Catalyst. Since always. The terms employed by whites and blacks to describe the U.S. population of African slaves and their descendents in ethnic terms were historically as follows: African, black, colored, negro, octoroon, quadroon, mulatto, Afro-American, Negro, Black, African-American. (And in some cases, specific black ethnic groups like gullah/geechie or the hybrid Native American/blackSeminole.) For various social and political reasons, racial descriptors were dropped or changed: the people it referred to did not.
Increasingly, we see that black expatriates from other nations who come here for work, study, asylum or to emigrate do not wish to be confused with native blacks here. They do not share the legacy of United States slavery and have their own descriptors: Jamerican, Cuban-Americans, Trinis, Dominicans, Somalians, etc,
Asian-American is a lazy descriptor usually foisted on them by those who can’t tell, at a glance or when exposed to the language, what ethnic group a person of Asian descent belngs to, or by one who wishes to lump all Asian peoples in one monolithic group. The vast majority of Asians here, even those rare few whose family members endured slavery in the 1800s, still know exactly what ethnic group they belong to.
Colibri. Sorry, I am speculating that there may have been the occassional incident of a slave catcher’s kidnapping of a free “colored” minority – like free-born negroes, the Seminole, the original Louisiana Filipinos, and even some hapless poor immigrant whites and Chinese, too – who was then sold into slavery, either in the states or in Mexico. There weren’t that many non-black ethnic groups enslaved in the Americas after the introduction of Africans, true, but it did happen occassionally. That’s why I said “rare, few family members” – who else would know? – but thinking bout it some more I should have made it plain I was just speculating with historical events but not citing specific incidents. You’re right to question me on that, though.
This is a new one to me too. We may need to have a longer discussion about this because you are making some statements as fact, when most of us have never heard of your system.
According to the definition at Dictionary.com, an “African-American” is simply a Black American of African ancestry. A Black American is simply an American with some portion of black blood.
That is the definition that is commonly used and the one that I use. The definition is determined by the way that these terms are commonly used.
Shagnasty. What’s to discuss? Just because it’s new and I’m the one saying it and I can’t find it stated as explicitedly as I do in print doesn’t mean I’m wrong (although I’m sure if dig around in my J.A. Rogers, Andrew Hacker, Zora Neale Hurston and Studs Terkel I’ll find some useful definitions.)
Consider the merits of the facts I’ve already presented.
A handful of people cannot make up new definitions for terms that are already are in heavy political and sociological use and expect everyone else to just disregard the common meanings of the terms and adopt what someone else has dreamt up. You just admitted that you can’t find any supporting evidence online for what you are saying. Are you claiming that if you find a paragraph written by one of the people that you listed, that you are automatically right and everyone on this board his to abide by your new definitions any time we refer to these groups in our posts? Your assertions and lack of citations fall well outside the spirit and standards of this board in this case.
And yet this happens all the time. The newer definitions or terms are usually more precise, but people hang on to the older imprecise terms all the time. Remember when Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasoid was supposedly sufficient to describe everyone on Earth? Remember when homosexuality was a social crime and medical disease? Afro-American was coined in the late nineteenth century and was in limited use; it took damn near a hundred years before it was further refined to African-American and suggested as a new social definition by proponents like Jesse Jackson, Dr. William H. Cosby and Dr. Alvin Poussaint. This doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, only that people who coin new nomenclature are incredibly hopeful and occassionally wildly successful. If people refuse to accept the new nomenclature. fine. If people misuse it, I’ll correct you.
No, I said something about explicitedness and alluded to conciseness, not that I couldn’t find it online or in print at all. Normally this would be the time when I’d link a cite to a site to be helpful, but Google is just as available to you as it is to me I am up late enough as it is.
You’re right, but… So? This would only be a problem for me if I was wrong or had never, ever cited this subject before. I’ve explained stuff like this all over the board the past two or three years when I’m not yammering on in Cafe Society about movies and comics. The information’s there, my observations are accurate, my experiences mirror most people’s who’ve seen and heard what I do regarding black expatriates being called “African-American”, and I am an African-American who is often assumed to be an African immigrant when people see my Songhai name, “Askia.” I know the difference and I’ve given you plenty of information to look it up yourself.
P.S. African, black, colored, negro, octoroon, quadroon, mulatto, Afro-American, Negro, Black, African-American. (And in some cases, specific black ethnic groups like gullah/geechie or the hybrid Native American/black Seminole) and the capitalizations are not a system of mine, but a list of terms describing African slaves and their descendents in roughly chronological order since … well, let’s say Jamestown 1619. (Although if that’s the case, black probably preceded African.)
I tend to agree with Askia. African-Americans are a uniquely American ethnic group, whose ancestry may be in Africa amd Europe, but have been apart for so long that they can easily be defined as seperate. Calling American blacks “African” is like calling the English “Germans” or calling the Australians “British”.
Putting it another way, would you call an American with one parent from Spain “Hispanic”? No, because Hispanics are a Spanish-speaking American ethnic group, not a European one.
Alessen. Uh… the way it was explained to me, the main group, “Hispanic” – which refers to the Spanish language and people of Spain-- has a subset called “Latinos”, who live in the United States. .
Likewise, the main group, “African”, has lots and lots of smaller groups in dozens of countries in Europe, both Americas and the Caribbean islands. One of the larger groups is called “African-Americans,” which has its own subsets of Gullah, Seminole, possibly Creole – also – the growing number of black Americans who also identify themselves as “mixed” and/ or “biracial”. A common description of people in the main group worldwide in many languages is blacks.
Adding to the confusion, hundreds of thousands of Caribbean citizens emigrated to the US in the early part of the 20th century and have been assimilated into and intermarried the larger African-American population, primarily in cities on the East Coast. It’s an interesting immigration pattern I know very little about, and which no one much seems to talk about.
Those people were presumably also descendants of slaves, but not in the US.