For me class has a lot to do with it since I am looking at it from a class perspective.
Let’s put it this way then: he’s a first generation African American
This issue has zero emotional value for me but I get the feeling it has for you. I’m saying this to make it easier for you to understand what I am saying. It’s just a discussion to me, not an argument.
How can my perspective be irrelevant only because I am not american?
You ask if Obama is an AA. Class has never had anything to do with the answer to that question. I’m not sure why you are injecting that into the debate. You may look at it from a class perspective, but I don’t know of anyone else who does.
Can’t argue wit that.
Nope. Zero emotional value for me.
Actually, it’s a debate-- closer to an argument than a discussion. Discussions are held in other forums.
If you make a statement in GD, you’re expected to back it up with some reasoning or evidence. If it’s just an opinion, then fine. I’m not going to debate with someone over his opinion.
Because you don’t vote in US elections. American’s vote in US elections, and we (except for a few who are deluded, IMHO) think he’s African American. See?
Why does class have ANYTHING to do with it? There are lots of rich and middle class blacks in the US, contrary to what seems to be popular European opinion. We no longer have them out in the fields picking cotton and singing songs…that’s mainly left to my own people these days.
Put it another way…I’m a fairly wealthy fellow now. I can’t trace my own family back more than 2 generations, which means I have no idea what they were doing (besides procreating) during the slavery days. Does that mean I’m not Hispanic? Why or why not?
Yeah…and? I’m first generation Hispanic American. Does that not mean I’m a Hispanic American?
-XT
I’ve always thought that if the Republicans really wanted to get the Democrats’ goat, they should go around referring to Obama as a white man exclusively, since he’s as white as he is black.
“What are you talking about? He’s a white man.”
Do you pigeonhole people of foreign descent in your country from a class perspective?
“That guy’s poor. He’s a Turk.”
Seemingly more like ‘That guy is not a Turk…he’s not poor.’
-XT
Yeah, that would be funny. It’s not like mixed race people were ever enslaved or lynched or denied service at a lunch counter.
I’m curious: Have you asked actually all the black people you know whether they know they have ancestors who were slaves? It’s such a out-of-field question, it strains credibility to think that you have. It’s not something that would just pop up in normal, everday conversation.
At any rate, you don’t need “detailed genealogical charts and stuff”. If you’re a black person who has American black ancestry going back to the 1800’s, it’s highly improbable that *no one * in your line was a slave brought over here from Africa. (Voluntary) immigration from Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, and any other major sources of black immigration have come from the Caribbean, where slavery was practiced, too. So it would be rare to find a black person who is more than a few generations removed from immigration and not related to a slave.
Plenty of black families have family trees that bear this out, too. We’re not talking about that long ago. Former slaves were alive well into the 20th century.
Here’s why it’s relevant:
According to you yourself, what you personally “fell” African-American means is incorrect.
And do you have any reason to believe this, other than your own biases?
I haven’t done a detailed survey, no. However, the subject has come up with many of my friends, and their responses seem to be similar to my own, i.e.they don’t really know all that much about their family history past a generation or two. This seems to be true for more American’s I know, whether they be black, white, yellow or pink (the only exception is some of my NA friends, who do seem to know quite a bit past a generation or two). Does your experience differ?
That assumes one knows that one’s family dates back to the 1800’s in the US. I don’t know what MY family was doing in the 1800’s…do you?
I’m sure they do. However, whether they do or not does not seem to be critical to whether they are considered to be either ‘black’ or ‘African American’.
Perhaps not…but again, I don’t know my own family history to the time frame you are talking about there, despite the fact that we are talking about it being only my great grandparents time. I’m sure my grandmother knew some of that, but it’s not something that’s been passed down to me.
-XT
Well, I’m here, so evidently they were fuckin’.
I sort of suspected that at the bottom of all this, we’d find a bit of bruised European sense of moral superiority.
Well, I haven’t polled my friends and acquaintances on how far back their knowledge of family history goes (because it’s just not common water cooler/happy hour conversation fodder), but in my experience, most black people know enough about their background to know that neither they nor their parents are recent immigrants from Africa and thus, highly unlikely to be anything but a descendant of a slave.
Yes.
I subscribe to the thought that “African American” only applies to the descendants of African slaves, generally speaking. I know that some people often use black interchangably with AA, but I think many more people discriminate between the terms (often without realizing it). Folks from Africa more precisely should be referred to as either their nationality of origin or their ethnic identifier (e.g. Yoruba).
The descendants of slaves do not know their nation of origin; this is why “African American” is used to describe them.
So there are non blacks who think it is unusual For black americans to know, or strongly suspect, whether they descended from slaves or not? Seriously??
Simple math and knowing nobody you can remember comming straight from africa=high to almost definite chance of slave ancestors, even if you don’t KNOW it I just assumed. I think you know less about black families than you think you do.
(The general ignorance on this board from both lefties and conservatives about black folk is just staggering, btw. I’m mixed myself.)
nm.
But the term doesn’t describe a class anymore than “rich” describes an ethnic group. As someone looking at this from the outside I think you may have the impression that the great majority of African-American people in the U.S. are poor. That’s not the case. African-American families do earn a lot less than white families on average for sure, but it’s not some kind of dividing line. There is almost as much basis for arguing that Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice are not African-Americans.
You aren’t using it the way it is normally used.
Often true, but not universally true.
It’s very relevant because race is based almost entirely on appearances. Like I said upthread, before he was a major politician Obama would be treated like any other African-American man anywhere he goes. You wouldn’t know much about his background by looking at him.
I don’t agree either and I’ve been saying for a while that people who make this claim are being very naive. (The good news is that not too many people are saying this now. The bad news is that’s because a lot of racism has been exposed since he took office.) Still, if your view is that Obama is not really an African-American, you’re approaching it the wrong way. In making that argument it would be fair to point out that he has differences in background from a lot of African-Americans, which a lot of posters in this thread have noted. But the main issues are that Obama is a unique individual - he didn’t get elected because he’s African-American, he got elected because he’s Barack Obama - and that it is not reasonable to make generalizations about the state of race relations based just on the election.
A white person without access to wealth and education also has virtually no chance of becoming president.
Of course he’s a-freakin American.
So your opinion is only relevant if you vote in the Us? Do you have to be a registered voter to be relevant in discussions with you, or just have the legal ability? Either way, if you don’t think my opinion is relevant may I suggest that you just don’t talk to me rather than first point it out and then talk to me.
It has everything to do with it from my perspectivel.
I will need a cite to believe this.
How should I know?
What is this? First my opinion is irrelevant and then you want my opinion on everything?
I do not quite understand your argument here. You’re saying that on average AA’s have a “lot” less money than WW (Whithey Whites), but it is NOT some kind of dividing line?
And that is much more interesting.
A bit less than 25% of blacks in the US are poor by the official standard.
“African-American” is synonymous with “black”, and has nothing to do with class (which is one of the reasons affirmative action for blacks is dumb).
Obama is half white, and half black - therefore he is black by most people’s definition. Most of this stuff about “he is whatever he self-identifies as” is a little difficult to swallow - if he said he was white (to which he has just as good a claim as being black) he would get a lot of flack about self-hatred and Uncle Tom-ism and so forth. If he were not a liberal Democrat, that is.
“African-American” is a silly and not particularly accurate term, but most euphemisms are that. Besides, there’s no such thing as “race”. 
Regards,
Shodan