Foundational Black Americans -History
According to FBA history, Foundational Black Americans are the descendants of the Black people who survived one the greatest atrocities in recorded history-American slavery.
Foundational black Americans are the descendants of the Black people who built the United States from scratch. But this history did not start in 1619. The history of FBA started almost 100 years earlier. The first documented foreign settlers in the New World of North America were the enslaved Black people who were brought over by Spanish colonizer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526.
Shortly after Spanish colonizer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and the 600 other Spaniard’s arrival to the area that would later become the South Carolina/Georgia coast, the enslaved Black captives launched a successful revolt, forcing the few remaining Spanish enslavers to ultimately retreat from the area, back towards the Caribbean. The liberated Black people amalgamated into the local Native American society, and this was a new historic chapter in what would ultimately become the culture of Foundational Black Americans.
Since 1526, the culture of Foundational Black Americans has been that of building, resisting, perseverance, and fighting for justice. FBA are exceptional people and we recognize, celebrate and give honor to that lineage.
Another term used by FBA is the ADOS which simply means American Descendants of Slavery. The ADOS movement focuses mainly on demanding reparations for the system of slavery in the United States.
Supporters of the ADOS movement say they should have their own racial category on census forms and college applications, and should not be lumped in with other Black people—namely modern Black African immigrants to the United States and Black immigrants from the Caribbean. Yvette Carnell was formerly a board member of “Progressives for Immigration Reform”, which has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-immigration group.
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Longest twitter space to be hosted
On Wednesday the 27th of January 2022 what happened to be the longest twitter space was hosted. The room lasted for over 14 hours and had over 24, 000 participants from around the world. It was the first time that the U.S Chattel slavery were centered in a historic conversation about immigration on a large scale.
The Twitter Space was hosted by Mel, Tariq and a few others who are also foundational black Americans. The Nigerian twitter (Twitter Ng) had no idea what was going on initially, until they suddenly saw Tariq trending.
A lot of people were curious as to whether the popular POWER SERIES an American crime drama television series created by Courtney A. Kemp in collaboration with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson had introduced a plot twist to their story. However this was not the case.
Tariq Nasheed a 47-year -old American movie producer, film maker and author was actually the one trending because of his controversy about immigrants in America. Tariq, Mel and some others started a twitter space which lasted over 14 hours with heated arguments about the benefits of immigration to the black Americans who are otherwise known as foundational black Americans.
Foundational black Americans argued that African immigrants are making it difficult for African Americans to get the reparation they deserve. According to them, not only are the African immigrants benefiting from the resources that could have been used as reparation for African Americans, they are also allegedly taking away jobs and other opportunities.
Another issue they raised is that Africans (particularly Nigerians) tend to “arrogantly” dominate everywhere they go. And after “seizing” all the opportunities and making most of the money, they remit the money back to Africa.
The next question was about why the American Government is allowing African immigrants to enter the country. Some of the speakers even went as far as implying that the American Government was allowing African immigrants as part of a larger plan to systematically erase/replace “Foundational Black Americans” with Africans.
Throughout the period the Twitter Space lasted, It was pretty obvious that the bedrock of the discussion was from a xenophobic and racism view from some of the Black American hosts/participants.
In turn a lot of people left the space feeling very angry and disappointed while quite a number decided to remain while directly or indirectly confronting the whole situation with tweets trending the hashtag #securethetribe.
Foundational black americans stand
As part of a solution to “secure the tribe” as they put it, the Black Americans called for an immediate deportation of all Africans. According to them, doing this would ensure that African Americans can finally get their reparation and even have enough opportunities to go round.
They concluded that Africans should develop their continent and individual countries so that their citizens can remain in Africa.
Conclusion and reactions of Nigerians
A lot of Nigerians were not having any of it, some people opportune to speak during the twitter space took their time to educate Tariq and Mel the co-host that the system opened up opportunities to immigrants and the same system will always choose the best candidates for their job openings as long as the candidate is proven qualified.
Nigerians reminded the host of the twitter space a certain period during the first wave of the Covid-19 when the Western countries were in need of doctors and opportunities were opened up to qualified doctors to migrate.
People added “foundational” to their handles and Nigerians had enough fun with the “SecureTheTribe” hashtag. Below are some of the tweets that came out of the trend.
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Nigerians were assured that they will keep taking their jobs since the Foundational black Americans supporters were bold enough to run a space of over 14 hours which is almost half of the day with baseless argument, it just goes on to prove that they do not take their jobs seriously.
As expected on Twitter Ng, #securethe tribe trended with different levels of sarcasm. While some people promised to make sure to get more remote tech jobs, some people were seen doing a twitter thread of easy ways to migrate. Others also suggested Nigerians in America stay safe because it is very easy for arguments like this to spark a Xenophobic attack.
At the end of the day, we are probably foundational Nigerians or foundational Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa, Benin etc depending on how we choose to be addressed. Some people preferred to attach foundational to their career, foundational Doctor ,Lawyer, etc.
As I wrap up this article, does immigration benefit the country(s) receiving the immigrants? What are your thoughts? Feel free to drop them in the comment section.