I was going to select parts of Stanley Crouch's article in today's NY Daily News, but it's short enough worth reading in full. Crouch is talking about black Americans, their views on who they are, race and how immigrants from Africa will change these views.
I think Crouch is really onto something here, based on my own personal experience from more than ten years ago. I remember I had a job in a place that seemed keen to promote Caribbean black people more quickly than black people from New York, Virginia or wherever. I didn't recognize this until it was pointed out to me by a guy from the Bronx. This guy resented it and recognized how policies intended to help people like him were now being used to help people who, he felt, didn't need the help.
Whether this black awakening to their American identity will foster the great leap in aspirations among black Americans that Crouch thinks it will is debatable, but I hope he's right.
