- Jan 10, 2006
- 868
- 262
So if I haven't lived outside of the US means I can't say/believe the US is the best place to live?
- Mar 13, 2008
- 3,129
- 2,746
One of the brothers from my city created a podcast focusing on Black Mental Health.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/black-mental-health-podcast/id1394583671?mt=2
I personally got alot of help out of listening to a few episode. I hope in sharing this that it can help someone else as well.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/black-mental-health-podcast/id1394583671?mt=2
I personally got alot of help out of listening to a few episode. I hope in sharing this that it can help someone else as well.
- Apr 30, 2010
- 73,493
- 115,069
I don't know if dude is dense or what arguing with Africans in Africa about being afraid of Africa.
- Apr 27, 2002
- 5,506
- 5,800
your definition of large might be helpful, but i think that was the case in the past maybe not so much now...
people can believe/say whatever they like, the question is their opinion informed or not? which doesn't necessarily invalidate their opinion but it does make it more questionable...sure on paper comparatively, the states compares well in a general sense but with a broader set of experiences people might find certain tradeoffs other places, in practice, better for their actual lives...in truth, there really isn't a way to objectively determine what is the 'best place to live' for every individual; it is just a subjective statement but it is particularly so for someone who only has experienced life in one place
- Dec 11, 2007
- 12,064
- 12,431
Son, im floored lol.
Let's discuss some of the logistics when traveling to africa, first off it's expensive. I pay 1,500+ twice a year to get here. I spent only 800 bucks to go to Madrid. Double. You'll also be hard pressed to find a direct flight to the continent. Air France, your going to Paris. Iberia, your going to Madrid. United, your going to London. Lufthansa, your going to berlin. Basically paying for 2 flights. My family paid 10k to fly our 5 person family to guinea conakry. Someone with kids and a wife, and not the means would easily reconsider their travel plans.
I fly Ethiopian, 4 hours to Addis Ababa then 12 hours to Washington Dulles. That's 16 hrs of flight time. And 25 hours of overall travel from one destination to another destination.
Only to find yourself AT LEAST 4 hours ahead or behind.
There's folks in my city with no running water and electricity. There's hotels that routinely lose electricity. Imagine hoping for rain so that you don't have to carry jugs of water from far off wells.
Most Americans here work for petroleum companies, they literally live in the US in africa. They don't even venture into town.
Straight from the oil plant to the Hilton to the airport. And it ain't only white folks.
Every time there's an election or holiday, I get an email from the US consulate, telling me to stay home and be safe.
Not everyone ready for all that. Even black folks. I know Africans that plan never to return lol.
- Dec 11, 2007
- 12,064
- 12,431
Uh yea, I got family in Norway, Germany and Switzerland that visit the US, they all prefer they're own countries in comparison to the US.
Not to mention the yearly lists where the US doesn't even come in the top 10.
How the hell would you even know if you haven't left the country?
Bruh, the world has caught up and surpassed the America of yesteryear. This ain't industrial revolution America.
Shoot, the smartest cats in silicon valley ain't even American.
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- Jan 16, 2011
- 17,464
- 44,473
It is a very good thing that you took the step to visit the continent, and the only I hope to see is more people do what you did. Encouraging African tourism is the most effective way certain misconceptions about Africa and Africans will die.
Still, it is very important that those who do entertain the idea to go there have an understanding of the realities they will witness because not everyone African country is South Africa; not every African country has put in the work to attract foreign tourist currencies. I mean, there still isn't a proper street address system in the city I grew up in, which happens to be the goddamn capital of the goddamn country.
Good luck hopping on a bus and getting around if you're not familiar with the landmarks.
- Jan 16, 2011
- 17,464
- 44,473
Who's gonna leave behind a decent healthcare system, free or cheap post-secondary education, real paid parental leave (not that 6-week nonsense we got here), and guaranteed 3-week yearly vacations (at least) to resettle in the US? The truth is, living in the US is a high risk/high reward deal right now, and we all know the odds are generally against the average person in such a deal.
- Oct 13, 2001
- 176,377
- 164,852
It is a super ignorant and limited perspective to make such a claim
- Apr 30, 2010
- 73,493
- 115,069
The funny thing about people who claim America is the greatest is usually they haven't even seen America outside of their little pocket.
- May 23, 2005
- 63,607
- 50,745
Swipe left
- Oct 13, 2001
- 176,377
- 164,852
I am always leery of their true intentions....
- May 23, 2005
- 63,607
- 50,745
- Oct 13, 2001
- 176,377
- 164,852
Deeper than just SLEEPING.
I personally feel, you can't talk black and set up shop, raise an army (family) with "others."
- Aug 27, 2013
- 5,919
- 6,874
DCAllAfrican
yup, as you said it’s not just about sleeping, I don’t mind having sex with outside your race, but if you as a man want to set up shop (marrying) with woman who isn’t black and you’re not doing nothing for your people.The 2 richest black men in America are married to white women. That’s some serious identity issues right there.
Dude you just replied in the wrong thread or am I bugging?
atlsfinest
Supporter
- Feb 8, 2009
- 18,926
- 26,385
- Dec 24, 2013
- 19,058
- 9,050
She's also stolen a lot of material from black comedians. Word to Patrice O'Neal
- Aug 27, 2013
- 5,919
- 6,874
Amy Schumer needs to go away for life
RustyShackleford
Supporter
- Jul 20, 2009
- 72,728
- 224,207
Kids from my Island are putting America far down on their list of countries to go to university in and eventually settle in.
Some that even get accepted to America schools, but not one in Canada or Europe are taking not even biting on the US. They are just waiting a year to apply again.
- May 23, 2005
- 63,607
- 50,745
- May 27, 2017
- 25,081
- 32,567
- Dec 24, 2013
- 19,058
- 9,050
She's been tryin to fix her image lately, goin to protests and ****. I don't believe anything she's tryin to do is sincere
tomdiginson
Supporter
- Nov 3, 2011
- 27,283
- 30,548
You've been yammering off a bunch of foolishness. People have pointed at some of the nonsense in your posts and you simply just deflect and ignore. While you make sense with things, the foolishness you've spewed simply outweighs it. Anyway, carry on.tomdiginson man leave me alone. I said what I had to say before. I dont have time for your foolishness.
I said one thing and then you came back and saying I said something else. Just leave me alone man
- Aug 6, 2012
- 66,344
- 77,058
- Jul 25, 2013
- 3,126
- 2,497
A powerful story’: How freed slaves helped shape Virginia after the Civil War: During Reconstruction, African Americans were fully represented in Richmond and had an equal hand in shaping state government. But it didn't last.
Virginia's legislature got a lot of attention this year for its historically diverse crop of lawmakers, including the most women ever to serve, the first Latinas and the first transgender delegate. But while the number of African Americans in the House of Delegates was the highest in many lifetimes — 14 of the 100 members — it wasn't the highest ever.
There was another time — 150 years ago — when African Americans were fully represented in Richmond and had an equal hand in shaping state government.
In April 1868, Virginia produced a new constitution as part of its efforts to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. The document was drafted by a group of 104 delegates elected from around the state, including 24 black men.
Many of those black delegates had been born into slavery, and now they were convening in Thomas Jefferson's Capitol and invoking Jefferson's words to claim their rights as citizens. Until recently, little was known about those men (there were no women involved; that took even longer). Their work was reviled at the time and quickly repudiated.
"It's no wonder that backward-looking white people were appalled at how fast things were changing — their property was now writing them a constitution," historian Brent Tarter said.
Tarter, who is semiretired from the Library of Virginia, has studied Virginia history for a half century and knew little about that Reconstruction period. But for the past few years, he's been discovering one surprise after another, all part of an effort in the state Capitol to finally pay some respect to a remarkable set of people and circumstances.
"As the great-granddaughter of slaves, I was incredibly proud" to learn of that history, said state Sen. Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond), who has led efforts to install memorials to the event around the Capitol. "But I was sort of disappointed that I didn't learn about it until I was an adult, and even then I had to proactively look for it."
It's odd, because Virginia is a place that loves firsts. And there are many in this tale to be proud of. Followed, unfortunately, by crushing shame. But one thing at a time.
As the Civil War stumbled to an end, black residents of Norfolk saw what was coming. About a thousand black men formed the Colored Monitor Union Club less than a week before Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox in April 1865.
"I believe that was almost certainly the first black political organization in the country," Tarter said.
Norfolk had been occupied by federal troops since 1862, becoming a refuge for black people seeking freedom and an important hub on the Underground Railroad. Now that liberty was at hand, the members of the Union Club weren't about to sit and wait for somebody to help them. They knew what they wanted: the vote.
Or, as the Club put it in a nationally distributed manifesto, "the right of universal suffrage to all loyal men, without distinction of color."
On May 25, 1865, hundreds of black men showed up at Norfolk polling places for local elections. Most were turned away, but federal poll workers in one precinct allowed them to cast ballots.
Some historians think that was the first instance of blacks voting in the South. Even in the North, most places didn't allow blacks to vote; the 15th Amendment extending suffrage to all males was still five years away.
When Virginia had to select delegates for a constitutional convention in 1867 to create a new government, black residents turned out in force. Some whites were ineligible to vote under federal law because of their role in the Confederacy; other whites refused to participate in what they saw as a corrupt process. But roughly 90 percent of black males cast ballots in many locations.
The delegates convened in the old House chamber of the Capitol in Richmond, the same room where Aaron Burr was tried for treason and where Lee accepted command of Confederate forces. A contemporary engraving from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper shows the hall filled with delegates — black, white, some identified as "mulatto." Black spectators line the galleries overlooking the chamber.
Among the delegates was a man named John Brown, a former slave from Southampton County, which a generation before had been home to the bloody Nat Turner rebellion. His wife and daughter were sold before the war, and he never saw them again. As he ran for the constitutional convention, he circulated a ballot with the reminder: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He defeated two white opponents.
Fellow delegate Peter J. Carter was born on the Eastern Shore, the same part of the state that produced today's Gov. Ralph Northam (D), and escaped slavery to join the Union Army. A powerful public speaker, Carter was influential in Republican politics for two decades. He chaired the state's delegation to the Republican National Convention of 1880 and served for eight years in the General Assembly.
Thomas Bayne was born into slavery in Norfolk under the name Nixon, but escaped to New England and re-christened himself. He became a dentist and returned to Norfolk in spring 1865, where he became the founding president of the Colored Monitor Union Club.
They were joined not just by Northerners who had come down following the war, but also by prominent white Virginians who had always opposed slavery.
Known as the Underwood Constitution for the radical Republican who oversaw the convention, the document they produced was one of the most dramatic leaps forward in governance since the work of James Madison. It extended the vote to all males, white and black; set up a free system of schools for all races; and established elective democracy at all levels of government in Virginia. For about the next 20 years, the state's legislature looked like the (male half of the) state.
But as Reconstruction petered out and the white power structure reassembled itself, those gains evaporated. Poll taxes in the mid-1870s began to shut out black and poor white voters alike. Then, in 1902, the state produced a new constitution that set up a system of taxes and tests that effectively disenfranchised 90 percent of the remaining black voters and almost half of white voters.
"Fewer Virginians voted in the first half of the 20th century than any other place in the world that had elections," Tarter said.
It took the civil rights movement and another constitution in 1971 to undo that work. But it's taken until today for many of those gains to be slowly restored.
Bit by bit, McClellan, Tarter and other historians and lawmakers are highlighting the names and deeds of those early African American pathfinders. They have commemorated the delegates and senators on marble tablets in the Capitol and posted their biographies online.
This year McClellan — who heads the state's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission — helped unveil an informational display about the constitutional convention near the Capitol visitors center. Even the tour guides have learned about the period.
"It has the advantage of being fresh and new. Something to surprise people," said Mark Greenough, a longtime supervisor of Capitol tour guides. "It's a powerful story. Just because it hasn't received as much attention in the past doesn't make it any less powerful."
The power comes not just from reviving the names of those long-forgotten figures, Tarter said, but from remembering what they fought for.
"They knew about liberty and they knew about not having it," he said, "and they knew that the vote was the most important tool for protecting that liberty."
Virginia's legislature got a lot of attention this year for its historically diverse crop of lawmakers, including the most women ever to serve, the first Latinas and the first transgender delegate. But while the number of African Americans in the House of Delegates was the highest in many lifetimes — 14 of the 100 members — it wasn't the highest ever.
There was another time — 150 years ago — when African Americans were fully represented in Richmond and had an equal hand in shaping state government.
In April 1868, Virginia produced a new constitution as part of its efforts to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. The document was drafted by a group of 104 delegates elected from around the state, including 24 black men.
Many of those black delegates had been born into slavery, and now they were convening in Thomas Jefferson's Capitol and invoking Jefferson's words to claim their rights as citizens. Until recently, little was known about those men (there were no women involved; that took even longer). Their work was reviled at the time and quickly repudiated.
"It's no wonder that backward-looking white people were appalled at how fast things were changing — their property was now writing them a constitution," historian Brent Tarter said.
Tarter, who is semiretired from the Library of Virginia, has studied Virginia history for a half century and knew little about that Reconstruction period. But for the past few years, he's been discovering one surprise after another, all part of an effort in the state Capitol to finally pay some respect to a remarkable set of people and circumstances.
"As the great-granddaughter of slaves, I was incredibly proud" to learn of that history, said state Sen. Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond), who has led efforts to install memorials to the event around the Capitol. "But I was sort of disappointed that I didn't learn about it until I was an adult, and even then I had to proactively look for it."
It's odd, because Virginia is a place that loves firsts. And there are many in this tale to be proud of. Followed, unfortunately, by crushing shame. But one thing at a time.
As the Civil War stumbled to an end, black residents of Norfolk saw what was coming. About a thousand black men formed the Colored Monitor Union Club less than a week before Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox in April 1865.
"I believe that was almost certainly the first black political organization in the country," Tarter said.
Norfolk had been occupied by federal troops since 1862, becoming a refuge for black people seeking freedom and an important hub on the Underground Railroad. Now that liberty was at hand, the members of the Union Club weren't about to sit and wait for somebody to help them. They knew what they wanted: the vote.
Or, as the Club put it in a nationally distributed manifesto, "the right of universal suffrage to all loyal men, without distinction of color."
On May 25, 1865, hundreds of black men showed up at Norfolk polling places for local elections. Most were turned away, but federal poll workers in one precinct allowed them to cast ballots.
Some historians think that was the first instance of blacks voting in the South. Even in the North, most places didn't allow blacks to vote; the 15th Amendment extending suffrage to all males was still five years away.
When Virginia had to select delegates for a constitutional convention in 1867 to create a new government, black residents turned out in force. Some whites were ineligible to vote under federal law because of their role in the Confederacy; other whites refused to participate in what they saw as a corrupt process. But roughly 90 percent of black males cast ballots in many locations.
The delegates convened in the old House chamber of the Capitol in Richmond, the same room where Aaron Burr was tried for treason and where Lee accepted command of Confederate forces. A contemporary engraving from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper shows the hall filled with delegates — black, white, some identified as "mulatto." Black spectators line the galleries overlooking the chamber.
Among the delegates was a man named John Brown, a former slave from Southampton County, which a generation before had been home to the bloody Nat Turner rebellion. His wife and daughter were sold before the war, and he never saw them again. As he ran for the constitutional convention, he circulated a ballot with the reminder: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He defeated two white opponents.
Fellow delegate Peter J. Carter was born on the Eastern Shore, the same part of the state that produced today's Gov. Ralph Northam (D), and escaped slavery to join the Union Army. A powerful public speaker, Carter was influential in Republican politics for two decades. He chaired the state's delegation to the Republican National Convention of 1880 and served for eight years in the General Assembly.
Thomas Bayne was born into slavery in Norfolk under the name Nixon, but escaped to New England and re-christened himself. He became a dentist and returned to Norfolk in spring 1865, where he became the founding president of the Colored Monitor Union Club.
They were joined not just by Northerners who had come down following the war, but also by prominent white Virginians who had always opposed slavery.
Known as the Underwood Constitution for the radical Republican who oversaw the convention, the document they produced was one of the most dramatic leaps forward in governance since the work of James Madison. It extended the vote to all males, white and black; set up a free system of schools for all races; and established elective democracy at all levels of government in Virginia. For about the next 20 years, the state's legislature looked like the (male half of the) state.
But as Reconstruction petered out and the white power structure reassembled itself, those gains evaporated. Poll taxes in the mid-1870s began to shut out black and poor white voters alike. Then, in 1902, the state produced a new constitution that set up a system of taxes and tests that effectively disenfranchised 90 percent of the remaining black voters and almost half of white voters.
"Fewer Virginians voted in the first half of the 20th century than any other place in the world that had elections," Tarter said.
It took the civil rights movement and another constitution in 1971 to undo that work. But it's taken until today for many of those gains to be slowly restored.
Bit by bit, McClellan, Tarter and other historians and lawmakers are highlighting the names and deeds of those early African American pathfinders. They have commemorated the delegates and senators on marble tablets in the Capitol and posted their biographies online.
This year McClellan — who heads the state's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission — helped unveil an informational display about the constitutional convention near the Capitol visitors center. Even the tour guides have learned about the period.
"It has the advantage of being fresh and new. Something to surprise people," said Mark Greenough, a longtime supervisor of Capitol tour guides. "It's a powerful story. Just because it hasn't received as much attention in the past doesn't make it any less powerful."
The power comes not just from reviving the names of those long-forgotten figures, Tarter said, but from remembering what they fought for.
"They knew about liberty and they knew about not having it," he said, "and they knew that the vote was the most important tool for protecting that liberty."
