"Even in Canada, I felt more comfortable than I do in Silicon Valley."
Now is this a function of Canadians being less racist, or black people in Canada being different than (the "average") African Americans? Or in other words, do African Americans have a distinct culture? My suspicion is a combination of both, with the former being a result of the latter, and the latter likely having the ultimate root cause being slavery. As a Canadian, in Canada black people are just people whose skin is black, for the most part there's nothing otherwise particularly unique about them, and if there is generally they are immigrants from a wide variety of countries, so there's not a single unique culture, but many.
I think the ultimate "blame" for this unfortunate situation rests mostly with white people, but if we ever want to fix it, it's going to take both sides to acknowledge real differences in our cultures, and consider working on changing any that might be a barrier to a more harmonious future.
Black Canadians tend to act a lot more like other Canadians. The difference is probably that many(most?) of the Black people in Canada, at least that I've met, are either immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. Most in the U.S. seem to be the descendants of enslaved people.
I suspect that the Black Canadians fit in better because they decided to be part of Canadian culture, then moved; or are the children of people who also made the conscious decision to become a Canadian. For the majority, I think they came to Canada to be Canadians.
In the U.S, most black people are from the post-emancipation culture, which on top of never consciously deciding to go to America, also endured segregation and significant racial violence in many decades following emancipation. This has led to an understandably very different culture.
It seems to me like a few decades ago there was more interest in integrating the post-emancipation culture with the two or three other distinct cultures in the U.S. That's where you got all the "ebony and ivory living in harmony" stuff. One of the outcomes of that is, when there is a cultural question, and there can only be one answer, one of the two will always have to adopt the other's answer. Fewer different answers to a question is good for cultural integration, but it makes people feel as though they've been hijacked or gentrified.
As for the consequences belonging to "white people". All of the people who did anything which contributed to this are dead. The enslaved africans of the trans-atlantic slave trade were largely slaves taken in local wars by warlords. I don't blame contemporary coastal African societies for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, so I won't blame contemporary American society for it either. We can deal the consequences on the basis of individual effect.
"Even in Canada, I felt more comfortable than I do in Silicon Valley."
Now is this a function of Canadians being less racist, or black people in Canada being different than (the "average") African Americans? Or in other words, do African Americans have a distinct culture? My suspicion is a combination of both, with the former being a result of the latter, and the latter likely having the ultimate root cause being slavery. As a Canadian, in Canada black people are just people whose skin is black, for the most part there's nothing otherwise particularly unique about them, and if there is generally they are immigrants from a wide variety of countries, so there's not a single unique culture, but many.
I think the ultimate "blame" for this unfortunate situation rests mostly with white people, but if we ever want to fix it, it's going to take both sides to acknowledge real differences in our cultures, and consider working on changing any that might be a barrier to a more harmonious future.