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Notes -
Cocacolonisation at work?
Or, why what happens in America is (unhappily) a big deal globally
This is Black History Month. How do I know this, since I'm not an American and this is very much an American, indeed a North American, indeed a USA American invention?
Because the classical music station of our state broadcaster is currently celebrating it, for the second year in a row.
What does Black history have to do with Ireland, given our demographics (data from the 2016 census as the ethnicity report from the 2022 census isn't out yet)?
But hold hard there, the Republic of Ireland is no longer nearly 100% milk-bottle white! We have Actual Real Black People living in our cities and towns now! So why shouldn't the state broadcaster recognise our diverse citizenry?
No problem there - except that the black people in Ireland are from Africa (mainly Nigeria), black British, Afro-Latinos, etc.
But the musicians, singers, composers being celebrated for Black History Month are North American; today, for instance, the clip was about Robert McFerrin (father of Bobby).
I'm happy to learn about African-American musicians, but uhhhhh.... why are we learning about North American and not, say, Malian griots or Malagasy valiha players, since those are much more relevant to the black people living in Ireland? Part of it is probably that the snippets are shared from American sources, and that for mixed race Irish people they would more naturally look to Britain and the USA. So we get Aretha Franklin and Scott Joplin, not Rakotozafy.
But it's a great (or terrible) example of America being the cultural 800 lb gorilla. Our betters have decided that now we are a socially liberal multicultural modern economy country, we must celebrate diversity and inclusiveness. Which means the American version of same. Why aren't we getting Asian History Month, Polish History Month, etc. programmes? Well, I'd love to know the answer to that one myself.
Whilst I profoundly hate that the West has taken to celebrating a racist holiday -- And specifically hate how easy it has been to convince people to do it -- it still seems a bit silly to criticize people for worshiping the holy ethnos wrong.
Aren't they more right to worship the mythical American negro instead of whatever sort of real people exist in the actual country they live in? After all this is a holy celebration of the former, not the latter. The sort of people who are in position to celebrate black history month do not give a slightest fuck about Africans qua Africans. Most likely they don't even know anything about them. But they do care a lot about having those fancy values from America about being antiracist and intersectional and inclusive and progressive.
This was never for or about anybody from or living in Ireland. You are specifically worshiping Americans and the glory of their current empire. Trying to spin it off to your local real people is a futile attempt at subversion. At best you're just signalling you're not on board with the program completely. Which is the most dangerous place to be, ideologically speaking.
Are the people erecting statues of George Floyd in Afghanistan actually more clear minded than people like you who notice that it doesn't make any sense? I'm not even sure at this point.
I would have said it's typical college student white liberal activism, though some of the people involved appear to be mixed race. But it makes no sense to celebrate black Americans, for 'now that we have our own black population', given that most of the black people here are now coming from Nigeria.
It makes no sense except as copying the Yanks, which makes the entire bit about "black people living in Ireland" nonsensical, as it's got nothing to do with the black people living here who come from Brazil and Nigeria, not the USA.
Let's be blunt, that's it in a nutshell. But objecting to that would be racist, because we're celebrating Black people, so how dare you point out the contradictions?
I still find this criticism very weak. The few black people I've interacted with have all, without exception, been Americanized just as much as our white liberal activists are. Even more so, to some extent, since they are actively looking for black American culture. There is no hint or trace of them being from Ghana or Kenya, despite some of those guys having lived there for 10+ years before coming to my country.
Why wouldn't black history month in Ireland or wherever else celebrate the biggest cultural icons that actually resonate culturally with black immigrants? They don't consume media from Africa. They consume black media from America just like everyone else.
Beyond all of that the key line to point out here is that ingroups and outgroups always come first. Black people living among white people see themselves as different. The lives of blacks in Ireland have much more in common with blacks in America than blacks in Africa since blacks in Ireland are dealing with the same outgroup in similar conditions. That struggle resonates and relates both emotionally and physically.
If you in any way cared about privileging the position of blacks in any country you should immediately go to the winning formula. Which is the US one.
A quibble, but many young black people in Ireland have great admiration for black British rappers like Stormzy or Dave. Ireland even has a thriving drill scene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A92_(group)) which draws as much, if not more, influence from UK drill as from Chicago (which is even mentioned on the Wikipedia page for UK drill).
And where do black British rappers get their ideas from? The idea of 'British rap' is inane. The poetry and rhymes can be British. Or stuff like Cockney. 'British rap' is American. From the song structure, lyrics and style to everything else.
That seems awfully pedantic. Hip hop may have originated in the US but that doesn't mean it can't be reinterpreted in other cultural contexts to the point of becoming a distinct genre/cultural form.
No one would say that anime is an American artistic medium just because many of the earliest anime artists were inspired by Disney. No one would say the French nouvelle vague is really an Anglo-American movement because many of the directors were inspired by Hitchcock, Welles and Jerry Lewis. If you want to claim there's literally zero musical difference between Dizzee Rascal and Snoop Dogg, well, I don't know what to tell you.
Thank god no one said that.
No one is saying that and you are being a little shit throwing these irrelevant arguments at me. There are 'differences' between American rappers in the US that dwarf whatever differences there are between most UK and US rappers. That doesn't change the fact that 'British rap' is completely derivative of US rap. From being a thug to singing a sob song about being black and oppressed.
Maybe instead of bringing up a bunch of irrelevant things that would make your point if they were similar to what is actually being talked about you should look at the thing actually being talked about and recognize just how derivative black 'British rap' is from US rap.
You are banned. Based on past warnings and bannings, let's go with 14 days this time.
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