Good morning.

I’m reading about another African diaspora community in Australia which is being jolted by news of a store sign in Melbourne saying “no 14-18yo blacks or dogs allowed”. Most of the comments under articles about this sign either excuse the sign or shift the blame on Black teens.

The African-descended communities in Australia are entirely voluntary immigrants, mostly from Africa and some from the Americas. Generational slavery’s traumas (as manifested in the Americas) play far less of a role here in the lower economic strata of Afro-Australians, since chattel slavery in Australia did not involve Africans.

But these “black teens” who are turning to gangs like Apex in Melbourne are mostly of Somali and South Sudanese descent – two nationalities deeply impacted by decades of war, poverty and illiteracy in their homelands. Those factors are often a major predictor for the lack of financial or educational empowerment among many immigrant communities.

A leader of the Apex gang – interviewed here by the Daily Mail Australia – mentions some of the additional misfortunes which drive these teens to seek the comfort of drugs and gang relationships. Chief among them are family breakups, school bullying and chronic joblessness.

A similar cyclical recipe for a rise in gang affiliation can be found in any other immigrant community under similar circumstances anywhere in the world, whether it’s Chicago, Paris, Toronto or Miami.

Unfortunately, its a lot more difficult for Black mediocrity to get a pass in a predominately White European-descended, high-income developed society like Australia, even if chattel slavery is not a factor in how any living Australian citizen gained that nationality. Nothing less than “model minority behavior” is expected of non-White, non-Christian immigrants: skilled, educated, white-collar professional.

And it’s hard to exemplify that behavior when you’re a young person from a war-torn, impoverished, malnourished country like South Sudan.