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Comment by chickenpotpie | Hacker News Reader

“ What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with a "black" person from the deserts in the northeast of Africa?”

They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship

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> They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship

Do they, though? I think African Americans and African immigrants face very different problems in America. My next door neighbors on one side are from Ghana, my next door neighbors on the other side are African Americans. They have very different issues that they deal with and their lifestyles couldn't be more different.

My Ghana neighbors:

- Struggle with things like renewing work visas, applying for citizenship, immigration-related issues

- Buy/cook all their food from raw ingredients from African grocery stores

- 2 parent household

- Pay their own rent

My African American neighbors:

- struggle with substance abuse, truancy, obesity, unemployment

- Eat McDonalds/junk food/drink astronomical quantities of soda pop daily

- Single parent household

- Rely on the state for rent (HOC)

These are not isolated incidents - out of my neighborhood block here in Montgomery County, MD, there are multiple points of data that point to this segregation of lifestyles between African and African American. I see the police all the time at my African American neighbors' house (at least 3-4 times per year), whether it be because one of the teens was caught shoplifting, or they were making tons of noise in the middle of the night, or because of a domestic confrontation turning violent, etc. I've never seen the police once at my Ghana neighbors' house.

There are selection biases when it comes to immigration to the first world that select for things like emphasis on high educational attainment/striver mentality, plus common cultural differences we see with immigrants from all over with respect to the relative strictness of parenting. Recent immigrants from Africa are also not coping with the multigenerational trauma of slavery, Jim Crow, &c., in the way that black Americans generally are.

None of that means that recent Ghanaian-American immigrant families aren't also subject to anti-black racism in the United States in a way that is important, potentially unifiying, formative for their children who grow up experiencing it, etc.

That's what happens when you enslave a portion of your population, then begrudingly free them but then hold it against them for multiple generations.

That doesn't mean both groups aren't discriminated against.

Contemporary African immigrants significantly outperform those descended from slaves. Moreover, they have higher educational attainment, household incomes, and professional success than American white populations. Nigerian immigrants even outperform Chinese and Indian immigrants.

White British immigrants to Canada today, outperform white Canadians of British descent whose ancestors freely moved there in the 19th century, as do their children.

I suspect for the same reason that causes what you've noted. People who emigrate as skilled immigrants internationally are not average people. In both cases we're seeing the cream of the crop (intentionally selected for by the immigration system), educated and driven, often with some wealth established already. And then comparing them to a large population of locals who have varied circumstances determined by local history, not the current immigration criteria.

And in the case of barbers - they have the same type of hair.. Why is this confusing for HNers?

Nothing is confusing to HNers, they are just expressing baseline racial anxiety and resentment.

I don't think anybody is confused about that. It's obvious. And nobody was discussing the barbers on this sub-thread.

I can think of at least two possibilities: a privileged/sheltered upbringing or an intentional mis-framing of the issue to make something reasonable seem unreasonable.

So a person from Sierra Leone who's never stepped foot in the United States would thus never have experienced this "discrimination" and thus are not part of the "black" group?

Your argument makes no sense.

You realize you started this with a weird tangent, right, and that the article concerns African-Americans?

That would be verifiable by looking at the economic and educational outcomes of African and Caribbean immigrants in comparison to ADOS. If discrimination is all there is to it then their outcomes should be the same. Spoiler alert: It's not the same.

https://www.ft.com/content/ca39b445-442a-4845-a07c-0f5dae5f3...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Ghanian and Nigerian Americans make above the median white household income. Barbadian, Trinidadian, Jamaican, and Haitian Americans all make above the median African American household income. Mexican Americans score below African Americans, but above Puerto Ricans. Dominicans are dead last. Would you conclude, based on the data, that Hispanics face WORSE discrimination than blacks, even when they're born citizens like Puerto Ricans? Could this be a reason that the left is bleeding hispanic voters, when they're constantly being fed a racial narrative that's incongruent with their day-to-day experience and needs? When a Mexican American who may have a black boss hears on TV that blacks have it worse than anybody else do you think they might start losing a bit of trust in the experts?

Sadly necessary disclaimer: I'm not black or white I'm just calling it as I see it.

Selection bias: immigrating to the US from a far away country is easier if you’re educated and rich. Doesn’t mean you’re treated any better once you get here.

How do you explain the people that arrived in the United States through asylum? I wouldn't say that the Chinese immigrants who immigrated to the US during the Cultural Revolution in '70s or the swell in Indian and African diaspora in the '90s were rich. Most left everything they had behind including family members and had to start from the bottom rung. And yet, in one or two generations, they're sons and daughters are the ones populating Stanford and Silicon Valley.

So your prediction would be that African immigrants would underperform other immigrant groups originating from far away countries, owing to racism once they land here?

No, my prediction is that regardless of what country someone came from, many people in the US will only see them as Black and theyll treat them differently for it.

But, immigrants from Thailand are no less well-off than immigrants from Nigeria. If Nigerian immigrants face discrimination because many people will only see them as black, does that mean Thai immigrants will outperform them? Or do Thai people face an equal amount of racism targeting them?

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