Nevertheless, the senator’s adopted ethnicity and his immediate ancestry are two distinct things.
I’m puzzled by your refusal to find a cite for masses of non-American black immigrants calling themselves African-Americans. Surely if this were “correct”, surely if this was an actual grassroots phenomenon, there would be ample evidence of this on the internet. Shoot: look for second and third generation Haitians doing this. Knock yourself out. Good luck.
This is the fourth time I am requesting this cite to anyone wishing to take up the challenge of proving definitively I am wrong. I will throw in “bragging rights.”
Why should I? At no time have I proposed that “masses of non-American black immigrants are calling themselves African-Americans”. I have simply said that if any one such individual wishes to call *himself * an “African-American” I am fine with that. Ihave shown you one such individual, all I am saying is that as far as I am concerned the Senator is correct when he wants to call himself a African-American. If a recent immigrant from Haiti wants to call himself a “Haitian-American”- I am good with that, if he prefers “Black”- fine, if he likes “African-American”- fine also, or even “decline to state”. (Ok, if he tries “Innuit” there might be an issue, sure).
It was assumed she was black, not African-American. Most government agencies don’t bother to distinguish the two – even the Census is slow to change and they’re supposed to deal with these immigrant populations. This is the danger of assumptions when you’re not actually required to provide documentation or proof of anything. You and I both know that when it comes to racial discrimination cases there’s not a lot of difference between black, biracial, Trini and African-American, but when you look at ethnicity, genelogy or ancestry, there’s a world of difference. This is the danger of conflating terms that are proper nouns.
African-American is designation that can only be “proven” by ancestry. Black is not. Black is very, very, very broad. This girl is black. I mean, I raise my eyebrow and go, “whatever” but if growing up with Lionel Richie doesn’t make you at least culturally black, I don’t know what will do it. But can she legitimately claim to be African-American? Hell, no. Okay, maybe if she’s crazy enough to marry Lil Jon…
My comment was based on the political correctness aspect of the term when ued to denote origin. I used to work with a black lady who made a comment that stuck with me. She hates to be called African-American. She pointed out that it is ravingly stupid to call her, and others like her, African-American when she’s got five generations of her family born and raised in the USA. If you have to refer to her color, call her black and let it go at that.
I happen to agree with her. That would be like calling me a European-American because my great-manytimes-grandfather came over on the Mayflower. Or calling a person born in Jamaica an African-American because one ancestor, several generations before, came from Africa. It’s ridiculous. But it is politically correct, therefore it’s in the dictionary.
Now, if we remove the political correctness and stupidity (sorry, redundancy there) from it, what we have left is a term that refers to citizenship. If the person was born in Africa, they are African. If they were born in America, they are American. The only way to correctly join the two is - as I said - when you are referring to someone with dual citizenship. That is the only usage that makes sense.
So you met someone once who doesn’t like the term.
Wow. I’m amazed.
Incidentally, I’m not sure why you think that has even the faintest bearing on what the term actually means. It doesn’t.
I see you don’t know anything about lexicography. You’re under the impression that this imagined politically-correct conspiracy is reaching its claws into the dictionary and forcing those poor folks at Webster’s to do their wicked bidding? Imagine it. “No, George! Don’t put the correct definition in! The Political Correctness Police will take you away! We never even found the bodies of the last people they took!” Then maybe Noah Webster’s ghost flies out of the ground and an epic battle ensues! Somebody wanna option this? Great ideas at work here, folks!
But anyway . . . take a look in a dictionary. What politically incorrect words are in there? Mine has “cunt”, “kike”, “nigger”, “faggot”, “spic” and “wop”. And dozens of others, no doubt. Oh noes! Now that I’ve said something, the political correctness police are going to come and cut those words out of all of our dictionaries!
At any rate, there goes your claim.
I’m sure you thought you were making some sort of point here, but you didn’t succeed at it.
Ahh! But that’s entirely untrue. Because, as has already been explained, compound words do not necessarily mean the same thing as either of their component parts. In fact, they rarely do. You’re resting your claims on the idea that they do, but you have put forth no argument to explain why you think that’s the case. And why, if “African-American” means the same thing as “African” and “American”, does “darkroom” not mean the same thing as “dark” and “room”? I turn off the lights at night, but it doesn’t mean I sleep in a darkroom. So, since this line of reasoning is clearly fallacious in every other circumstance, why does it uniquely work in this case, Clothahump?
And as we’ve already discussed, the only rational way to decide on the meaning of a term - and this is the standard used in writing dictionaries, your paranoid fantasies aside - is to examine what people use the term to mean. Which is exactly why it makes no sense to conclude that the term “African-American” has anything to do with dual citizenship. Nor are any of the comparable terms. You might want them to mean something other than what they actually do. But that doesn’t change anything.
Sorry, Clothahump, I know it hurts, but the facts don’t support your beliefs. Saying the same things over and over when they’ve already been proven wrong doesn’t work. It just shows that your viewpoints are not based on any sort of rationality but rather on your own kneejerk preconceptions. Since all these things have been stated already, and since you haven’t successfully countered any of them, it’s obvious that you’re not even interested in the truth. Which makes your participation in a GQ thread rather inappropriate.
Clothahump. You’re just making another argument for how “Literal meanings are the best and make the most sense!”
If you’re calling her African-American while actually referring to her color, you ARE being stupid and redundant. But that’s not how the term is supposed to be used. It would annoy me, too. (It has annoyed me.)
All African-Americans are black. Not all blacks are African-American.
You’re giving him way too much credit here. As has been thoroughly demonstrated throughout the thread, there is no standard under which the “literal meaning” of the term in any way approaches what he describes. He’s making an argument for “All words mean what I say, no matter what.” That’s the closest you can come to formulating his argument as some sort of principle.
Are you serious in saying that NR isn’t allowed into the club even if she wants to self-identify as A-A? I have no idea what her ancestry is, but I believe she’s at least part Black (isn’t she?), and many, many African-Americans could look like that picture with some time at the hair stylist and some tinted contact lenses (or maybe even without the contact lenses). Does blonde streaks, light skin, and green eyes automatically get you ejected form the club? Come on…
You might was well kick out Halle Berry and Vanessa Williams while you’re at it. (Why am I always reminded of Dave Chapelle’s “racial draft” skit when this topic comes up. Hey, if you don’t want those ladies, we’ll take 'em anytime. Not Nicole, necessarily, but the other two for sure!!!)
Nicole Ritchie was adopted. I’m not sure of her ancestry, but while it’s not inconceivable that she’s at least partially of Subsaharan African descent, I don’t know of any evidence that she is. The question of whether being adopted into an ethnicity makes you fully part of it isn’t necessarily a simple one. I’m not terribly hung up on genetics, but I’m not sure whether I’d agree that, say, a Chinese kid adopted into an Italian-American family counts as “Italian” without a caveat.
Besides, why the hatin’ on Nicole? She’s reasonably cute, and in the few interviews I’ve heard with her, she’s actually remarkably intelligent and rather witty. She has always struck me as being rather a stark contrast to her pal Paris.
I can’t stop her from self-identifying. I only agree with the likely consensus she’s not. Only by extreme adherence to “the one drop rule” have I even brought her up as an example as someone black. She most certainly is not African-American.
Unlike W.E.B. DuBois, Mariah Carey and Thurgood Marshall, who are basically some white-looking people, the fact that they have a lot to do with aspects of African-American culture helps them be perceived as being not just black, but distinctly African-American. Just as Haitian Jean Dominique, had he lived in the states, would be considered black. He just would not be thought of reasonably as African-American.
At no time have I proposed that “masses of non-American black immigrants are calling themselves African-Americans”. I have simply said that if any one such individual wishes to call *himself * an “African-American” I am fine with that. Ihave shown you one such individual, all I am saying is that as far as I am concerned the Senator is correct when he wants to call himself a African-American. If a recent immigrant from Haiti wants to call himself a “Haitian-American”- I am good with that, if he prefers “Black”- fine, if he likes “African-American”- fine also, or even “decline to state”. (Ok, if he tries “Innuit” there might be an issue, sure).
