Don't Call me African-American

[ArcticSplash]

Some Blacks Insist: "I'm Not African-American" | News | BET

[daninpa]

Some people are going to be offended by "black;" some are going to be offended by "African American." I started using "black" after I realized my best friend is Jamacian, my other friend is Jamacian-American, my boyfriend a mix of black ethnicity. Nobody I know seems to mind plus it's easier to say.

[NJbound]

I guess my grandparents had it right when they called em coloreds lol. Call me white, call me 'hey you', just don't call me late for dinner

[Gladys]

A long time ago i was sitting with an few old friends having dinner. I forget what the topic was but i used the word african-american, one of my friends glowered at me and said i am not african i'm from Virginia and got a whole pissed off lecture on the subject. I responded that not everyone had gotten the memo and no matter what i would piss someone off. He acknowledged that but he was till a black man. We are still friends.

Just don't tell the Uhuru people, they've gotten a different memo.

[ArcticSplash]

I call Uhuru people "nuts".

Sorry, but you as cray-cray as the True Israelites. Just sayin'.

[PortPennFerry]

According to the census bureau, 'Black' is a race encompassing people with ancestry in Africa, and 'African-American' is an ethnicity, making it a sub-group, rather than alternate designation, of "Black" in the United States. 'African-American' refers specifically to the ethnic group created from the descendants of slaves imported to the colonies and States, up to 1840. 'Sub-Saharan African', 'Carribean-American', and 'Black-Latino' are the three 'Black' groups you can be in the United States, without being 'African-American'. By that definition, some 94% of US Blacks are African American (about 88% in Philadelphia).

Although I am a big fan of his, this means that detractors of the president have a point when they say he is not African-American. Instead, by ancestry alone, his ethnicity would be English-American/Sub-Saharan African. But many people choose to identify with cultural ancestry, and so he chose 'African-American'. Whatever floats his boat.

[annie]

Interesting, I did not know that about the census bureau classification just that the census considers North Africans to be white.

[gren]

About Race - U.S. Census Bureau. That's what the Census says about race based on the OMB's 1997 directive. Not sure where you got that about Census using those ethnic categories.

[sharkey]

Interesting, I did not know that about the census bureau classification just that the census considers North Africans to be white.

The interesting thing is that the Census Bureau always uses the term "original peoples." Tribes have been migrating since man evolved from ape, certainly well into prehistory. By a true reading of that term, aren't we all Black, since mankind began in Africa?

[NE19149]

Boy, I'm so glad I'm a common white person - I don't have all those issues.

[loveisnoise]

Boy, I'm so glad I'm a common white person - I don't have all those issues.

You're not white idiot.

[lemko]

Could a white person from South Africa who emmigrated to the United States be considered "African-American?"

[Nick19128]

Could a white person from South Africa who emmigrated to the United States be considered "African-American?"

Using the definition of African-American above ("the ethnic group created from the descendants of slaves imported to the colonies and States"); no.

[Sphilly19145]

Some people just take themselves way too seriously. I mean, if you're going to cry at every little thing people do and say in reference to you, your race, your neighborhood and your culture, maybe you just don't like yourself and that's your problem. It's getting beyond retarded with how they complain about everything and want to turn everything into a big protest. And they wonder why people cannot respect them? It doesn't matter what you refer to them as, they're going to find some reason to be offended over it. They really just need to get over themselves.

[OffenseTaken]

I never understood why the use of "African-American" took off, while "European-American" is only the preferred term for white folks according to some Wikipedia articles and some die-hard racialists (who may or may not have written the Wikipedia articles). It's as if "black" is a slur in need of a euphemism, but "white"—well, who wouldn't want to be white!?!?!

It's especially odd since, as the BET article sort of pointed out, black people have been in this country longer than most "white" folks, whose families immigrated between 1850 and 1920. (Granted, this is using a definition of "white" that my grandfather thought was ridiculously inclusive, but whatever.) The slave trade ended in 1808 IIRC. Not to mention that black Americans look awfully European to subsaharan Africans.

[Gladys]

Could a white person from South Africa who emigrated to the United States be considered "African-American?"

Yes. I have a good friend who is in that category.

[ShoshTrvls]

Some people just take themselves way too seriously. I mean, if you're going to cry at every little thing people do and say in reference to you, your race, your neighborhood and your culture, maybe you just don't like yourself and that's your problem. It's getting beyond retarded with how they complain about everything and want to turn everything into a big protest. And they wonder why people cannot respect them? It doesn't matter what you refer to them as, they're going to find some reason to be offended over it. They really just need to get over themselves.

Who is "they?" The preceding discussion is nothing if not evidence that there is no monolithic "they." But by lumping all blacks together, and by tying questions of identity to "respect," you've quite clearly shown your true color, and it ain't pretty.

[forkiks]

'they' are those that are going to cry at every little thing...it seems you assumed something else.

[raider.adam]

Yes. I have a good friend who is in that category.

Then they are categorizing themself incorrectly. Pretty sure you have to be from a black racial group.

[seand]

Its interesting that the census terminology PortPennFerry identifies has it completely backwards from how many people seem to use the terms conversationally, i.e. "black" means American born and raised with ancestors who were slaves in the south and African-American for the wider range of people who have dark skin. There were lots of discussions of Obama, even articles in black-focused magazines, of whether he was really "black" i.e. could he claim to represent the perspectives of folks who had roots in the American south. In that usage "black" is a more specific cultural designation. I have friend who had two neighbors, one a Jamaican immigrant and one with ancestory in the American south who hated eachother. The one would complain to my friend (the white neighbor) that "Jamaicans hate black people" and not blink an eye at the choice of words.

The one thing really awkward about the census terminology is that it means recent immigrants from Africa, whether chocolate hued from sub-Saharan Africa or olive hued and from North Africa, would not be "African-American" though clearly they came from Africa and are now American. It starts to get really silly if someone is say 2 or 3 generations removed from emigrating from Liberia to have to still call them an "African immigrant" but never an "African American".