# Black...Afroamerican...Negro..Asian **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-afroamerican-negro-asian/324974 "2005-10-05T23:56:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-afroamerican-negro-asian/324974/41 "2005-10-07T19:30:48Z")
> [@Foaming Cleanser](#): > > You equate my disagreement about the incorrect usage of the term as ridicule and ignorance, and that by posting here my disagreement with those who misuse it wholesale, I am contributing to ignorance. I’m shocked . . . shocked. My argument against its misuse is not sweeping. It is particular. I dunno. I think it’s pretty silly to make a false claim about what you have posted when we can just scroll up a bit and see the truth. You made no claim that _mis_using the term (outside the U.S.) was ridiculous; you said the term, itself, was ridiculous–a point you have repeated in your last post. If you are being misunderstood, it is because you choose to express yourself poorly. ---
**Author:** ![Foaming\_Cleanser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Foaming\_Cleanser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foaming_Cleanser)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-afroamerican-negro-asian/324974/42 "2005-10-07T20:09:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I dunno. I think it’s pretty silly to make a false claim about what you have posted when we can just scroll up a bit and see the truth. You made no claim that _mis_using the term (outside the U.S.) was ridiculous; you said the term, itself, was ridiculous–a point you have repeated in your last post. If you are being misunderstood, it is because you choose to express yourself poorly. There is no false claim on my part. There is no difference in my argument between any statement I make that African-American is misuse of the term as a synonym for black, and the statement that the term “African-American” is wrong as a synonym for black. You are trying to split a non-existent hair. Feel free to delete “misuse” wherever it occurs. To ensure comprehension — context appears to mean little to you — delete the word “misuse” in your mind, not literally in this thread. Otherwise, if you delete in this thread the word “misuse” in the sentences in which I use the term, the structure of the sentences in which “misuse” appears could be altered, to their detriment, gramatically. Your single-minded devotion to your TRVTH is noted. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-afroamerican-negro-asian/324974/43 "2005-10-07T21:44:18Z")
> [@Foaming Cleanser](#): > > There is no false claim on my part. There is no difference in my argument between any statement I make that African-American is misuse of the term as a synonym for black, and the statement that the term “African-American” is wrong as a synonym for black. You made no _argument_. You simply made an unsupported assertion in insulting terms with no rationale for your particular position. The fact that the term can be (and has been) misused outside the U.S. is hardly an argument to reject its use inside the U.S. (which has been the primary focus of this thread), particularly when you have done nothing to explain why it is less correct than identifying U.S. citizens of Irish descent as Irish-Americans. Your ethnic Dutch immigrants from South Africa would, typically, be identified as _South African_-American.\* People who are recent immigrants generally refer to their _nation_ of origin. The term African-American, by identifying the continent and no particular country, identifies people who were imported before the current nation-states of Africa were established and whose regional and ethnic history was suppressed. - There is, of course, the possibility that the couple might choose to self-identify as Dutch-American in the way that others identify themselves as Welsh-American despite the elimination of Wales as an independent nation many years ago. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-afroamerican-negro-asian/324974.md?page=2)