Well, of course some people don’t like the label that others use to describe them. That’s true of every label. I didn’t think that was in dispute.
I just typed “Obama” and “African-American” into google and that was the second listing that popped up. 
Where you meet these people? I hang around immigrant families all the time and I never get this!
I’m not in a position to control terms – merely to reinterate when I perceive when they’re being misused.
Never tell me the odds, tom.
On the other hand, if it’s true term “African-American” is being adopted by more and more immigrants the only “failure” is the term being exclusively used to describe descendents of black American slaves, not that the term is itself is a failure.
Oh, shut up, John.
Ok, it’s not inaccurate in that the people referred to DO have African anscestry. It’s usually inaccurate (to be really picky) in my view in that said people almost never have an African relative within even three generations. It’s inaccurate by implication because only one subset ever gets the term used for them, and the other groups never do, heavily implying that they are NOT African-Americans.
Actually, the term is used correctly only when describing someone who has dual citizenship with the USA and a country in Africa. It’s meaningless otherwise.
Actually, the term is used correctly only when describing someone who has dual citizenship with the USA and a country in Africa. It’s meaningless otherwise. Except in the world of “political correctness”, where it is priceless.
Askia, I know what you’re saying. I did read it and I get it.
The term has been so widely used that I (the '99 Doper, owner of all the books, college graduate, inveterate debater) had no idea that there was supposed to be this kind of distinction, according to anyone. This is obviously because no one told me, and I’ve always heard the two used interchangably. I honestly thought that Jesse had just found something else to be offended by.
I think Jesse was caught. He wanted a term that meant “Black people in America who have a family history of oppression based on their appearance”. Unfortunately, that’s hard to stuff into a pithy term, and I can see that it’s probably impossible. It still remains that I personally don’t use it because of all the reasons I’ve already stated.
I also don’t much like the term Asian-American, or even sometimes just “Asian”, because it’s been used to discriminate against people. “We have too many people who look vaguely sort of like you in our university. Don’t bother us with the idea that we’re mostly thinking of the Chinese descended students (UC Irvine - “University of Chinese Immigrants”) and you’re Korean/Vietnamese/Japanese and have grandparents who at one time were actively at war with China, we’re just going to lump you all together and tell you to get lost because we think you all look alike”.
The biggest problem I see with using the term “African-American” in place of “black” is that it leaves one without a term for blacks not in America. As an example I’ve mentioned before on the boards, I’ve actually seen educational posters which list Nelson Mandela as a famous and influential African-American.
Which reminds me of the example I had planned on using. The two terms have been used so interchangably that Dan Rather famously forgot and used AA to refer to a Russian in the Winter Olympics.
I’m sorry, but this is funny as all get out. “African-American” is problematic because it doesn’t work with the Nelson Mandelas of the world? Well, it’s not supposed to because that’s not his ethnic identity! :smack:
I think what trips up a lot of folks is that they think AA denoes race instead of ethnicity. By definition, all AA’s are black. But not all blacks are AAs. When I use AA, I use it as Askia defines it: as a way of distinguishing a subset of blacks from the larger pool. Culturally and ethnically, the descendants of American slaves are different from people who voluntarily immigrated to US from Africa.
Charlize Theron is not AA, for the upteenth time. She’s no more an AA than Native American.
Hit submit too soon.
Charlize Theron is not an AA, for the upteenth time. She’s no more an AA than I’m a Native American. It’s not clever to persist in using that term to describe white
Africans. It’s only lame at this point. Lamer than 3) Hi Opal!, even.
Jesse Jackson resurrected the term to provide an equivalence between ethnic groups in the Rust Belt (Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, and similar hyphenated-American groups) and the black community, probably with an understanding that the term would apply, specifically, to the overwhelming majority of black citizens whose ancestors had been imported to the U.S. as slaves. He did not, however, make that specific link clear; he also failed to note that there are sections of the country where “hyphenated-American” is a rarely used term, making the term a bit confusing to places where it was introduced as a neologism.
I’d be curious to know what you think the word actually means, given that Colin Powell is almost universally identified as African-American (in black publications as much as anywhere else) when he clearly does not meet the definition that you appeared to provide, above. What do you think the term conveys to the typical hearer or reader beyond a fairly long term for “black person in the U.S.” How many persons do you think are actually using the term in your specialized manner?
(I know only a handful of black immigrants. The term is not widely used among them (even the four speakers I already noted). I do not recall the specific contexts, but each of them have been in the U.S. since the 1970s, at least.)
Jesse wasn’t caught. The term Afro-American had been around for nearly 90 years, coined by black journalist T. Thomas Fortune and already being changed on the grassroots level to African-American before Jesse Jackson and The Cosby Show popularized it.
Neither do French fries, German chocolate cake, English muffins or Mandarin chicken. Should we abandon those food terms because those names don’t reflect their culinary origins?
Dual citizenship with a country wouldn’t likely involve evoking the name of the whole continent, hypehenated with “American.” Arnold Schwarzeneggar is not a European-American. Most likely there’s some other form of address for this kind of situation. Somebody look up the proper protocol.
I have a simple solution. EVERYONE --stop trying to use the specific ethnic and cultural term, “African-American,” interchangeably with the global racial term, “black.” Try to remember open immigration with blacks from other countries has been going on 50 years now. Quit assuming all black expatriates in American want to be called African-Americans. They don’t. Oh, they want the benefits of affirmative action programs, they just don’t care to call themselves African-Americans to do it. (Most don’t have to – “black” will do.)
It’s not my specialized manner. It’s my observation of what’s happening now. Fact is, most black expatriates do not call themselves African-Americans. Barack Obama seems to have done so publicaly only fairly recently. Powell and Obama are exceptional, too: black American politicians who have, perhaps, a vested interest in being regarded as African Americans by their mostly African American constituents. It’s not like in their cases most people would argue otherwise seeing as they married African-American women, too (well, me and Alan Keyes would argue otherwise, which is a sentence I didn’t think I’d write when I woke up this morning.)
BED, PEOPLE. Gah.
OK, Askia, the term was not entirely founded with Jesse.
I hope this doesn’t put me in the category of stubborn idiots, but I know what you’re talking about, I see your point, and I’m not going to be using the term. I’m convinced that statistically, basically no one knows the original meaning, and instead uses it interchangably with “black”. Since that’s what everyone around me would be thinking of when I used it, I maintain that is essentially what it has come to mean, in a similar manner to “terrific” no longer meaning “horrifying” in common understanding.
If the two terms are commonly thought to be equivalent, then I find the AA term to be inaccurate, for all the reasons I already stated. Yes, I’m being picky. I’m often a picky person. I’m a doper, and a science teacher.
Thank you for the explanations. I will put this in the mental files.
Yeah, well good luck with that. Let us know when you get EVERYONE to agree to your suggestion. 
There are about 40M Blacks in the US. Until African immigrants make up a significant part of that population, people just aren’t going to pay much attention.
At the risk of straying into GD territory… that sounds an awful lot like: *Don’t judge me simply by the color of my skin… accept when it’s advantageous to me to do so. *
It does sound an awful lot like it, because as far as I can tell, it is it. This isn’t a black thing, it’s a people thing. Name a people group that doesn’t have trouble being greedy.
“Hey, I’m not a racist just because I’m white. My color has nothing to do with my character!”
“Hello officer. I guess my speed did get away from me there. I can assure you I won’t be doing it again.” [preen, look harmless]
Never doubt my persuasive skills, John.
People don’t pay attention now to how many black immigrants make up the population. The black diaspora coming to America including and beyond Africa is pretty far flung: the Caribbean, the rest of North America, Central America, South America, North Africa and the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the urban centres of Western Europe and even Black Toyko. As I pointed out with my Canadian example earlier, black expatriates already do make up a significant part of the American population in many urban places here. There were thousands of Somalis in Columbus, OH when I left. But the census doesn’t currently tabulate carefully are those blacks who are native and those who are foreign born. Plus, black Spanish speakers are frequently counted as Hispanic even if they racially self-identify as black. For example, it’s pretty clear to me that Gina Torres, Alfonso Ribeiro, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Irene Cara, Rosario Dawson, do or did self-identify as black, or are regarded as black by society at large. But on the census, they’re probably Hispanic.
The thing about “affirmative actions plans” has a lot less to do with greed and everything to do with with taking fair advantage of an opportunity. It’s when you take unfair advantage by claiming you’re an “African American” when you’re a white Boer from South Africa, or that you’re a black/Native American to get college monies when you have no such family history that I have a problem with. That’s greed.
I remember that incident. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36764
I’m curious, then, about what term you do not find to be inaccurate.
There are few, if any, individuals in the world whose skin color is truly “black.” The range is extremely great, and goes all the way from chocolate, mocha, and café au lait to those who can “pass” for “white.” “Negro” is just another word for “black” and so has the same disqualifications. “Colored” would take care of this particular problem, but it has become a pejorative and the term “people of color” has replaced it. But really who among us, even the most extreme albino, is not “colored?” Many southern Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Indians were routinely referred to as blacks, wogs, or even niggers by high-caste English in the Good Old Days.
But “African-American” has the very specific connotation of one who is an immigrant or the descendants of immigrants from one of the native tribes of sub-Saharan Africa. This is a wonderfully precise and correct characterization. And it precisely parallels the usage of Italian-American or Polish-American or even Asian-American. It is hard to find an example in idiomatic English that is as correct and accurate a term.
So what is your alternative? I suppose you could argue that we shouldn’t use any blanket terminology for large groups of otherwise unrelated individuals, but that is utopian in its irrealism.
I’m not trying to be disparaging, but I just can’t get my head around your objection to African-American on the grounds that it is “inaccurate” without you providing your preferred term and its justification. Could you elucidate?
I don’t disagree with any of that.
I didn’t say it was greed-- I’d call it opportunism, which is what I think you’re saying, too. And I agree that it’s silly for some White guy from South Africa to claim to be an African-American. While technically correct, it does not conform to what the word means to 99% + of the population, so it’s of little use except to confuse.
However, if an immigrant from Africa wants to avail himself of AA programs, he is telling me that he has no problem being judged by nothing other than the color of his skin in some instances. It’s unclear to me why it should be OK in some instances but not in others. It’s also unclear to me that it’s “fair” for him to take advantage of AA programs, although it certainly is legal for him to do so. In some instances, he may be a dirt-poor refugee and feel like he deserves a helping hand, and perhaps he does. In another instance he may be highly educated and with ample monitary means at his disoposal. I don’t think one can generalize.