Who has survived and thrived?

Afropedea.org

People always criticize the one drop rule of North America, but to me it preserved African Americans and allowed them to thrive. African American contributions are not an obscurity. African Americans thermselves are not an obscurity.

I can't say the same thing about Central and South America. I remember 20 years ago reading the country profile on Brazil. It never occured to me that Brazil had the largest Afro-descendants in the new world. Afro-descendant were completely invisible.Ten years ago, I would argue that Mexican society was only mestizo, no African element. Come to find out, this was far from truth. In fact, when I thought of the diaspora in the new world 20 years ago, I only thought of North America and the Caribbean, not Central or South America, again far from truth. Of the 12.5 million Africans brought to the new world, 11 million went to Latin America, the vast majority.

Who has survived and thrived? In studying the history of Central and South America, it is pretty depressing. In South America, the white elites used the Africans as cannon fodder for wars of independence and civil wars and later via whitening, literally f&!k them out existence. Simon Bolivar and the mindset of the elites was to use the Africans in wars so there numbers would diminish, so the country would be the inheritance of whites. They would later import millions of Europeans into the country to whiten the nation, race mixing used a weapon.

I once ask a lady friend of mines, a black woman, I won't say the country, what is whitening? She said to me she once dated a white guy and one of her countrymen said she was "improving the race."

450,000 Africans went to America. Their descendants are now 12.85 percent of 313,232,044 population or 40 million. Their descendant self identify as "African" American and proud of their African heritage. 4.8 million Africans arrived in Brazil. Only 6.2% of 203,429,773 population or 13 million self identify as Black. Who has thrived and survived?

African American have survived in my mind. African Americans you have survived. The one drop rule has preserved you. You are not an obscurity fighting even recognition on the census. Your technological/scientific, economic, cultural contribution to America is clear. America would not be America without you. In studying the history of Central and South America, I now understand the rage of Abdias Do Nascimento (1914-2011), who used the word "genocide" to describe the admixture. As a person of anglo/franco Caribbean roots, I must thank the Frenchman and Englishman for viewing me as sub-human. They did not dip too much into the brown sugar. They did not steal too much honey.