as a kid, I thought the term was ridiculous. I knew black people in America were not the same as black people in Africa, not to mention the fact that Africa is a continent, with many different religions and cultures - which one of those cultures on that vast continent are we so called "African" Americans supposed to represent? I wasn't the only black American person who asked that question. 

Jackson used the same liberal system that caused the problems during the turbulent 1980's with post Civil Rights movement welfare policies that encouraged fatherless homes in black communities. By the mid 1990's, Jackson, white liberal politicians and liberals in media and art were successful in transforming art museums and institutions which had formerly been known as "black" into "African" American institutions. Even famous black Americans who had never publicly referred to themselves as "African" American, were now being referred to as African Americans postmodern. Jesse called it a solution, but the only thing it actually accomplished was give an American group a false sense of pride - to be proud not of our accomplishments as individuals or as a group, but to be proud simply for the feeling of pride. It simply gave the chaos and the failed mentality of the people contributing to it - a new title. There was also a push by a new wave of black "leaders" to encourage African Americans to view the United States as a place that was not truly our home, but as a nation that is guilty of causing all of their internal issues as a group. In the then new African American culture, patriotism was completely and utterly discouraged. 

Like all movements, propaganda is used to push its agenda. Even today, as we witness the new "woke" culture in America, propaganda is used heavily in liberal media and in mainstream entertainment to help spread the "woke" ideology among other far left liberals. Hip hop music is often associated with the so called "black" experience of "African" American culture. In the early years of rap music however, the entertainment form had only a small number of fans, mostly urban black youths who admired the beats of the music and ego driven lyrics of the performers. Although entertaining, Hip hop music as it was called, had little to no influence on black American culture. Most black people viewed it exclusively as a new form of music, and it's fans and detractors were split down the middle. It was overwhelmingly positive music in the early 1980's. By today's standards, it could be considered PG rated. However, shortly after the creation of African American culture, rap music changed to closely represent the more defiant and (proud) African American culture. Its lyrics had coincidentally become much more violent and more misogynistic. It had also come to embrace sexual irresponsibility, and its influence reflected the spike in unwed pregnancies. Rap music also had grown to openly blame white America for the behaviors  of black Americans - behaviors that directly contributed to the chaos and violent atmosphere in urban communities. Rap in becoming synonymous with African American culture, offered a blueprint in how to successfully live in poverty as young "African" American men and women. The issues of the 1980's inevitably became cultural as we entered the 1990's. No longer considered a passing storm, black people who embraced African American "culture" and even revered the negative issues in their community to a large degree, learned to simply blame a racist United States and white America for causing all of those negative issues instead of finding solutions to fix them.

Today, if you ask the average black person under the age of 30, where the term "African American" derived, most would have no idea. Some even believed men like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X or Booker T Washington at some point called themselves African American, although they never publicly called themselves African Americans. Most simply don't care, choosing to follow the herd. I don't call myself an African American - I never have. I believe we black (Americans) have a rich culture and even a rich history that deserves respect, despite the racism faced. Before the term African American was ever coined, black Americans believed in stable families, education and in social order within our community. Being called "African" Americans and trying to recreate a culture out of that ridiculous term never restored that to us...the problems just got much worse as a matter of fact. The lack of family and fathers in the home is what brought down a very independent people and culture, it wasn't  because we needed Jackson to create a new defiant/victim culture for us to live by. Convincing black people to embrace what is essentially a hybrid culture created out of thin air did nothing to correct those growing issues in the community, nor was it effective in creating a more viable culture than the one we black (Americans) already had.