1. We can't disentangle Black US identity from the rest of the Diaspora. We're not a closed set.

2. The Black US is particular. We're less than 15% pop of a powerful white separatist & xenophobic nation; apartheid for a full century post-slavery; not in our ancestral homelands.

Other Diasporic populations have similar circumstances, but not all three. The closest are Black Canada and Black Europe, but beyond the Black Nova Scotians & a few others (who are ancestrally Black American) most retain deep ties to their parents or grandparents' homelands.

That matters.

Now, I will agree that Black Americans are indeed American. Too much so, much to our detriment. We can & DO perpetuate harms within and outside the US (Liberia, 44's admin, etc.).

Millions of us are still invested in the idea of the American dream.

However.

I know & love many Black Americans who recently came here, or their folks did.

So many of them believe in the American dream far more than we do! They're not all Marxists. Quite the opposite.

These conversations are too reductive. We need nuance! But this is Twitter.

Where I get frustrated is when Black America is seen as singularly complicit with US imperialism because of our complicit politicians, celebrities, business and professional classes... while poor Black folks are shaded as not having values.

"Complicit." What does that even mean?

It's frustrating.

We're the most hypervisible Black people on the planet & it feels like nobody knows who we are... even though we've been shouting for centuries.

Some of us know we take up *a lot* of space. And you're tired of us. But...

We're not done shouting yet.