And I feel it in my blood and bones.
I am a Foundational Black American (FBA). My lineage traces directly to those whose bodies, brilliance, and will built the United States of America. This nation exists because of the sacrifice, labor, and cultural force of my ancestors. No matter how often the narrative shifts, this truth cannot be erased.
And so, I speak now to those who arrive in this country—often from places broken by violence, corruption, and oppression—and who, knowingly or not, carry with them attitudes and behaviors that dismiss or demean the very people who carved out the path they now walk on.
You did not fight for civil rights in the United States. You did not bleed for due process, voting access, labor protections, or equal education. But you benefit from those fights—fights that were led and paid for by Foundational Black Americans. And far too often, the response from those who’ve fled hardship is entitlement rather than gratitude, erasure instead of acknowledgment, and projection instead of reflection.
In many places across Latin America, anti-Blackness is not subtle—it is institutional, cultural, and unspoken law. That conditioning does not vanish at the border. And so, too often, immigrants bring it here, reinforcing a racial hierarchy that already oppresses us. They burn the American flag while waving foreign ones, demanding rights in a system they neither built nor shaped, often while ignoring or disrespecting the Foundational Black Americans who made it possible for them to protest at all.
Let me be clear: Foundational Black Americans are not the enemy. We are not a reference point for your superiority, nor are we your competition. We are the foundation.
Some of you have been told that your proximity to whiteness will protect you. That choosing silence over solidarity will earn you favor. But you weren’t brought here to succeed—you were brought to buffer. To absorb economic blows, to dilute Black political power, to act as a tool, not a partner. When you demean FBAs, you are reinforcing the very structure that forced you to leave your homeland. And that is not liberation. That is assimilation into oppression.
We know many of you are fleeing the devastation caused by powerful global forces. We also know those forces often wear Western clothes but act in everyone’s homeland. Still, when you arrive here, you must not reproduce the harm you were running from. You must not turn that pain toward us, especially not in the form of colorism, cultural theft, or scapegoating.
Our culture—the one too many of y’all say doesn’t exist—is everywhere. From the rhythms in the music you dance to, to the slang in your speech, to the very framework of civil society in the U.S., our fingerprints are there. Not because we asked to be here, but because we made a way.
To Black immigrants, Black Americans with immigrant backgrounds and Black immigrants in the UK (who for some reason low-key compare themselves to FBAs even though we’ve never been immigrants and do not share your recent history, lineage or culture): you know the narrative that FBAs have no culture is false. Yet some of you repeat it because it’s easier to echo colonizers than confront them. Easier to criticize us than to reflect on your own internalized anti-Blackness. But this cannot continue. Our patience is not passivity. Our resilience is not weakness. Our openness is not permission.
We are not the descendants of those who sold their kin. We are the descendants of those who were sold—and who transformed that betrayal into cultural and spiritual power. We are not here by accident. We are not without purpose. And we will not be disrespected in the nation our blood consecrated.
If you want true liberation, it begins with truth. And that truth is this: you are in the house that we built. If you want to be here, act like it.
We are not asking for praise. We are demanding recognition. We are not begging for unity. We are demanding respect. And if unity ever does come, it will come through truth-telling, not through silence and performance.
The time for projection, for denial, for internalized supremacy is over. It is time for Sankofa. Go back and retrieve what was lost. Look at the parts of yourselves that were colonized and ask: Who are you really? What do you truly stand for? And why have you believed that the answer must always come at our expense?
I no longer carry the burden of explaining. My ancestors already did that. Now I simply live my truth—and speak the truth without apology.
DeShondela Flowers (Alt Pen Name: Anala Love)
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