Because they don’t see America as our “roots” the same way they do for the other countries in the diaspora.

They don’t see our culture here, that we built from the MUD, as legitimately ours bc America is majority white. I’ve gone into it before, lemme find the tweets. https://twitter.com/killahbeenbee/status/1315738125512179719

We all got dropped off from Africa into new lands. Whether we ended up the majority or a “sub-culture”, we all BUILT our cultures over hundreds of years *despite* colonization and slavery. But only Black Americans are shamed as not having roots or a culture. It’s bullshit.

When a Jamaican says “I’m Jamaican” folks accept that as valid. Their “roots” are in Jamaica. That’s it. When we say “I’m Black American”, America is not accepted as our roots, we are expected be looking for more to satisfy some hole they think we should feel in our hearts.

But we are WHOLE. We are whole, here. Our culture, from sea to shining sea, is beautiful, it is vibrant, it is alive. We built this house brick by painstaking brick and it is ours. It is valid. But bc the majority culture here is white, they think we need more. We don’t.

They don’t say these things merely bc we “react”, it is bc they *truly* center whiteness in our story. For them, the majority being white in America degrades US, makes OUR culture —THAT WE BUILT— less valid, less whole, less beautiful than others. And THAT is what *we* react to.

It is their implying that being Black American is not something we should be “proud” of or feel any connection to so we need to be looking elsewhere that fuels our anger at the question. It is disrespectful of our struggle, of our ancestors, of our triumphs to ask us such things.

My fam been here since the 1700s AT LEAST. I am AMERICAN, Black American, through and through, on both sides. From the red clay of Georgia to the backwoods of Alabama where my ppl were enslaved to the gritty streets of Chester and Philly where I was raised.

Those are my roots. I’m more “American” than most and will not disrespect my ancestors, whose blood flows in my veins, by looking for roots outside of here that do not exist. We are their prayers, their dreams, their hopes made flesh. And the work continues. Don’t play with us.