Now to the conscious folks out there this question is stupid because all black people are African, however i thought of getting your views on this common way of thinking.

I regularly hear black pl commonly those whose parents aren't from continental Africa say something about a being surprised to hear that somelse was African. Now it has to be noted there are continental Africans that also think they know who is 'african' and who 'isn't'.

My point is this i believe there are some differences between continental Africans and diasporan Africans, obviously because of issues of race mixing etc (although race mixing has occurred on the continent to a lesser degree). But i think ppl think the difference is greater than it really is. If you took a thousand jamaicans and thousand Nigerians i don't think you would see that much difference.

When ppl think they know what an African looks like they are typically referring to west africans, which is consistent with the european racist ideas that the true negroe was west african and everybody else is somthing different( this was a tactic so that they could attribute many of Africa's achievements to other ppl.

Africa is a huge continent so appeareance varies look at somalis, ethiopians who are also african. If you take Europe as a whole continent theer are differences in appeareance betwen , Italians and Swedish and British, and eastern europeans look different but ultimately they are all white.

So my thing is these so called differeances that we believe exist do not help us come together, not all Africans have protuding lips and flat faces, and even if they all did what is the problem with that, someelse has told us that is ugly so ppl don't want to associate with that.

Of course there are charcteristics that make us who we are i.e. all black ppl but there is alot of variation and it it not just due to race mixing, we were on the earth thousands of years before anyone else. The conceptions about the typical African were used to try and say that the Ancient Egyptians weren't black.

Let me hear your thoughts.

And if ppl are always finding themselves shocked that certain ppl are african and they find this happens time and time again then logically , they should realise that maybe there representation of an 'African' IS INCORRECT.

Ofcourse these ideas have been exaggerated by racist, think of gooliwogs, black and white ministrol, little samba, Africans /black ppl portrayed with big pink lips and big eyes.

Your lucky u haven't been exposed to such ignorance.

If ppl think there is a difference between lets say africans and ppl from the caribbean what would they be, what would ppl say, answer they would think of features.

In alot of circles if you are mistaken for an 'african' it is considered an insult, why because of the perception of an african

@ Finest g

I do query your so called ability to tell the difference betwenn a darkskinned person from the caribbean and a drakskinned person from africa, because u must have a very fixed idea of what continental africans look like.

Yes I can tell west africans for sure -they have the same shape head as me!

Funny thing is though, I walked into an frican shop the other day to get some yam and started talkin to the owner. She was nigerian and i said so am i. She moved her head abck and said Really?? and i'm like yes really, then i tell her my full name and she's like oooh yes your are..

Yep!!!! I re-read it. LOL

Finest_G wrote:

Naomi campbell - Carribean

Alek wek - African

There is the difference