Who Benefits When Black Folks Beef With Black Folks? About being black #TalkinOuttaTurn

Who Benefits When Black Folks Keep Arguing About Being Black? About being black

I remember the first time I heard about the FBA movement. It wasn't from a book, a documentary, or one of those deep podcasts where everybody talks like they got a PhD in history overnight. Nah, I heard about it because was catching heat online.

At the time, Fat Joe had made a comment about an actress and former rapper that came completely outta left field. He later said he was joking and apologized, but by that point social media had already done what social media does best: turn a paper cut into open-heart surgery.

That's when I started hearing more about FBA, Foundational Black Americans, and all the conversations surrounding identity, culture, and who gets to claim what.

Fast forward to this year, and Fat Joe was back in the hot seat. This time it was over his use of the N-word.

Now look, before everybody starts typing in all caps, let's be honest. If you grew up in New York City, especially in the hood, that word gets tossed around more than a basketball at Rucker Park. Black folks use it. A lot of Puerto Ricans use it. Dominicans use it. Everybody knows this.

Whether people should be using it is a whole different article.

Me personally? I don't really get caught up in every single person who says it. If you're part of the culture and not using it to disrespect Black people, that's your business. But let's keep it real, we all got our own line in the sand.

For example, hearing 6ix9ine say it always felt weird to me.

I can't fully explain it.

Maybe it's the energy.

Maybe it's the history.

Maybe it's because some people wear a culture and some people wear a costume.

Either way, if we're being honest, most of us pick and choose.

Then social media gave us another word to argue about.

"Tethering."

Suddenly everybody became an identity expert.

The conversation basically became that non-FBA Black people were attaching themselves to the Black American experience when it was beneficial while pushing FBA voices aside when it wasn't.

And just like that, Twitter University opened for business.

Everybody became a professor.

Everybody became Malcolm X for 17 minutes.

Everybody had charts, graphs, family trees, DNA tests, and YouTube receipts.

Then the Cam Newton interview with Da'Vinchi dropped.

People grabbed one clip from that interview and ran a full marathon with it.

Da'Vinchi talked about how his Haitian parents told him not to pick up certain habits and how they viewed some aspects of American culture. Before you knew it, social media translated that into, "Haitians think Black Americans are lazy."

But as a Haitian American, I think a lot of people completely missed the context.

Immigrant parents come here with a survival mentality.

A lot of them came from places with political instability, poverty, violence, or limited opportunities. They don't see America through the same lens as somebody born here because their entire point of reference is different the see everything in America as luxury and opportunity.

Trust me, my parents would've called me lazy for breathing too comfortably.

Meanwhile, my cousin could've got off a plane from Haiti three days ago, Passes every class, receive multiple scholarships and forgot to take out the garbage, and somehow it turn out I'm not trying hard enough:

"Look at your cousin! Why can't you be more like him?"

I'd be sitting there confused because me and my cousin are to different people.

That's immigrant-parent logic.

If you know, you know.

And the funny part is if some of those parents actually understood American culture better, they'd realize a lot of Black American parents say the exact same thing.

Work hard.

Stay outta trouble.

Get your education.

Handle your business.

The message is damn near identical.

The accent is different.

That's it.

Now let's not act like prejudice doesn't exist either.

Every culture got stereotypes.

Every culture got misconceptions.

Every culture got that one uncle who says something crazy at the family cookout and everybody pretends they didn't hear it.

That doesn't make it right.

But let's stop acting like this is a uniquely Black problem.

Years ago, I dated an American girl. When she told her father I was Haitian, the first thing out his mouth was:

"So... do you know voodoo?"

I ain't gonna lie.

I was tight.

But I laughed too.

Not because it was funny, but because I couldn't believe people still thought like that.

I wanted to ask him:

"Do you like fried chicken and orange soda?"

Since we handing out stereotypes today, let's pass them around equally.

The reality is a lot of cultures have spiritual traditions connected to folk religions and ancestral practices. Somehow, though, Haitians became the permanent mascot for every Hollywood voodoo movie ever made.

And for people my age, let's not rewrite history.

Being Haitian wasn't always cool.

A lot of Haitian kids got bullied.

Some hid the fact they were Haitian.

Some changed how they talked.

Some stayed quiet about where they came from because they got tired of the jokes.

Tired of the ignorance.

Tired of being made to feel different.

Funny how people forget that part when they're arguing online about who's Black enough.

That's why I think we're missing the bigger picture.

Every little misunderstanding gets turned into content.

Every bad take becomes a podcast clip.

Every stupid statement becomes a week-long debate.

Because division sells.

Unity doesn't.

Nobody goes viral posting:

"Black Americans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Nigerians, Dominicans, and Ghanaians got together and had a productive conversation."

The algorithm don't care about that.

But let somebody say something reckless and suddenly everybody's a historian, activist, anthropologist, political scientist, and relationship expert all at once.

Meanwhile the real issues stay undefeated.

Violence.

Poor schools.

Housing.

Mental health.

Economic opportunities.

Community safety.

Those problems don't care where your family came from.

And that's why the recent killing of a young teen from Ghana in the bronx hit different.

What encouraged me was seeing people from different Black communities showing up together. Seeing FBA organizations, activists, and community leaders stand up and say enough is enough.

That's what solidarity looks like.

Because tragedy doesn't stop and ask for your ancestry chart.

Pain doesn't care what island your family came from.

Grief doesn't care whether your people came from Mississippi, Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria, Ghana, or Brooklyn.

And that's the part some people miss.

The people who came before us fought too hard for us to spend all day arguing about who got the official invite to the cookout.

I'm Haitian.

I'm Black.

Neither one cancels out the other.

Both can exist at the same time.

And honestly, if we spent half as much time learning from each other as we spend arguing with each other, we'd be in a much better place.

Because when you strip away the accents, flags, food, and family stories, most of us want the same things:

Opportunity.

Safety.

Respect.

Success.

And a better future for our kids.

That's why I believe the real play isn't division.

It's connection.

The moment Black people everywhere start realizing we got more in common than we got differences, that's the moment the conversation changes.

And some folks really don't want that conversation to happen.

But that's just me talkin' outta turn. 💯

Final Thought

Whether your roots are in Harlem, Haiti, Jamaica, Ghana, Nigeria, South Carolina, Atlanta, or the Bronx, none of us move forward by tearing each other down. We move forward by understanding each other's stories. Pride in your culture doesn't require disrespecting somebody else's. The strongest communities aren't built on purity tests. They're built on respect, cooperation, and shared purpose. So let's stop arguing over who belongs and start focusing on how we all rise together. That's how the culture wins. That's how the community wins. And that's how the next generation wins. 👊🏾🏆💯