It seems, based on this thread that, as an American with much Hebraic blood flowing in my veins, I could argue that my ancestors, according to our most holy texts, were inhabitants of Africa at some point in the distant past. Admittedly, it was the northeasternmost part of Africa, and they were wandering through the deserts (and working on the pyramids) for the briefest of time, geneologically speaking, and on the flimsiest of evidence (that Exodus says so), but if I wished to make that claim, would it be recognized by anyone? Should it be? Has anyone tried making that claim? If so, were they jerks to do so?
Well for example Charlize Theron is undoubtedly African-American, but I don’t know if she goes around saying so.
There are DNA test companies which specialize in searching for Native American and African American ancestry. You could always have your DNA checked if you really wanted to know.
As for claiming your ethnic heritage, I guess it would depend on why, If you’re proud of it and want to share that discovery with others, I see no problem, but if you’re trying to* exploit *it to get government grants and the like, I’d say it’s probably a pretty crappy thing to do.
What would make her American? She isn’t. She’s just white.
I’m pretty sure a DNA test would show generation upon generation of pure European Jewish ancestors (with the occasional Cossack rapist thrown in for variety’s sake). But I wonder if standards for government funding, eligibility for scholarships, loans, etc. has ever been tested by anyone like me or Charlize Theron) .
Is “African-American” just shorthand for something that is actually rigorously defined, or could ludicrous arguments such as I propose (that my people’s Holy Book claims that the Jews inhabited Africa at the dawn of recorded history) make inroads into the technical definition?
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As has been noted in nearly all of the interminable threads on this topic, a term or phrase is not limited to the meanings of its component parts. African-American is a specific term coined to refer to people whose ancestors were brought to the United States* as slaves. The term has a definitional meaning irrespective of the words from which it is formed. A butterfly is not a member of the Family Diptera than is made up of butter. African-American has never meant any citizen of the U.S. who happens to have lived in or immigrated from Africa; it has always meant the specific group whose ancestors were brought here as slaves.
Dancing around trying to put Charlize Theron or any American descendants of Moammar Ghadafi into the “African-American” category is nothing more than word games.
- There is a minor disagreement as to whether a person whose distant ancestors were brought as slaves to the Caribbean and whose more recent ancestors arrived from those intermediate places is still African-American, but that is quibbling within quibbles for the purpose of this discussion.
I agree as to the intent of the term “African-American,” Tom, I’m mostly just wondering how far that intent has been probed successfully. Do the organizations that use the term in their formal funding descriptions actually define it as you say, or is it more a common-sense, don’t-be-a-jerk kind of thing? Do such organizations ever ask for DNA samples? If so, how pure do they have to be? If not, could a white person ( a Moroccan, say) whose family has lived in Africa for many generations successfully apply for A-A funding?
I would think this sort of thing has been tried at some point, but has any of their reasoning processes been successful? Do they just get summarily rejected? Is the rejection pretty much"You know goddamn well that’s not what we meant by ‘African-American’!" or is it more nuanced than that? Would a Nigerian who immigrated to the US in the 1990s (obviously well after slavery ended) be eligible for A-A funding that Ms Theron (who for the purposes of this discussion is a US citizen) wouldn’t be? Why?
I’d be really interested to know the answer to this as well: one of my strongest students right now is the daughter of a Nigerian citien and an Anglo American citizen. Considering that she had the highest PSAT score in the school both as a freshman and as a sophmore (higher than several students who did Nation Merit finalists), she’s bound to qualify on points for The National Achievement Scholarship Program–but their website doesn’t make it clear whether or not she is a “black American”–though they do have a citizenship or residency requirement, which implies that she might.
In fact, we have lots of kids who are African refugees. They always mark “African American” on their forms–there is no “black” or “African”-- and that is how they are enrolled into the school system. On the district level we’ve never made any kind of distinction regarding someone’s ancestry.
But that thread clearly demostrated that there is no physcial evidence that the early Hebrews were in Egypt at all. And since Egptian-Americans are never referred to as African-American anyway, I don’t see what you’re point is. If we go back long enough, we all have African ancestry. So, the only thing that you’re claiming to be A-A would do would be to make the term utterly meaningless. Then we’d have to invent a new term for what we generally call African-Americans today. What would be the point of that?
Why can’t we just call them Americans? That’s a pretty good term.
Do you suppose that “African-American” will ever become meaningless on its own?
You’re applying a strict logic to a situation whose logic I’m questioning.
Of course in my own example the application is absurdly tenuous. So how would my tenuous claim get rejected? “We don’t recognize Egypt as a part of Africa”?" “We don’t recognize the validity of Exodus as a historical document?” “We’re only discussing people of African descent in the years between 1700-1870”? All of that? None of it? I’m asking a question, I suppose, that needs some data about strict definitions, and then I’m asking how those definitions get applied, and then I’m asking is it right that these definitions get applied so loosely (if they are) or that there’s no effective definition at all? It just seems strange that we would apply a rule about funding with such “We know what it is when we see it” kind of rules, if that’s the case, and even stranger if there are no rules at all.
I was on the EEO commitee for the Gov’t. There was no “legal” definition of any “race” except Native America- and that definition is set by the Tribe. In that government usage, “African American” was = Black.
At no time was anyones “slave ancestry” brought up, nor in fact was anyones claim to be whatever challenged- except Native American. Although I have no reason to doubt that tomndebb is right and that A-A was coined for just that reason, now it’s meaning has morphed into :
“A Black American of African ancestry” with no mention at all of slave ancestry.
Words and phrases change meaning over time, like it or no.
Back to the OP- it *seems * that you can claim pretty much what you want. No one is going to ask you for a DNA test or to show your genealogy (and a DNA test can’t really prove anything anyway, there’s no “african-american” gene). If you’re Nordic and blonde, dudes are going to give you the :dubious: , but if you have even brownish skin, dudes will assume you’re just part “black” and let it go at that. Remember for years 1/8th “black”= “black” and some of those people were/are pretty damn fair skinned, etc.
As to **John Mace’s ** good point that your claim would make the term “African American” meaningless- so did the “one drop rule” :rolleyes: IMHO. Amd as far as that goes (other than perhaps “Native American” for some things) the quicker we make all such racial terms meaningless- the better as far as I am concerned. “Race” is more or less a meaningless construct based upon racist ideas anyway, IMHO.
So governmental megabux are distributed on the honor system? Very interesting. Where I work (English dep’t of a university) qualified black people are very rare, and much sought after. I wonder what we would do, what with the University putting us under intense pressure to hire a black professor constantly (it comes up in some form or other whenever there’s a vacancy) if a lily-white fellow showed up, perfectly qualified, and simply said “Yes, I’m black.” If we didn’t hire him because he didn’t look, seem, talk, think, whatever sufficiently blakck to us, I wonder if we’d then be subject to some kind of weird discrimination suit. OTOH, if we hired him or her, would such a person be effective in the least in convincing people (mainly, A-A students) that we and he hadn’t just pulled off a tremendous scam?
pseudotriton ruber ruber writes:
> It seems, based on this thread that, as an American with much Hebraic blood
> flowing in my veins, I could argue that my ancestors, according to our most holy
> texts, were inhabitants of Africa at some point in the distant past.
The ancestors of all human beings lived in Africa. That means, by the same logic, that all Americans are African-Americans. If you quibble with any term enough, you can expand its meaning to any degree you like.
Then what’s this all about? This site claims that it can discover if you have African (along with Jewish or Native American) ancestry through DNA tests.
I had considered getting some of them done. I found the site through the National Geographic Genographic project, so I assumed they must be legit. What gives?
Wendell, that’s what I’m asking about–where’s the cutoff? Is there no cutoff? Are we really dealing with “You know damn well who we mean” logic?
They can give a good guess, sure. If you have the sickle-cell gene, it is probable that you are descended from subsaharan african tribes. If you have that odd gene (Saks-taybach??) then it is probable that you have Jewish ancestry. But few today are “pure” (if that term means anything :dubious: ). There is no one “black” gene, or one “african” gene that if you have it, you’re black and if you don’t you’re not. If you aren’t of “Hienz 57” ancestry, then they can give you a pretty good clue or estimate, sure, it’s hardly worthless- but not 100% conclusive.
Ward Churchill claims to be a Cherokee Indian although he hasn’t got a scrap of documentation to back up his claims to Cherokee ancestry. He has used this claim to get himself a cushy job teaching at a university. If he can get away with it, why can’t you?
pseudotriton ruber ruber writes:
> Wendell, that’s what I’m asking about–where’s the cutoff? Is there no cutoff?
> Are we really dealing with “You know damn well who we mean” logic?
Essentially we are dealing with “You know damn well who we mean” logic. If you insist on a cut-off, let’s take the year 1500 to be the cut-off. If your ancestors were living in sub-Saharan Africa in 1500 and you’re now an American, you’re almost certainly an African-American. Actually, what it mostly means is that if you appear to be mostly sub-Saharan African in ancestry, then you’re an African-American. If you happen to have ancestry from southern India or Australian aboriginal ancestry, you might initially be assumed to be African-American by many Americans. In that case, if you told such people where your ancestors came from, they would then say, “Oh, I guess you’re not African-American then.”
But what are the legal consequences of all this? If someone got a job or a promotion or some other benefit by claiming to be African-American, how do you prove or disprove the claim? I note that I have several Cherokee ancestors, and unlike Ward Churchill I’ve got the papers to prove it. Can I suddenly just start claiming to be Indian? If I start checking Native American on job applications and the like, could I be setting myself up for legal trouble?
Are there any legal definitions for African-American, Native American and so forth?