African American

Post Reply New Topic

Who came up with this 'classification'

Every other 'American' who can trace their ancestry outside the 'Homeland' describes him.herself by country of 'origin' so there are:

Japanese Americans and Chinese Americans (from Asia), there are Italian Americans and Irish Americans (from Europe) etc

Ever heard someone proudly calling himself a European American

Africa is a CONTINENT for ******** sake

For those who would argue that African-Americans may not know their African country of origins............wrong..........

President Obama knows the exactly VILLAGE where his father was born and describes himself as..............yes...............African American

And.............if America is so great..............why can't they just be Americans..........

Other than Canada's (with her alternative French Canadian category) are there any other Western Nations that needs to catalogue its citizens, so obsessively like this.

Perhaps it makes it easier for (fill-in-the-blank) American school kids to learn geography by not having to learn the names of African countries

I heard it was David Dukes who is/was the president of the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK is a racist group that hates black people. It was meant to imply that blacks are not real Americans. It was intended to be derogatory, but for some reason, the politically correct folks took it and made it mainstream.

Interestingly enough, I have personally known several African Americans who were not black in any sense of the imagination. They were white, born in south Africa and then immigrated to the US and became citizens. Hence, they were true African Americans. On the other hand, if having ancestry in Africa qualifies you to call yourself African American, then we are all African Americans because we all have ancestors there.

I wonder if they call black people in England "AfroBrits". Somehow, I don't think so.

I am Irish though.

The British were quite uncomplicated when it comes to citizenship, the last time I was there.

You are either British (a British citizen) or you are not.............NO EXTRA BAGGAGE or politically correct nonsense.

Interesting comments about Duke. I think his group of lunatics was called something like; the American Association for the Advancement of white people

I think he was trying to raise the educational and employment levels of white people in trailer parks...........

For the record, you're not African American if you weren't born in America, that makes no sense. Americans especially are quick to make assumptions like these without realizing that the person may have been born in another country, if you're not sure ask questions or use 'black' instead

People can be 'Black British' or 'British Asian', though usually we just refer to them by their ethnic group - i.e. Asians ('Pakis' in less polite company) or blacks. Most Polish people in the UK do not have UK citizenship in any case so by calling them Poles we are right.

Afro Brits. That's a new one.

Interesting..........if correct............

As in the US...............'Black' people (in the UK) labeled using a different type of identifier than 'others'

He knows that because his father is/was a recent immigrant. Africans who can trace their ancestry to post-slavery immigration can know their country of origin. But those people whose ancestry dates back to slavery's forced immigration have no way of knowing. There are exceptions for black people whose families kept good geneological records that could be cross-matched with slave ship records/slave sales receipts. That worked rather famously for Alex Haley. But that's really the exception. Most black people whose ancestry goes back to slavery have to make do with knowing it was somewhere on the continent. Thus...African American.

It would have been political suicide for Obama to identify too tightly with his father's country of origin. I've met Haitian Americans and Nigerian Americans and so on who call themselves just that, but they didn't run for president. Many black people did not at first accept him (very early in the race) precisely because he didn't have slave heritage and thus not "one of them" in the true sense. Jesse Jackson did a rant on that. It was a big issue at the beginning of the race. When he embraced "African American" and put distance between himself and his Dad's village, it smoothed over some of those intitial identity politics problems.

I think that had he called himself Kenyan-American he wouldn't be president. Republicans invested a lot of energy tying him as tightly as possible to Kenya in order to make him seem less American. Calling himself African-American didn't just give him kinship with the Americans who have slave heritage and were suspicious of him initially because he didn't. (This was very early in the race.) Like you noted, Africa is a large continent with many countries. Identifying with the continent as a generic whole as so many black people in the US do was pretty much the only way for him to come across as truly patriotic. When he called himself African-American, he was just like any other African American. Were he to call himself Kenyan-American, it would have called his patriotism into question with a whole lot of voters of any race.

Forms usually have "White British" and similar and IIRC are couched in terms of "ethnic origin" rather than outright "you're either A race or B race or whatever race."

There is little equivalent in Britain of the American trend of identifying as X-American. People tend to identify by region more than they do by remote origin, and the islands are small and densely populated with a good deal of mixing anyway.

It's a term that became for some reason politically correct, which if you are from Europe you are the pot calling the kettle black if you are bashing America for being PC. Many white people in America are such weenies that they are afraid a black person would be offended by being called black. If that is true that David Duke coined the term "African American" that is absolutely hilarious.

In 5th grade I actually got in trouble for pointing out the fallacy of a chart in a textbook that listed the "African American population in 12th century England."

Quite true. I believe white British people used to refer to Black people as 'colored' which the Black population/community in Britain found marginally less offensive than the 'N' word

I remember a (white) woman in Britain using the term 'colored' to describe someone, so I (Autistically) asked her the color of the person she was referring too. I remember the woman becoming noticeably uncomfortable at the prospect of having to say the word Black



I think it is absolutely hysterical that Dufus Duke would be the one to coin a PC term for 'Black' people.

I also find it incomprehensible that Duke didn't share in the fate of Governor George Wallace. He must have an army of security around him

ps

How does Duke avoid violating American hate Laws?

His website leaves no room for ambiguity

I actually don't like the "- American." It sounds nauseatingly politically correct, something that 'racially sensitive' people use when they don't wish to 'offend.'

As my mother likes to say, "Either you are an American, or you aren't.'
If you have been born in the U.S, there is no need for the Hyphenated-American bit.