Who is really African? A comment concerning heritage and nationality between 2 UFC fighters sparks some hot takes in /r/ufc

The thread in Question

Context:

Kamaru Usman is a black American UFC wrestler who was born in Nigeria and lived there until his family emigrated to the US when he was 8.

Dricus du Plessis is a white South African UFC wrestler who was born in south Africa and still lives there.

Dricus Du Plessis claimed he and his teammate Cameron Saaimon (a different white South African wrestler) were the only true African UFC fighters. In an interview he took a jab at Usman (and a different wrestler whose family emigrated to New Zealand when he was young) and stated the following:

“Did those belts ever go to Africa?” Du Plessis questioned reporters at UFC 285 media day. “As far as I know, they came to America and New Zealand. I’m going to take a belt to Africa. I’m the African fighter in the UFC. Myself and Cameron, we breathe African air. We wake up in Africa every day. We train in Africa, we’re African born, we’re African raised, we still reside in Africa, we train out of Africa – that’s an African champion, and that’s who I’ll be.”

Which is an argument one can maybe understand, but one that is unnecessarily inflammatory as people have different understandings of heritage. It was a jab though at Usman, given how Usman has since taken the American citizenship and used "the American dream" as his nickname/moniker for a while. However, Usman responds

“I saw it, and I guess the thing about me is I try not to be quick to jump on someone and really kill them for those things,” Usman told reporters. > “I’m not part of this cancel culture. But, I understand what he’s trying to say, but I think the one thing he’s failing to realize is – just because I go to China, and my parents are in China and I’m raised in China, that doesn’t make me more Chinese than people from China. That doesn’t make me more Chinese, and *so just because you went over to South Africa and you were raised there, that doesn’t make you African. *So, I would say to him: Try to be a little bit more careful with what you say and how you say it.

Which is a pretty dumb take overall and is actually directly an argument that many racists around the world use to discriminate against other people, especially black people (in the veins of "you are not really German/English/Australian etc etc you are African")

This is where the before linked reddit thread comes in and it starts of good

Lmaooo imagine telling a black man hey listen buddy you might have been born in europe but that doesn’t make you European (also second comment notes how Usman hangs out with Kadryov, the horrible Chechen Islamist/dictator who is Putin's enforcer)

This comment sparks quite some reactions - "I'm more African than some people born in America who have never been to Africa and don't speak a single African language. I speak two of them"

We also got someone fulfilling the stereotype of Americans being bad at geography with following comment - "Africa is a country. It’s like saying I’m American but I’m from Denver."

somehow, Stalin managed to also make his way into the comment section

Thats it for now, will see if I post some other hot takes, but think the thread ran its course.

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/11sv23a/who_is_really_african_a_comment_concerning/