Why are Black Americans always claiming to have Native American in their family?

Question

As if that makes them better then Africans or more attractive. They seem to have a lot of self hatred.

Answer 1

African Americans and Native Americans share several points in history. It is very true that many African Americans have Indigenous blood. It is not that they are denying their African heritage or trying to make themselves more attractive, they are recognizing their whole self. It is very ignorant and racist for you to say this. It is not self hatred but hatred that comes from people like you who spread such ignorance.

Answer 2

WHAT?
I'm tired of all these black questions. Why don't you stop worrying about black people for a change??

I've heard LOTS of white people say "I'm 1/4 Irish, 1/8 Cherokee...." and go on and on. How come when an African-American does it you get upset?
I'm black and have never claimed to be Native American because I'm not Native American.
YOU seem to have a lot of hatred.

Answer 3

Some actually do. I am and I'm proud of it. I am black, native American and white. So what I don't have to lie about who or what I am. It does not make me better than anybody. I was just born this way.

Answer 4

Becuz I DO have Native American in my family. My aunt is Black, but if u look at her, you'd think she's Indian! My great-grandmother wuz also a full-blooded Indian. My grandfather also had some Native American in him, too!

Answer 5

A lot of people who claim it's in the family...have it in the family back there someplace. Maybe, like me, they are happy to be able to include it in the lineup of their heritage. So what's wrong with that?

Answer 6

Because our ancestors did in fact run off with the indians. there was no where else to go in america to get away from slavery. its not that it makes them attractive, we just want everyone to know that we don't just have the white slave owners blood in us.

Answer 7

maybe cuz they do have native american in their family

Answer 8

some people feel its important

Answer 9

Who among us is devoid of the making of claims?

Point is, on your question of the why of it, black Americans often 'do' have Native American strains in their ancestries, varying by degree and differing only in phenotype versus genotype.

The standard was set long ago as to the measures of what constitutes attractive and what does not. Little now can be done about this but to concede that many a measures, beauty among these, accords the European American standard -- note that I emphasize here European American as opposed to 'European' outright.

This phenomenon is prevalent where ever the European has attempted acculturations -- take the country of India, for example.

If you should think that self-loathing is unique to black Americans, you would be outrageously wrong...

What you have observed is in reality a testatment to human nature and not a peculiarity in some one culture found in the United States.

Thus, as to the hatred, that is not unique to black Americans: to be American in general is to be schizophrenic in some measure, intensified among those whose family ancestries were not historically afforded entree into the American consciousness -- and this, to this day, even as we speak...

By this, voids did ensue, and, given such high emphases on the sensibilities of the Caucasian strains, which enjoyed the privelege of setting the bar in virtually all respects of social cultural standards, the minority in general and the black American in particular is left with a 'natural' need to repair themselves as best as possible, being often hardest on their own kind than other cultures -- again, 'that' is common to nature among any species as well.

To wit: a like species of any kind, animal or insect, is more severe on its own kind than another: dogs, for example, are more vicious and envious towards other dogs than, say, to human beings... See?

A species of any kind negates itself within its own circles and cycles and energy tides of life...

This should come as no shock if you would but observe this anywhere in nature... Even stars and suns invariably acquire or merge with another star more than any other great stellar body in Space.

It is simply Nature, my friend... I think you might now dispense with this, say, short-sightedness you do express, for these sorts of assertions are but ad hominems and have little evidence of approaching the truths...and are what perpetuates the so-called self-hatred you speak of...

If you do not seek to understand the dynamics involved, you then run the risk of ensuring its existence...

This I will say on your behalf, there is something to say about a genetic mix of two or more races, for a mix-raced person often 'is' very attractive.

Once the actor Rober DeNiro commented about this. It is indeed the truth, the response of which -- by those who would envy this sort of attractiveness -- points out that quality unique to human beings -- denial -- followed by jealousy, and by anger itself, which is but the flip side of fear...

When one finds someone attractive, little can be done to dissuade that person to find her or him unattractive without undermining oneself and living a life of falsity... If he or she is good-looking to you, and that was a conditioning placed in you, how would removing it and replacing it with another be any the better or more superior?

Good depends on bad to be good. You see? Remove the one, and you destroy the other... Night depends on day in order for you to know what night ever was... See?

If you like someone, you have to let yourself know this, regardless of the why of it all. Conditioning occurs very early in life. Yet conditioning is also part of the human genome itself as well. While we each have a different take on what is beauty, there does come a point at which what is found beautiful to the one is as well found beautiful to all: -- a sunset and a mountain fastness would be found just as beautiful to an Arctic Innuit as to an African Bushmen... See? It is genetic to the human being...

Back on point here: -- witness the differences of the sub-races of this continent (North America) and that of South America, especially among the red and black races -- these were two races who fought the hardest to sustain of their identities and who indeed lost the most in terms of culture cohesion and soldarity in the process when came the Caucasian invaders from Europe -- have these two races not suffered loss of the very things that most other cultures could take for granted are theirs to have and hold and manage and perpetuate?

Why of course...

The red race chose to separate in the entirety; while the black race chose to engage: theirs are indeed a great loss, for when doing this, there occurred a trade off, and once traded there was little chance of regaining the tonal in the original and viable form.

The resolve is left to the victim ironically, not the perpetrator...
Strange, yes? But this is always the case, and is in the very nature of Human Nature...

And that can be and often is a rough go -- taking scores of years if not centuries to cure...if ever cured at all. Simply a new and unique form comes into being. Hence, the American in general is a new and unique form -- why should any part of it be any different in its pecularities. Such is endemic to the nation which is America.

The proof of that loss, however, is clearly demonstrated in your observation...

Accordingly and unfortunately, they -- the Black American -- is left to repair this and none other. That is the habit of having been robbed of station and dignity.

Love would be the only salve and remediation left to reverse the harm incurred; and this has to come from all, not just the subject race or culture -- because the cause or corruption did not primarily originate with either of these two cultures but which solution ultimately now rests with them.

Denial as result has come, not only in the majority race but in the minority races themselves on all counts.

The Black American is the only race of the United States that knows not its original customs, its original traditions, its native languages, its native dialects, its native diets, arts, or its native responses to its environment...

Indeed, all that you see today has been learned over the course of a mere 400 + years for a race that goes back untold thousands of years in its native beginnings, and they performed their adaptive skill now manifest here in America for the most part by themselves.

Now, one group did assist momentarily, and that was the red race -- who we now call the Native American.

So, black American people have the full right indeed to identify themselves as having the blood line of Native Americans coursing through their veins, and aptly should claim this as part of the age-old and on-going healing they surely need.

Answer 10

They have been known to jump the fence on many occasions.