Strictly in the interest of promoting the Straight Dope and avoiding errors of fact in these discussions, it should be noted that expressions in the form of “nationality-American” date back to around 1900 and possibly the 19th century. The word “hyphenated-American” dates to 1917 or earlier.
So claims that the usage or the word are some sort “modern day political correctness” is extremely silly.
I haven’t heard “African-American” as much on my local news in the last 8-10 years.
Ever since that Nigerian kid wandered away from the family in South Central he was visiting (IIRC he turned up OK).
All afternoon, the news was providing a bulletin describing this Nigerian native visitor to our country as “African-American”. Put the stupidity of the whole thing into sharp relief, it did.
“African-American” is a synonym for having beaucoup de melanin, and not a particularly flexible synonym, at that.
And what of Blackenstein? Here we are confronted by a man whose constituent parts have been assembled from a variety of sources, which (although similar in skin tone) are individually uncategorizable regarding ethnicity and country of origin! No proposed schematic of racial identity can claim authority if it cannot comprehensively address the problem of Blackenstein.
Some days you just have to jump at the chance to use the phrase “And what of Blackenstein?”
P.S. In order to appreciate this post properly, you have to imagine me dressed in Oxford tweed, seated comfortably in an Edwardian smoking room or similar academically evocative surroundings, unsteepling my fingers and leaning forward intently as I remove my pipe from the corner of my mouth to punctuate my remark by gesturing with the stem.
My Emphasis:
[hijack] I don’t believe that can be the only or prime reason - I know lots of white folk who are still in the ANC. The ANC doesn’t kick anyone out for being White.
Well, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - the mid-1990s or so? I can’t say that we’ve had an in-depth discussion about it, and seeing as he’s living in Taiwan these days, literally on the other side of the planet, and it sounds like the sort of conversation that is too long and messy for e-mail, I may not get the whole story for quite some time. For all I know, it was some crazy story that just happened in his local group and had nothing to do either with his racial background or the ANC at large.
Exactly. My mother is properly Irish (i.e. born there), and I have cousins on her side of the family who I refer to as American and Italian. We refer to ourselves as American, Italian and British, even though we all have Irish passports.
Except for when we call ourselves Irish. National identity is a fluid thing, and quite separate from legal entitlement to citizenship.
I’d call them Jews.
I would say Nigerian-American (or even Nigerian. I’m personally Polish-American, but if someone here in the city asks me “What are you?” or “What’s you’re ethnicity,” I say "100% Polish.) if the link is fairly recent. However, a lot of that is self-description. If the person associates him/herself with African-American culture, that person can call themselves African-American. Many first or second generation African immigrants don’t seem to consider themselves part of African-American culture and don’t self-identify as that, instead using their nation of origin as a reference point.
“African” does still mean “from Africa.” It’s “African-American” that has a more specialized meaning in the American context. Language is not logic, and words can develop meanings that are more than the literal sum of their parts. “African-American” has a somewhat specialized meaning in these sorts of discussions. As to when and why? I believe that’s already been explained in this thread, but I believe it was around the 60s and the reasoning behind it was to give black Americans a point of cultural pride to celebrate. In Chicago, for example, we celebrate our Polish roots, our Irish roots, our Mexican, Puerto-Rican, Lithuanian, Swedish, etc., roots in forms of Polish-American alliances, Irish-American parades, etc. But what did blacks have to celebrate? Descendants of slaves from sub-Sahara Africa didn’t really know where they came from, so the idea was to celebrate African culture as a whole. I believe this idea came somewhere in the 60s, perhaps even early 70s. And, to me, it makes perfect sense and I don’t see it as some sort of namby-pamby political correctness.
I’m not a historian, but this is how I’ve always understood the situation. If anyone a bit better informed can chime in, I’d appreciate it.
I stand under that.
Then you know the answer to your own question.
By that definition, my own sister should be able to call herself African-American 
I once explained her cultural identity to someone else that “she was born the wrong color,” and my sister laughed and agreed (and hey, you’ve seen her wedding photos! That wasn’t exactly a Jewish wedding.)
Yes, I do. Unfortunately, you didn’t understand my question. I’ve not seen a more complicated definition of a term since I tried to read and comprehend Hegel’s definition of “being”. I just don’t think it’s going to catch on outside a small niche. It’s too hard to figure out, and too hard to identify who’s who. I mean, how do you know what to call someone without first knowing not only what specific country they come from, but whether their ancestors were American slaves? (Speaking of which, what do you call the people in Spain who are descended from South American coastal Indians abducted by Amerigo Vespucci?) And besides, it’s too many syllables. “Afro-American” was better, I think.
I don’t necessarily disagree with those points. I do have a broad sense of what “African-American” means, though, culturally and I do think it’s a useful term to describe a certain hodge-podge of cultures that runs through much of black America. But, yes, you’re right in that it is a very loose term. That said, I don’t have much problem understanding what it means in context.
OK, perhaps I should have said if a person of African ancestry identifies themselves as an African-American, and that experience informs their cultural background, then I say they’re African-American.
This is crucial. Compare the usage of ‘Asian’ in America and in Britain.
You face the same problem when dealing with any ethnicity. Hardly any ethnic group is so unique in appearance that you can tell who is what with 100% accuracy. Think about it.
When Star Trek: Voyager premired I read articles that described Tuvok as the first African-American Vulcan!