1900 words
By: Phil
When critics of the mainstream approach towards modern African-American grievance questions the agency of the population to improve their standards of living, they often cite either how minorities such as poor European immigrants of the Early 20th century assimilated better despite discrimination, or how Black immigrants from Africa occupy a higher mode of living.
While multiple factors contribute to the discrepancy, one caught my attention which struck me a paradoxical but soon started to make sense as I dug deeper. That trait being the lack of effective widespread “unity” among not just Black Americans but many other populations, especially those in Africa.
– The Situation
As for my titular use of “chaos” to describe it, I owe it to an Unz commenter who contrasted it from individualism or collectivism. For an intra-regional example, you have riots or protests regarding threats seen as pertaining to the racial mass, yet you have commonly cited the lack of the same regard for those killed by perpetrators of the same race.
From an inter-regional example I refer to the words of my father that, despite the beliefs of some, there is no “Black America” in which the interests or beliefs of blacks due to having comparatively looser connections than others based on a national level. This is noted by regional variance in ideology between blacks during the Progressive Era or better yet modern African conflicts, many of which can be classified as Christians versus Muslims on the larger scale yet can even be observed on a finer, pre-colonial level of identities (Osaghae and Suberu 2005).
“There are numerous examples of pre-colonial migration, usually stimulated by wars or natural disasters, which have continued to generate bitter conflicts today owing to continuing discrimination against the immigrants by the original settlers. These include the eighteenth century mass migration of Oyo Modakeke into Ife in search of a safe haven from the internecine wars of the Oyo empire; the movement of Urhobo and Ijaw into Warri, where the Itsekiri claim to have been the original settlers; the migration of the Jukun-Chamba from Cameroon to parts of the present Taraba state, originally settled by the Kuteb; and the sixteenth century settlement of Hausa merchants in Zangon Kataf within a territory occupied by the Kataf (Isumonah 2003; Mustapha 2000). “
I attribute three reasons why this would be.
One being geography, as these behaviors are most notable with African nations that often overlap in cultural spheres despite living on a huge continent, and also how Black Americans probably covering the largest area relative to other New World African descent populations thus making diversification more enabled.
The second being the process of slavery in New World populations giving various forms of cultural transmission amongst black slaves by region who as well came through different tribes, either producing the typical “Scot-Irish” Black culture or a “Creole” culture, like the Gullah people of the South East. The Third, the Basal reason, being the effects of Genetic interests at hand as put by RR and how African Diversity works.
-Genetics
Here Razib Khan explains that when Foreign Admixture is removed, African diversity is higher among individuals than for major geographical groups.In other words, while geographically diverse, the actual organization of the diversity in the context of cultural boundaries is more stratified due to the lack of breeding, be it outbreeding or replacement involved in nations.
This suggestion is strengthened by famous blogger Jayman attributing this to the lack of large states in Africa to the lack of especially large states in Africa. Granted, you did have relatively large ones in the Sahel but the didn’t last as long as those in Eurasia, falling mainly due to internal struggles.
In the presence of cultural homogeneity, reflecting of a shared lineage, you see improvements in places such as Botswana (Tswana-Sotho) or Ghana (Akan people) partially due to better cultural, and thus likely genetic, unity due to past nationhoods. Apparently, though for short duration, the Tswana formed a political body as large as France,
This is also consistent with the observations made by Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, a famous colonialist researcher on African and US blacks, on African born blacks on the sea Islands of the South East, which he describes as of “Yoruba Stock” in semblance.
“Also they are when away from white influence inclined to sparsity of clothing-not nowadays a common trait in the United States negro. They are also pure negroes entirely without any infusion of white blood. Crime is very rare among them.” The Negro in the New World by Harry Hamilton Johnston p. 470
A good modern example would be the demographics of West Africa Immigrants, being principally Akan of Ghana and the Yoruba or Igbo of Nigeria, who each come from relatively well constructed precolonial formations. What is also of note is how their prominence seems to be correlated to the extent in which Cousin Marriage is practiced, possibly reflective of the precolonial patterns of cousin marriage
Application for the U.S population in kin networks, where it does not work.
PP, in which he discussed the ethnocentrism of different groups, said this regarding blacks and kin altruism.
“And yet eventually these extremely different tribes mixed, and so you would have parents raising kids who have genetic variants very alien to their own, and this probably contributed to the breakdown of the black family: it’s harder for kin altruism to get selected when the kids you are altruistic to, don’t resemble you that much genetically because their other parent is so unlike you that they don’t inherit your high degree of kin altruism or inherit it as a recessive unexpressed trait. And when kin altruism gets only weakly selected for, racial loyalty (which is probably just an outgrowth of kin loyalty) is probably weakly selected for too.”
Which would be incorrect. Yes, while crossing over does occur, a child would be overall close to their parent’s overall genetic background on the level of relatedness. Leaping from that neglected detail, he assumes from his evidence of “lack of racial loyalty” would that blacks have less ethnic nepotism and thus weaker kin altruism despite not taking into account of selection occurring within subgroups of various constructs like you see in Africa which would apply to families inside them.
If this theory was even supportable, one would expect the opposite that actually occurs with the percentage of Black children to return to relatives compared to White children.
“Of the 94,483 black children discharged from foster care, 12,860, or 13%, were discharged to a relative guardian. Of the 182,941 white children discharged from foster care in 2004, 20,453, or 11%, were discharged to a relative guardian.Of the 15,087 black children adopted from foster care, 4077, or 27%, were adopted by a relative. Of the 29,244 white children adopted from foster care, 5861, or 20%, were adopted by a relative. Of the 279,421 black kids living in foster care for some portion of the year, 69,888 or 25% were living with relatives. Of the 474,734 white children living in foster care for some portion of the year, 101,300, or 21%, were living with relatives.
So black children getting adopted from foster care are somewhat more likely to be adopted by relatives than white kids (27% vs. 20%), black kids exiting foster care are slightly more likely to be discharged to a relative guardian than white kids (13% to 11%), and black kids in foster care are slightly more likely to be living with relatives than white kids (25% vs. 21%). The differences support the hypothesis that blacks are more likely to utilize kinship care networks, but not by a lot, at least in regard to the foster care system.”
From Audacious Epigone, who also notes that despite the higher likelihood of such networks that doesn’t explain disproportion in foster care. Though evidence for IQ is at best moderate, interpersonal indicators were stronger (Azar, Stevenson, and Johnson 2012)).
“SIP problems were associated with direct measures of neglect (e.g., cognitive stimulation provided children, home hygiene, belief regarding causes of child injuries). Further, for the direct measures that were most closely linked to CPS Neglect Status, IQ did not add significant predictive capacity beyond SIP factors in preliminary model testing. Implications for intervention with PID discussed.”
This is possibly linked to EI scores found to differ between Whites and Blacks (Whitman, Kraus, and Rooy 2014)
“The present work examines applicant reactions to a test of emotional intelligence (EI) using an organizational sample of 334 job applicants. Results indicated that Blacks had higher face validity and opportunity to perform perceptions of EI than Whites, but that Whites performed significantly better than Blacks on the EI test. Although exploratory analyses revealed that test performance was positively related to test reactions, we also found that the magnitude of this relationship differed between Blacks and Whites for the opportunity to perform perceptions. We discuss our findings by offering practical advice for organizations considering or using a measure of EI for selection and assessment.”
Evidence for Kin networks is also supported by more data (Taylor 2013).
“Turning first to findings for family support networks, four significant differences were observed in this analysis. African Americans gave assistance to their family members more often than non-Hispanic Whites, were more likely to have daily contact with their extended family members than both non-Hispanic Whites and Black Caribbeans, and had more frequent interactions with their family than Black Caribbeans. Three general conclusions can be drawn from these findings for family assistance and interaction. First, these findings are consistent with prior work indicating that African Americans have similar or higher levels of involvement with kin than non-Hispanic Whites, but are inconsistent with reports that African Americans have lower levels of family support than Whites (e.g., Hogan et al., 1993). As noted in previous reviews of this literature (Sarkisian & Gertsel, 2004), comparisons across studies are problematic given important differences in the dependent variables used. The present study’s investigation of several dimensions of family support relationships (e.g., enacted support, emotional support, contact, negative interaction) in diverse groups of the population and using a common set of sociodemographic correlates clarifies the nature of race/ethnic differences in these relationships.”
It also found, however, weaker ties outside the family, which strengthen my suggestion of finer stratification of kin ties than just simply less selection.
“Several significant differences in friendship networks were observed in this analysis. Non-Hispanic Whites interacted with their friends and gave support to their friends more frequently than African Americans. Additionally, non-Hispanic Whites received support from friends more frequently than both African Americans and Black Caribbeans. Many of the differences between African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites could reflect basic differences in their levels of involvement in friendship networks. For instance, 16.7% of African-Americans, 16.1 % of Black Caribbeans and 9.7% of non-Hispanic Whites report that they never receive help from friends. Similarly, African Americans (11%) were twice as likely as non-Hispanic Whites (4.7%) to indicate that they hardly ever or never interact with friends. Lower levels of involvement with friends among African Americans could be due to estrangement from friends, isolation from friends or exclusive involvement with kinship networks (Ajrouch et al., 2001). Collectively, these results, and previous research (Griffin et al., 2006; Waite & Harrison, 1992), indicate that non-Hispanic Whites are more likely than African Americans to interact with friendship networks and to identify friends as an important source of support.”
This lack of support was not seen, however, with fictive kin or congregational members. So perhaps wither the perception of relationship or differences in genetic similarity may answer some of these questions.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
There really isn’t a Black Race in the same way there’s a White Race. Euros are significantly more genetically similar than African populations.
You have the far more Eurasian North Africans, Eastern Africans and Horners who both have significantly more Eurasian admixture than other Sub-Saharan populations, West Africans, and South African populations. They all are too distinct to classify as one race.
Afrocentrism is largely a New Worlder delusion. Being descended from either mongrel slave populations or assimilated immigrants they cling to imaginary lineages that serve to boost self-esteem.
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“There really isn’t a Black Race in the same way there’s a White Race. Euros are significantly more genetically similar than African populations.”
Well, technically they are about equal regarding West Africans and groups like Bantus according to Razib Khan.
“You have the far more Eurasian North Africans, Eastern Africans and Horners who both have significantly more Eurasian admixture than other Sub-Saharan populations, West Africans, and South African populations. They all are too distinct to classify as one race.”
Okay, You seem to misunderstand me as I was referring particularly to West Africans and similar groups in this piece, as was my note by Razib Khan.
Technicall east Africans as well are included into this group, but are usually distinguish or miniscule compared to “Negroid” groups in this cases when talking about the Sub Saharan populations.
“Afrocentrism is largely a New Worlder delusion. Being descended from either mongrel slave populations or assimilated immigrants they cling to imaginary lineages that serve to boost self-esteem.”
I agree with this. The only type of Afrocentrism you see outside the New world would be “Black Israelites” stuff in Nigeria.
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Yes Afrocentrism is largely a new world delusion. Like the “Black Israelites”. I believe they are in other African countries as well, like Phil has said.
Ethiopians and Somalians are around 40 percent Caucasian. It’s the SSAs that have lower Eurasian admixture than the north Africans and north east Africans.
The thing is, with the exception of the Bushmen and Pygmies, distance between African populations is rather small.
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To racerealist,
on that note on diversity, I want to retract a model that I suggested in the comments.
I phrased it as a “bunch of inbreed populations in a small area”, when that would technically not be entirely accurate, as HBDchick noted how a few non-muslim SSA populations practiced outbreeding.
Basic pre-colonial outbreeding such, IIRC, was more like marrying someone from a different village and/or family but this would be done with different clusters of non-replaced lineages due to small state formation.
Thus, the diversity levels between individuals would be higher than in outbreeding populations like Europe which is layered in different population migrations. Outbreeding in Europe case was done on a larger scale, so replacement thus resulted in greater homogeneity.
So, in simple terms, European individuals are like a bunch leaves from a single branch on one tree and SSA individuals like in West Africa are like a bunch of leaves on there own branches on another tree.
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Hey Agemo, great to see you here.
I have to agree on genetic diversity not leading to reduced kin altruism within the context of African Americans. Humans are only known to get a feel for how closely other humans are related to them by phenotype and known family history, neither of which are visibly affected by having whatever admixture going way back.
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Thank you.
Regarding phenotypical traits versus genetic lineage, you are also on point. Genetic diversity, in the context of basically unmixed human lineages, isn’t the same as genetic diversity through outbreeding which I believe was PP’s mistake in measuring “Nepotism”.
If anything, it’s more like a bunch of small groups inbreeding in a close geographic location.
The point on Africans having diverged subgroups by being a old genepool = no ethnic nepotism comes of as a non sequitor to begin with, because rarely do you even see overall ethnic nepotism with more homogeneous groups on a macro-race level.
Genetic diversity within a breeding population is a result along with less nepotism, not the cause unlike the type of selective breeding one does.
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So rather than “strength”, the diversity reflects the scale of the kin altruism.
Back on your point on admixture vs. phenotype and history, it brings me back to my point on non blood kin and network strength in Aframs.
Mainly, compared to whites, they had stronger Fictive Kin and Church members relations but weaker friend relations.
I couldn’t help but to think of the possible correlation this has to breeding type (outbreeding for whites and relatively stronger kin based breeding for Aframs), genetic relatedness and how they vary with different categories of associates.
Basically, “friends” in a more individualistic outbreeding culture is seems to be expected have to more strength compared to other categories than in more kin based cultures.
This is may be due to adjusting to how the diversity “spreads out”, and how the direction of phenotypical matches corresponds with the direction of breeding, being outside the family.
With kin based standards though, outside of blood families, fictive families are next.
They may not be ties by lineage closely, but could share a history of some sort as well as likely having matching phenotypes, essentially being a extended family branch.
So not only could breeding influence that strength of ethnic bonds, but also the type of bonds we make based on how breeding influences the spread of phenotypical traits important in EGI.
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Nicholas Wade argues the same thing. Afrosapiens has also said that the population in Africa was only 46 million in 1500. Along with never coming out of a tribal lifestyle with a small population impeded them from being able to build modern states.
In Africa, population numbers were higher than in Australia, agriculture was quickly adopted and settled societies developed. From these gradually emerged more complex societies, including primitive states. But because of low population density, these political states did not enter the phase of political rivalry and sustained warfare from which empires emerged in Mesopotamia, the Yellow River Valley, and, much later, in the Andean highlands. The population of Africa in 1500 was only 46 million. The soil being mostly poor, there were few agricultural surpluses and so no incentive to develop property rights. For lack of the wheel and navigable rivers, transport within Africa was difficult and trade was small scale. For lack of demographic pressure, African societies had little incentive to the skills that trade stimulates, to accumulate capital, to develop occupational specialties or develop modern societies. The phase of state and empire building had only just begun when it was cut short by European colonization. (pg. 225)
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Curious of note is that trade was said to be common in places like Nigeria that did have alot of navigation rivers.
I always wonder why their pagan societies there were more prominent than Savannah Blacks who had the benefit of influence by Mediterranean societies, that being the geography fitting for such larger trade.
Speaking of population density, Nigeria also seemed to have higher density since the Nok Sedentary site as it does to this day.
http://www.african-archaeology.de/download.php?pdf=338
Technically Savannah Blacks had earlier sites with some mud buildings, but that was pastoral in nature rather than sedentary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhar_Tichitt#Archaeology
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Chaos was supposed to not happen, once we all followed the advice from this long PSA:
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Unless you are trying to make a joke, I think you responded pretty hastily to my article labeling it “prejudice” by the merits of using information to justify “hate”.
None of my material directly promoted any “hate” towards blacks, I’ve actually devoted a piece of this article arguing that they DO care about their Kin.
I don’t even devote this entirely to genetics, such as geography explaining why we see this in both Africa and the U.S in particular, as well as assimilation practices in slavery.
Look up this thing called “biopsychosocial approach” in psychology, it’s a pretty comprehensive and well utilized approach.
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This post is utter trash homie. Please, don’t talk of things you don’t know.
Africa is a huge continent, Africans do not even refer to themselves as blacks, race has no relevance to them. there are some 2000 languages in Africa, each sub-region is about as large as the USA. African Americans are not African at all in their social behaviors, they are at the exact opposite of west Africans when it comes to family bonds and support.
You can’t find more clannish people than West Africans and that’s exactly the issue. If a West African earns a lot of money, he will tend to share it with family members instead of saving it. If he’s in a position of power, he will use it to the benefit of his relatives rather than the institution’s very interests, hence the nepotism and corruption in Africa’s administrations.
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“This post is utter trash homie. Please, don’t talk of things you don’t know.”
Lets see what you specifically have issue with.
“Africa is a huge continent, Africans do not even refer to themselves as blacks, race has no relevance to them.”
That that exactly stengthens my point, that rather on the scale of large nations or races the case seems that clannishness is more often compacted to locality and associated ethnic group though I have covered cases where it is otherwise Like Ghana and Botswana culturally.
” there are some 2000 languages in Africa, each sub-region is about as large as the USA.”
Define linguistic “sub region”.
“African Americans are not African at all in their social behaviors, they are at the exact opposite of west Africans when it comes to family bonds and support.”
If you are implying that I think Africans are weak in that regard, reread what I was actually arguing.
I even somewhat imply that if anything, Afro Americans would be weaker by using an example of early Gullah people and citing an incidence of lower crime due to their cultural disposition.
“You can’t find more clannish people than West Africans and that’s exactly the issue. If a West African earns a lot of money, he will tend to share it with family members instead of saving it. If he’s in a position of power, he will use it to the benefit of his relatives rather than the institution’s very interests, hence the nepotism and corruption in Africa’s administrations.”
Again, that strengthens my point and even devoted a section to my article to debunking that logic when it came to PP.
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Furthermore, since you claim Afro Americans are “not african at all in behaviors”, lets get some perspective on why I even include them.
Seeing how, though migrations themselves are recent, Aframs splitted into multiple groups and how potential regional differences in both African and non african ancestry could effect EGI, “African American” is about as useless as an indicator for cohesiveness as “Nigerian”.
However, if you break it down to family or region, you may see a different result and I of course expect it to be “stronger” with Native Africans given the more intact foundation culture.
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You’re nice Phil but it’s carnival in my city, I’ll reply in depth later on. For the time being, let me just ask you how many times have you been to Africa ? Where in Africa ? How many Africans do you know well ? How are their behaviors reflected in your post ?
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“You’re nice Phil but it’s carnival in my city, I’ll reply in depth later on. For the time being, let me just ask you how many times have you been to Africa ? Where in Africa ? How many Africans do you know well ? How are their behaviors reflected in your post ?”
Well I’ve never been to Africa but rather I had a neighbor with two brothers in my childhood who was a 2nd generation Immigrant from Central Africa, been one of my best Friends for years.
Furthermore, what’s the significance of even going to Africa in this case? Do you mean to compare my impression with your observations, if so then that would be unnecessary.
I use African collected Historical info on group histories, research on multiple cases where prominent nation-hoods do occur to detour from generalization, and even address and critique the very assumption on kin nepotism you have issue.
So far there is really not much you’ve actually disagreed to in regards to my article so discussing the internal relations in your city would only increase my point unless you can specify your own.
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Seeing how you want to go in depth with your city example, I think what you have issues with is my “intra-regional” example of “chaos”.
My speculation in those specific scenarios would be two ideas, “friends” or “fiends”.
My first idea could be, with the noted weaker association with Friends in the case of African Americans is that the violence victim could’ve been someone who fell along the line of “indifferent” in regards to EGI compared to Kin or Fictive Kin.
How this may not be the case in your city would could simply be to variance in the EGI relevant genetic layout of the population, which my theory certainly allow for given my examples of nation-scale cases in Africa.
“Fiends” suggests that, due to intimidation by perpetrators, there was a higher risk in respond to case intra-racial violence compared inter-racial violence. That doesn’t necessarily requires major differences in EGI as it does group variance in criminal position of power.
It’s also worth mentioning that I wasn’t attributing this particular behavior to blacks general, but rather it’s cause potentially stems from EGI formations in Africa. Acknowledging the effect of cultural formation is why I used the Gullah citation.
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Yes chaos is what I have an issue with. There is no chaos that is specifically African and that would have been brought to America with the slave trade. Also, nation is a very recent concept that appeared in the late 18th century. There is no universal definition of a nation since different nations have different bases for nationhood. EGI is complete nonsense, your post is trash.
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“Yes chaos is what I have an issue with. There is no chaos that is specifically African and that would have been brought to America with the slave trade.”
Okay, now I see where there is an issue is here, You are confusing “chaos” with dysfunction. I clearly defined it’s use an not exactly matching with the typical distinctions of individualism or collectivism, at least on the surface.
“Also, nation is a very recent concept that appeared in the late 18th century. There is no universal definition of a nation since different nations have different bases for nationhood.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation#Early_modern_nations
While there is evidence for various uses of the word “nation”, that doesn’t mean inconsistency with what qualifies as a modern nation.
Furthermore my baseline for a “nation-hood” in the context of this article is based on comparing the cultural/political prominence of an ethnic group within the borders of a modern country.
Comparing, say, Ghana to Nigeria, it’s easier to align such with the Akan compared to the Yoruba exclusively. However it’s somewhat amended for if you were toinclude the Hausa and Igbo for Nigeria
“EGI is complete nonsense, your post is trash.” Fine, lets reject for a moment EGI as the basis of individualism and clannishness.
We could just merely substitute with cultural diffusion in the case of Kin selection for Aframs and merely view the cases in Africa as stratified collectivism with cases of more proportionately prominent cultures in Africa resist the cons of internal cultural nepotism.
If you want to argue against EGI you might want to either wait for RR to reply or read his articles on the topic.
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Could you please define Belgian or Swiss nationhood ethnically ?
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Well tbh, the biggest issue is that I stopped reading when it stopped making sense, in the first paragraph.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgians
Northern Belgians dutch speakers, Southern French/Wallon Speakers. Never said a modern “nation” couldn’t have multiple significant ethnicities as I just gave with Nigeria.
Also, you are confusing what I meant by “nationhood”, which is not saying a nation needs to have one ethnicity.
“Nationhood” is a term I use to define groups that are part of an overall ethnicity viewing themselves as a political body.
My argument being, relative to modern borders, it is much more stratified in Sub Saharan Africa generally and that leaves consequences in their ability to progress as a country and that there is evidence in that being linked to EGI.
If you want to reject the basis in EGI and prefer something along the lines of diffusion then fine.
“Well tbh, the biggest issue is that I stopped reading when it stopped making sense, in the first paragraph.”
So if that was the problem why didn’t simply ask questions regarding my contentions rather than just insulting it outright?
Specifically, where in the paragraph because my “first one” does even address theory as oppose to addressing the background problem it tries to explain.
I guess you must mean my paragraph the defines “chaos”. Basically, it’s the observation of clannishness in a certain locality but not extending as strongly across different populations that share the same alleged ethnicity in the case with African Americans.
In the case of Africa, a far less controversial observation, is the serious conflict observed between ethnic groups which hinder stability.
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