Are all African Americans really African?

Factual Questions
181

While I agree that the term “African American”, having been introduced in its current common usage by an unknown group whose mysterious agenda I can still not fully divine, is the kind of nonsense up with which I shall not put (unless the claimant can duly produce a valid, non-expired passport from an African nation), I personally reserve my wrath for worthier foes. A few examples, if I may:

When I venture forth to my local In’N’Out for a well-deserved delicious meal, I cannot help but shake my head at this all-beef-patty on a freshly baked bun that pretends to be a resident of Hamburg - it has no more right to that title than I! When it comes to the side order, I fix the clerk with a steely eye, and more than one has trembled under my stern gaze as I order “a medium portion of starchy legumes cooked in oil, as popularly consumed in Belgium”. After relishing the spectacle of their vacant gaze, confused expression, and stammering requests for clarification, I happily carry away my dinner, knowing that my point has been made.

At my local bakery, I steadfastly pass over the snobbish pastry smugly pretending to be Hamlet’s compatriot, and instead choose the humble and honestly-named doughnut.

German chocolate cake? Turkish delight? Italian sausage? Surely the people trying to fob these inaccurately-named confections on me do not imagine that I am fooled for one instant into believing that they were imported at great expense from over the seven seas, especially when I have seen the barista assemble the ingredients for the Viennese coffee himself, in front of my very eyes?

And the person who ventures to use in my presence this most obnoxious term, “Swiss steak”, will rue the day those words ever passed his lips.

182

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
While I agree that the term “African American”, having been introduced in its current common usage by an unknown group whose mysterious agenda I can still not fully divine, is the kind of nonsense up with which I shall not put (unless the claimant can duly produce a valid, non-expired passport from an African nation),
[/QUOTE]

You know, the evidence that the term doesn’t mean anything like what you’re suggesting here - and that none of those hybrid “Ethnic-American” terms do, has already been cited in this thread.

What is this impulse that leads people to simply ignore rational argument as though it hadn’t been brought forth at all and continue repeating themselves? It’s not something I understand at all.

183

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
You know, the evidence that the term doesn’t mean anything like what you’re suggesting here - and that none of those hybrid “Ethnic-American” terms do, has already been cited in this thread.

What is this impulse that leads people to simply ignore rational argument as though it hadn’t been brought forth at all and continue repeating themselves? It’s not something I understand at all.
[/QUOTE]

I think Arnold’s post was tongue in cheek.

-Kris

184

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
What is this impulse that leads people to simply ignore rational argument as though it hadn’t been brought forth at all and continue repeating themselves? It’s not something I understand at all.
[/QUOTE]
So you keep writing. :slight_smile:

185

[QUOTE=Askia]
Cardinal. I implied states like Hawaii and Alazka and commonwealths like Puerto Rico when I said “.. and (some) territories.” I suppose it could have been phrased better. I always figured with the Revolution comes Hawaii and Alaska will be all, “America, who?”

Frylock. African-American, as I have been repeating now past boredom and beyond ennui and to the point where it now threatens to become my own divine mantra, is not a *racial * descriptor but an *ethnic * one. The dude writing that article, like many literal minded academics I used to hang with, misses the point, too. I’ll bet you anything that free-drinking collection of free-thinkers probably don’t even drink with a brother in the group discussing it. I of course disagree profoundly with the notion that the question can not be resolved. I’m just waiting for you bastards to shelve your massive egos and agree with me. Me. ME!! :smiley:
[/QUOTE]

The point of the passage he quoted is preserved, I think, when “racial descriptor” is replaced by “ethnic descriptor.”

As to whether the question can be resolved, I guess I think it sure can. I suggest we have a list of terms in one pile, a list of definitions in another pile, and one by one, randomly match a term to a definition. If there is more of one or the other, then just start indexing them. Cat1, cat2, and so on. African-American1, African-American2, and so on.

And by prior agreement, we proceed then to resolve to use those terms in just that way compatible with the definitions we so assigned them.

:slight_smile:

I have some general ideas how you might want to respond to this idea–that is, if you want to respond to it, of course. But I think are in a better position to articulate these ideas than I am, so I’ll let you do it.

-Kris

186

Some factual questions. (Last one’s a little on the border between factual and–whatever the opposite of factual is in this context.)

By whom and under what circumstances was the term “African American” coined, and what was its intended definition?

What is the present legal definition of “African American” under federal law, if any? Under other laws?

The term may be used to refer differently by different people. Which people use the term which ways? Is there a good argument to be made, in any of these groups’ cases, that they are in any important way “mistaken” in their beliefs about how the term ought to be used? (Here’s what I have in mind. There are alot of people who say “For all intensive purposes” where I would say “for all intents and purposes.” Now, we could just say there’s the “intensive” language community and the “intents” language community, and leave it at that. But I think it’s clear there’s more to say. While Bob may actually use “intensive,” he thinks he’s using the same term that has historically been used by those who, for example, generated the language which is supposed to set the standard used by anchormen (and women) on TV. He’s incorrect in this belief. And if someone corrected his belief, he’d change his usage. His usage is, by his own rights, incorrect, though he doesn’t know it. So I’m asking with this question, are there usages of “African American” which are like the “intensive” usage I just described? Usages where there is a good reason to think that the people enacting that usage are in some way wrong by their own lights despite the fact that they have this usage in their competency? That was hard. I hope I’ve described what I’m after sufficiently.)

-Kris

187

Amazing. This has got to be the longest time a debate has gone on in GQ without being moved to Great Debates.

188

[QUOTE=Johanna]
Amazing. This has got to be the longest time a debate has gone on in GQ without being moved to Great Debates.
[/QUOTE]

Don’t give the mods any crazy ideas! :slight_smile:

Frylock: There is a difference between a term which is mispronounced, but then comes into common usage (like nukyular) and a somewhat-vague-to-begin-with term like African-American which enters into the lexicon and then changes meaning over time. While it may have been intened by some people to be defined the way **Askia *defines it, it’s clear that that isn’t the way many people use it today. I’ve offered plenty of cites to back up my position, whereas those offering another position have not brought even one cite to the table to back up there position.

And while I think a reasonable argument can be made that a recent African immigrant shouldn’t be called an African-American, it’s silly to suggest that their children should not be-- witness one Barack Obama. I like what the wkikpedia article says (emphasis added):

*Askia: those cites you brought up earlier concerning the use of A-A in a scientific context support my position, not yours. Because the term does not clearly define what scientist would consider an “ethnic group”, it’s of little use to them.

189

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I like what the wkikpedia article says (emphasis added):
[/QUOTE]

Notice the use of the word “assumption”.

190

[QUOTE=John Mace]
*Askia: those cites you brought up earlier concerning the use of A-A in a scientific context support my position, not yours. Because the term does not clearly define what scientist would consider an “ethnic group”, it’s of little use to them.
[/QUOTE]
No, they cite both our positions, John; They recognize the imprecision that results when you conflate racial terminology with ethnic terms, so they urge narrower, more focused ethnic/geographic precision in assigning ethnic terms to various black groups in America, like African-American, African-Cuban, African-Caribbean, etc. if it bears any significance the on scientific data. Black immigrant ethnic groups largely already use those ethnic descriptors proposed, which neatly dovetails into my earlier point: not every African in America is an African-American. Not every African in America is necessarily black. Nor do these folks adopt the term for themselves. They use separate names, they have their own identities.

Please show me where these groups are, en masse, calling themselves African-Americans instead of say, simply Ethiopians or Somalis or Ethiopian-Americans and Somali-Americans, and I’ll recant what I’ve been saying. This is the third time I believe I’ve made that offer, and nobody’s proven me wrong yet by citing that.

Outsiders misapply the term, just as folks outside the Latter Day Saints church continually misapply the word Mormon to mean all believers in the Book of Mormon when, technically, only Brigham Young’s followers in the larger church have the rights to that name.

191

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Don’t give the mods any crazy ideas! :slight_smile:

Frylock: There is a difference between a term which is mispronounced, but then comes into common usage (like nukyular) and a somewhat-vague-to-begin-with term like African-American which enters into the lexicon and then changes meaning over time. While it may have been intened by some people to be defined the way **Askia *defines it, it’s clear that that isn’t the way many people use it today. I’ve offered plenty of cites to back up my position, whereas those offering another position have not brought even one cite to the table to back up there position.

And while I think a reasonable argument can be made that a recent African immigrant shouldn’t be called an African-American, it’s silly to suggest that their children should not be-- witness one Barack Obama.
[/QUOTE]

Yet I can see why someone might argue that, since Obama doesn’t know what it’s like to be a descendant of slaves, to have parents who are descendents of slaves, and to have an entire cultural history which has a theme in descendency from slaves, it is illegitimate to attach him to that culture which does have this experiential knowledge.

If an argument can be made that “African American” should be used to apply to those with such experiential knowledge, then I think the kind of position Askia is taking has substantial merit. (I say this without having followed this thread closely, but I think I have the gist of the various positions in it.)

If it is silly to say the term “should” be used this way or that way, and if the only question is what are the various groups that need to be distinguished and how many terms can we pull out of our asses in order to make that distinction, then Askia’s position has less merit.

My own feeling is: If everyone would chill out about stuff like this, we could just draw terms and definitions out of a hat at random and agree to use them accordingly.

But that’s a huge “if.” And given that it’s a huge “if,” it looks to me like Askia’s kind of position, however theoretically unnecessary its conclusion may be, still might amount to a practical necessity.

-FrL-

192

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Notice the use of the word “assumption”.
[/QUOTE]

So? What does that have to do with the way a term is used? Surely you’re not suggesting that if a term is generally used to mean “X” that the term doesn’t mean “X”, (regardless of any assumptions being made). Like I said earlier, we can ask a lot of different questions that would have different answers, but when we ask what the term “Afrian-American” means, we need to look at how the term is actually used. I have yet to see a cite that indicates the definition I’m proposing is a minority view (pardon the pun).

Askia: I doesn’t matter what those cites “urge”, since I’m not talking about how the term should be used, only about how the term actually is used in the common vernacular of the country. Common vernacular terms are often terrible terms to use in a scientific contex, but that doesn’t necessarily change the way people actually do use them. I’ve already said that I can see the value in having a term that means what you want A-A to mean, but whether we like it or not, that’s not the way that term is commonly used, even if a subset of the country does use it the way you indicate. All that means is that it takes on different meanings in different contexts, but what word doesn’t?

193

Frylock. My nitpicking has nothing to do with any experiential knowledge. It’s usually more a reaction hearing this very casual dismissal of a person’s immediate ancestry.

For example: one of the earliest black leaders in America is W.E.B. DuBois. But W.E.B. DuBois was not descendent of black American slaves! Like Barack Obama, DuBois’ mother was white, his absentee father was a black expatriate living here when they met and married (in DuBois’ case, Haitian), he grew up not really being closely knowing many blacks, then went on to Ivy League schools, and shortly began working with African-Americans on a grassroots and sociopolitical level. Additionally, W.E.B. DuBois went on to become one the greatest scholars on black history of the 20th century. Like Obama, DuBois married African-American women, distinguished himself early as a leader of his people and was an eloquent speaker.

No one’s going to question for one minute anyone’s ethnic identity to a group they’re THAT aligned with, least of all me. But it’s incorrect to make that assumption to masses of black immigrants.

Interesting reading:

http://oriole.umd.edu/~mddlmddl/791/communities/html/africanmd.html

Talks about African immigration in the modern era.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-05/2005-05-02-voa50.cfm

Uses, once, the phrase, “African-American immigrants” to distinguish them from American born blacks but since their use of the phrase probably includes Afro-Caribbeans, too, it’s still not quite correct. I kind of wonder if this and the article’s title are editorial changes rather than reflections of the wishes of the reporter. Anyway – gives good information about the dispersement of various black immigrant groups in this country.

194

[QUOTE=John Mace]
All that means is that it takes on different meanings in different contexts, but what word doesn’t?
[/QUOTE]
Ethnic terminology, like all proper nouns, are supposed to be precise and less fixed and nonfluid in meaning in contrast to regular words. They can become obsolete and replaced, sure, just not so fluxed in meaning. The problem is that people insist on treating African-American as a synonym for black (or even Black), it gets its meanings racially conflated.

195

[QUOTE=John Mace]
So? What does that have to do with the way a term is used? Surely you’re not suggesting that if a term is generally used to mean “X” that the term doesn’t mean “X”, (regardless of any assumptions being made). Like I said earlier, we can ask a lot of different questions that would have different answers, but when we ask what the term “Afrian-American” means, we need to look at how the term is actually used. I have yet to see a cite that indicates the definition I’m proposing is a minority view (pardon the pun).
[/QUOTE]

The very wording of the article says that most Americans assume that all black people are African-Americans, which means that the article is implicitly making exactly the distinction that Askia is talking about. There’s no other explanation that would make the word “assumption” make any sense in that context.

196

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
The very wording of the article says that most Americans assume that all black people are African-Americans, which means that the article is implicitly making exactly the distinction that Askia is talking about. There’s no other explanation that would make the word “assumption” make any sense in that context.
[/QUOTE]

Read the first two sentences in the wiki quote, with an empahsis on the 2nd. I don’t see how you can say there is no other explanation since the “other” explanation is written there in plain English.

197

[QUOTE=Frylock]
By whom and under what circumstances was the term “African American” coined, and what was its intended definition?
[/quote]
T. Thomas Fortune, ex-slave, coined the ethnic phrase Afro-American to replace colored and Negro, back in the 1880s. He intended it for blacks born in the U.S. who could trace their ancestry to Africa. He said, “We Negroes are from Africa and we are also Americans.” From his perspective maybe some 20 years after the Civil War, pre-voluntary immigration, that meant almost everybody black person in the United States who had not fled to Canada or Mexico. But having never been confronted with expatriate blacks, the term was certainly not meant for them and from what I can tell not later many used it. More proof? Marcus Garvey, the great racial Pan-Africanist, never uses the term Afro-American to refer to himself.

I do not believe “African-American” is explicitedly defined by law, although I will happy if someone corrects me. African American is currently identifed by American conventional usage, including the one drop rule, with broad racial and ethnic connotations. The 2000 census uses the term African-American both as a racial descriptor and ethnic descriptor, as do government agencies like the EEOC. This 2004 recommendation to The Census Advisory Committee on the African American Population makes several of the same recommendations I’ve been saying for years now: allow black expatriate groups their own identities.

198

Makes me wonder what the “cultural assumption” becomes when the person is ESL. Does the inclusion of the language variable have more to do with looking less American? Or does it have more to do with looking less specifically like the tribe of Americans who descend from slaves?

199

[QUOTE=Askia]

Please show me where these groups are, en masse, calling themselves African-Americans instead of say, simply Ethiopians or Somalis or Ethiopian-Americans and Somali-Americans, and I’ll recant what I’ve been saying. This is the third time I believe I’ve made that offer, and nobody’s proven me wrong yet by citing that.

.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t have to, as my point is that “you are what you say you are” (within reasonable limitations, of course). We linked you to Sen Obama, who you would not define as an “African-American” but clearly does so self-identify. Thus, my position is that Sen. Obama is correct when he identifies himself as “African-American”, not that the great mass of recent African immigrants are doing so. But if they *did * choose to do so, that’d be fine with me.

200

The assumption is just an assumption. “Culture” doesn’t factor into it; if it did, fewer people would make that mistake of assuming all blacks in the U.S. are African-Americans.

I dunno. Maybe people need to get out more.