👋 Hey everyone! Today, let’s dive into a topic that often sparks curiosity and conversation: **”Why do Black Africans look distinctly different from Black African-Americans?”** 🧐
You might have noticed how the diverse appearances between Black Africans and Black African-Americans can lead to some fascinating discussions. This distinction isn’t just about skin tone or features; it touches on history, culture, and genetic diversity. So, let’s break it down!
- Historical Context 🏺: The transatlantic slave trade separated many ancestors from their African roots. This historical event has influenced the gene pool significantly!
- Geographical Diversity 🌍: Africa is a continent with over 3,000 distinct ethnic groups. Each has its own set of unique physical characteristics, which can differ vastly from those of African-Americans, many of whom have mixed ancestry.
- Cultural Influences 🎭: African-Americans have been shaped by hundreds of years of cultural evolution in the U.S., which affects everything from fashion to hair texture, leading to distinct visual differences.
These differences can sometimes lead to feelings of identity struggle for both groups. For Black Africans, they may grapple with stereotypes or assumptions about their culture when they come to America. Meanwhile, Black African-Americans may feel a disconnect from the African roots they can’t fully grasp. This is a significant pain point, as many aim to connect with their ancestral heritage but find barriers due to experiences shaped by a long tumultuous history.
Possible Solutions 💡:
- Encouraging dialogues about heritage and identity can help bridge gaps and foster understanding.
- Participating in African heritage festivals or organizations can bring communities closer together.
- Utilizing resources like Ancestry or Family Search for genealogy research, might help individuals discover more about their background.
So, what do you think? **How can we foster better understanding and appreciation of the rich diversity within the Black community?** 🤔 Share your thoughts, experiences, or any tips you might have! Let’s spark this conversation!
And remember, whether you’re exploring your own roots or learning about others, every journey of discovery is valuable. 💖
Looking forward to hearing from you all! And don’t forget to check out these hashtags for more conversations around this topic: #BlackHistory #CulturalIdentity #Heritage #AfricanAmerican #AfricanDiversity
Probably partially something to do with being separated from ancestral gene pools and mixing with people other than blacks (whites, native americans, central americans, other mixed black people) at some point in one’s bloodline.
Black people in a US are mixed from all the different tribes that the slave trade brought from Africa.
You can’t compare a country with a continent. Also it’s incredibly difficult to get proper data on average physical features, even in modern countries, so I’d like to know where you got the “black africans look different from black americans” fact?
African Americans tend to have Caucasian and/or Native American ancestry somewhere down the line.
Sub Saharan Africans genes tend not to be as mixed.
Well, they don’t. If you go to West Africa, where the slave ships usually went to get their human cargo, the people there are very similar lookswise to Black Americans. However, in other parts of Africa, especially the North and East, the people look different because they’re not even closely related to those on the other coast. Africa is HUGE.
However, what you might be noticing is that most Black Americans do have some level of European ancestry, typically 15-20%, due to – you guessed it – rape. So that could also affect appearance. But it’s not so obvious that every Black American looks totally different from their West African ancestors.
My guess is a mixture of environment, mixing of genes with other people that are now native to America, and the limited gene pool of the people that were moved here
Black African is an *extremely broad* category that includes several hundred different ethnic groups, whereas African Americans by and large came from the same regions in West Africa.
Probably not the ones who haven’t mixed genes with any other groups of people. Like it’s going to obviously be based on what genetics the specific person has.
Black Americans have more mixed genealogy on average.
It’s almost like if a Congolese woman had sex with a Nigerian guy, they’d totally be different from someone who was the offspring form a Sierra Leone slave and a white Louisiana plantation owner.
why do white europeans look distinctly different than white americans? The question makes no sense. There are lots of countries in europe. There are lots of countries in africa.
The term “black” is a discrete category that doesn’t capture the breadth of phenotypic diversity in Africa – this continent houses the world’s highest levels of human genetic diversity, which means the hundreds of different African ethnic groups are going to look different from one another (i.e., the Beja don’t look like the Amhara, and the Khoisan don’t look like the Amazigh).
African Americans have somewhat of a unique ancestral history due to the transatlantic slave trade and subsequent interactions with Europeans and Native Americans in America from the early 1600s up to the present.
You saw the twitter post about somebody not voting for Kamala on here didn’t you
Because white people raped many slaves. African American arent 100% black.
White people raped their ancestors.
I don’t know about you but I have some Irish/ Scottish ancestry in my family that I’d rather not question how it got there.
You ever took a look at someone from moroco then at someone from nigeria? Yup they also look different, most slaves were shipped from the same place in west Africa so they have similar features
The constant rape of enslaved Africans over 12 generations.
African Americans are an admixture and on average ~20% European descent
Thomas Jefferson
Most of the world’s genetic diversity is found inside Africa alone, people inside Africa are more diverse within each other than non Africans are within each other, yet we call all of that diversity “black” cause the concept of race doesn’t make any sense outside of our historical context.
Slaves were raped by their masters and impregnated. Those kids were still slaves and they went on to.have kids. Also Africans from multiple ethnic groups were taken and mixed. Vs in Africa ethnic, and nationally people have stayed together. Throw in some native Americans here and there too
The same reason people from Spain don’t look the same as people from Mexico
300 years of rape from the European masters and selection of lighter skinned black people for house slaves vs. field slaves.
It’s not a pretty history.
Fuck off
Like black and white people haven’t been having sex for the last 300 years. Ever watch Maury?
Same reason why other races look different within from one another.
Because white people raped so many African slaves in the past.
First as a white person, please take this comment with a grain of salt.
Africa is a large and diverse CONTINENT. There are light skinned peoples and very dark skinned people. It’s how evolution deals with environmental factors. The American slave trade (African slave trade) pulled slaves from a limited area of the vast continent. So there will be less variation by design. That said, there are still significant variations in skin tone among American descendants from the slave trade.
Two reasons.
One: “black africans” is an incredibly vague term. there’s more genetic diversity within Africa than any other place on earth. A Norwegian and a Greek are often more closely related than two different ethnic groups in Africa mere miles apart. Most African Americans descend from ethnic groups in West Africa, but Africans from other part of the continent can look dramatically different. East Africans for instance have a very distinctive look.
Two: the average African American is of 25-30% European by heritage, due primarily to the systematic rape of female slaves by white male slave owners over the centuries. The offspring of such unions were usually rejected and unacknowledged by their fathers and treated the same as other slaves. (This is where the “one drop” rule comes from–)
Slavery.
Black Africans don’t look the same at all. It’s a very big place….
Go to Africa.
People that live there easily instantly recognise dozens of different groups instantly, visually.
The most obvious distinction to an outside would be a bushman (Saan) vs a Zulu, but there is plenty more.
Idk most of my ancestry from slavery were racially mixed individuals procreating with other racially mixed individuals until more recently and even then those people still had other ancestry, so I do look black but I also don’t look West African (which I’m guessing people usually mean when they say Black African, since most ancestry from slavery is West African typically)
not Even the same Africanas look alike
Black American are a mix of multiple African enthnics groups on top of having European and native American ancestry. So they’ll look different from African that are most made up of one ethnic group and race.
Lemme put it to ya this way.
Why does coffee with cream look different than regular black coffee?
Like, hundreds of years and multiple generations… of cream being added to that coffee.
Why do people from a continent with a lot of different ethnicities look different from people whose ancestors were taken from a specific area in that continent and then went through centuries of systematic rape?
African americans and americans in general ignore the historical, genetic, cultural, linguistic and phenotypical diversity in Africa. They think all Africans are the same and have the same exact culture and just because all Sub saharans are black they’re meant to have this ‘African black unity’ thing going on between them. I never see them apply this energy to Europeans. For example, they will call people Italian, Spanish, Romanian etc but if they see an African they will just call them African and not their specific ethnicity. It’s infuriating and I don’t see many people talk about it. I also hate how African Americans don’t know their own history. They were taken from West Africa but whenever they see a video of any Africans from any part of Africa they automatically claim it as their history or their culture/ancestors when it isn’t. I hate how some people assume all Africans were enslaved as well, we don’t all have the same history. This may get also get me heavily downvoted but African Americans also have a culture that glamorises promiscuity, crime and overall degeneracy which people are now generalising all black people with when us Africans are nothing like that.
There’s lots of different looking Africans as well by the way, more so probably than Americans