Who is black in America? Ethnic tensions flare between black Americans and black immigrants.

[TexasTowelie]

As soon as it was announced that filming would start for the Harriet Tubman biopic with British-Nigerian actress Cynthia Erivo as the lead, a social-media fury erupted.

An online appeal went up, demanding an African-American woman be recast as Tubman, the woman who, after escaping slavery, made more than a dozen trips to lead others to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

In the change.org petition that garnered 1,123 signatures by Oct. 17, organizer Tyler Holmes wrote: "We will boycott the film 'Harriet' until you hire an actual black American actress to play the part."

This, after a tangle in August when Nigerian-born blogger and author Luvvie Ajayi wrote that Tevin Campbell was too obscure a choice to sing at Aretha Franklin's funeral. "Under what rock did they pull that name from?" Ajayi quipped. Twitter's response was livid.

Read more: http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/cynthia-erivo-harriet-tubman-movie-luvvie-ajayi-american-descendants-of-slaves-20181018.html

[kwassa]

1. I don't really see ethnic tensions between these groups ....

I live in the DC area, and there are many African immigrants here, and many African-Americans. I attend a church that has both, and there are no tensions at all. I've never heard of tensions, either.

This movie scandal missed other films where foreign actors played black American roles. How about Chiwetel Ejiofor in "12 Years a Slave"? Idris Elba played Stringer Bell in "The Wire" for years. David Oyelowo played MLK in "Selma".

Where was the protest over that?

White foreigners play Americans all the time in movies and television.

at the same time, this article does have some interesting information:

A study published in the American Journal of Education in 2007 found that immigrants or children of immigrants — while making up 13 percent of the nation's black 18-19-year-olds — accounted for 41 percent of blacks admitted to Ivy League schools.

"If it's about getting black faces at Harvard, then you're doing fine," Mary C. Waters, the former chair of Harvard's sociology department told the New York Times about a need for a philosophical discussion on affirmative action. "If it's about making up for 200 to 500 years of slavery in this country and its aftermath, then you're not doing well."

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Onoso Imoagene, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist born in Nigeria, who studies African immigrants and how they adapt to discrimination in America, said although more than half of Nigerians in America are college-educated, just 7 percent of Nigerians abroad have at least a bachelor's degree. So those who end up in the United States are the smartest, the most educated — "a hyper-selected group," she said.

[JHan]

2. +++++++