“African American” means something very precise. If people use it as a “PC” equivalent to “black”, they’re wrong. (Well, if they’re in the US they’re not too wrong, since most American blacks are African American, but still not quite correct.) Doesn’t mean the term is incorrect.
And of course, while the majority of black Americans are ethnically African American, this is not true for black Canadians. (Though there are African American communities in some Canadian cities.)
You have my sincerest, heartfelt apologies for my temerity in re-examining a subject. In the future, I will endeavor to follow your stellar example and never rethink anything ever again.
Medically, the term “African-american” is rather useful. It identifies an ethnic subgrouping of those american people whose ancestors were from select parts of africa, and as a result have a different propensity when taken as a whole to certain diseases, along with certain different responses to standard treatments, when compared to people of general european or asian african ancestry.
Such diagnoses include:
Hypertension, occurring more commonly, and more resistant to treatment with some of the usual firstline medications.
Prostate cancer
Sickle Cell anemia
Hepatitis C treatment response
Degree of renal failure based on standard blood and urine testing (african americans need to have their creatinine clearance calculated differently than other ethnic groups.)
A myriad of other medical conditions where ethnicity plays a role.
So such a designation is quite helpful in determining proper medical care, as long as we see the big picture and remember that ethnicity is not destiny in these matters.
This thread is proof that I know the SDMB like the back of my hand.
You may know the SDMB like the back of your hand, but you don’t know how to post a link for crap! 
I’m dark-skinned American descended from slaves, and I prefer black (never capitalized) to African-American. I’ve been known to use the word “nigger,” generally in the phrase, “Nigger, please.” I’ll die before I write n-w —
Wait, I can’t think of a way to make that last sentence logically true.
I’ve never cared for it either as a racial descriptor. My rule of thumb- which I admit I violate sometimes- is to use black for the race and African-American for the culture: Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston were black, the Harlem Renaissance was an African-American literary movement.
I’ve actually read newspaper articles that referred to Barack Obama’s father as African-American, never mind the fact he was never American by citizenship or by culture. I also saw Surya Bonaly on a list of African-American female athletes once in spite of the fact she’s French (though reading the wiki she did become a U.S. citizen a few years ago… but even so, there’s nothing wrong with saying black if you need to describe her race).
I don’t know if Charlize Theron is an American citizen, but if she is then she’d be African American as well but she wouldn’t have any greater risk for Sickle Cell Anemia than anybody else.
Eh. Just because some people use a term incorrectly doesn’t make the term useless. As for Ms Theron, she would be South African-American. If the descendants of slaves knew which country their ancestors came from, they could be more specific. But they don’t, and so they can’t.
It’s also PC nonsense because it totally ignores the fact that anyone from Ras ben Sakka to Cape Agulhas who migrates to the USA can call themselves African-American. It’s a meaningless term and always has been.
This. Actually, the real problem with the textbook is that they are just assuming that “white” in the study they are referencing = “white” in the population being observed/treated.
It’s useless as a medical descriptor or racial identifier. The English actor Eamonn Walker, Alexandre Dumas, the Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin, Peter Ustinov, Barack Obama, and the soccer players Bruce Djite and Pele do not all share “African-American” ancestry, and some are multiracial and others not, and some identify by their African ancestry and some don’t. If you chose to identify them by the Continent-of-Ancestry/Country-of-birth formula you’d be jumping all over the map, but to say they all have black ancestry works fine. It’s also correct to say they all have African ancestry, but then so do Omar Sharif and Moammar Qadafi’s surviving family, so you’d have to specify “Sub Saharan African ancestry”, but black just works better at conveying the same thing.
I actually wish the word Negro would be reclaimed. To my knowledge it was never officially declared offensive- MLK used it, it’s in the UNCF and other acronyms, and it’s specific to the race rather than the geographic identity. We do still use Caucasian when referring to race. But, c’est la vie.
And you know what? We USAers have to stop calling ourselves Americans, because it ignores everyone in North American (except us), Central America, and South America. It’s a meaningless term and always has been.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on Anti-Semite!
Sampiro: Do you use the same hyper scrutiny for the term homophobe?
While it is indeed a pastime of white people to be offended, it is at least 10x more awful to confuse the terms in medicine (if they’re confusing them… are they?) than in everyday casual talk. Garr!
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Sampiro: Do you use the same hyper scrutiny for the term homophobe?
[/QUOTE]
I apparently don’t use hyper scrutiny on the term hyper scrutiny as you would define it. I’m not that emotional on the subject- I just personally prefer black to African American when referring to the race. I’m not on any committees or trying to lobby Congress or Webster’s Dictionary to change it, just expressing an opinion, and I’m honestly not sure- nor do I care- what has your panties in such a twist on the issue.
Usually when someone starts off a reply with “eh” it indicates anything but panties being in a twist. I do have to admit that I find the Charlize Theron = African-American to be about on the level of a junior high school debate. I’m actually surprised someone as intelligent as you would bring that up.
Anyway, I was just asking a question about why the scrutiny given to the term “African-American”. It’s just a word, and like so many words it doesn’t make sense when you break it down and analyze it. But if you just listen to people using it, which is what language is actually about, it makes plenty of sense. It’s no more confusing that “black” is unless you want to make it confusing. OMG, there are people in India who are blacker than blacks in the US. Shouldn’t Indians be considered to be black, too?
I’ve met whites who are darker than me and some of my black relatives.
OMG THERE ARE WHITE NEGROS!!!
[QUOTE=John Mace]
I do have to admit that I find the Charlize Theron = African-American to be about on the level of a junior high school debate.
[/QUOTE]
Why? Unlike most African-Americans she has actually lived in Africa. (Whoopi Goldberg prefers black for this reason: “I’ve been to Africa, and trust me, I’m American.”)
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Shouldn’t Indians be considered to be black, too?
[/QUOTE]
Indian is a nationality. Those born here I usually refer to as Desi when I refer to their ethnicity at all, sometimes with Desi-Pakistani (like my next door neighbors, born here of Pakistani born parents) or other qualifier if it’s significant.
Shouldn’t all human beings be considered African-American since ultimately all of us have African ancestry?
African-American is a PC construct. I use it, I know what it means, I acknowledge language evolves (fail becoming a noun, gift and sperm becoming verbs, etc.) but personally I consider it silly. Black replaced Negro (same word, different language) and Negro is much closer to what you’re really trying to convey by African-American, which is why I prefer black to Af-Am.
Like most Americans whose ancestors have been here for more than a few generations I’m a genealogical polyglot with mostly western European ancestry but I don’t identify as European. The vast majority of my ancestry is caucasian or white and that’s how I identify (when I feel a need to racially identify) and it’s how others would identify me, so I’m fine with either term, but find European American silly.
I think they prefer Olive-Americans.
Again, lots of terms don’t make literal sense. Do you keep yourself up at night freaking out about how “I ended up eating pizza” doesn’t actually make word-for-word sense?
Without this term, we don’t have a general term for “black Americans descended from slavery, generally descended from specific parts of west Africa and with varying degrees of white American heritage.” Here in DC, we have different kinds of black people like you wouldn’t believe- black Latinos, new African immigrants, people of Koisan or Pygmy descent (who are “black” but not genetically related to most black people), etc. These people are presumably not included in medical studies focusing on African-Americans.
You’re joking, right? They describe British people as Americans?
People, please. The correct term nowadays is mahogany-American.
The fact that something is a nationality doesn’t mean it isn’t other things, too. The term “Indian” had meaning before 1947 despite the fact that it did not describe a nationality.
If I may advise: don’t call anyone “Desi-something” to their faces. At best, they’ll think you’re trying to hard to be hip, and more likely they’ll think you’re kind of stupid (much as you might if somebody called you “Caucasian-Polish” or whatever).
Go with South Asian, or refer to them by their nationality if you know it.
It happens from time to time. The people who use “African-American” tend to do so reflexively.