In the UK black or mixed race folk from the Caribbean are sometimes referred to as Afro Caribbean. From some of the above discussion I wonder if the US could do with importing this useful term.
Why, exactly, do you feel that way? When talking about the indigenous peoples of the United States * as a group*, I think “Native American” is appropriate. If we are talking about specific NA tribe (e.g Cree) then the specific tribe should be referred to.
This is great. But can’t you see that its kind of difficult to do that with a descendant of American slaves? That’s kind of the point of “A-A” to begin with. Because we don’t know what nation we come from.
People insist on calling my friend’s wife, who comes from Iran, an Arab. That doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with “Arab”. It just means that people are often wrong.
You seem to think that her country of origin has no relevance to what she calls herself. If Celine Dion called herself a North American-American I’d laugh at her, too. Just sayin’.
And as amarith pointed out, how many homophobes are actually afraid of gay people? And panda bears aren’t really bears (in the taxonomic sense), so that must be a meaningless term too. Let’s see how far we can keep going with this.
They aren’t less African, they’re less American. As in, “not at all American”.
I had a Jamaican roommate in college, and I remember that she and the other Jamaican students were pretty annoyed by the way people would look at them and assume they were African-Americans. They were very clear on this point: “We’re all black, but you are African-Americans and we are Jamaicans.”
Of the African immigrants/recent descendants of African immigrants that I know, none refer to themselves as African-Americans. Usually they just say they’re Egyptian, Ethiopian, Nigerian, etc. A few use the hyphenated-American designation, but only in combination with their home country. As others have said above, people who know what country they/their ancestors come from have no reason to identify themselves based on an entire continent instead.
[QUOTE=Eve]
Who said the term “Jewish-American” isn’t ridiculous? Just because my ancestors were Jews doesn’t mean I am.
Yes, but imagine me telling you that you can’t. That you don’t have the right, to define yourself…not because of Jewish Law, but because my Jewish friends don’t and so you are only doing so because of the PC squad. Sounds fair?
What’s to address? Your magazine should have enough respect to ask a person what tribe they come from. It’s not that hard to do…but this is not the same thing. You already know that there are different tribes, you’ve named three; what ‘tribes’ do ‘black’ Americans belong to? What historical language besides English do “black” Americans speak? Do you see the difference?
While using the general term “Native” American to describe unique populations may be lazy, it’s also correctable. You can ask your subject where he comes from and reduce the need for generalizations. You can’t do that with African-Americans and at the same time deny them the ability to define themselves in terms that makes the most sense…to them.
Black-American doesn’t mean anything because skin colour doesn’t really define a culture. African-American has a meaning, because it describes not skin colour, but a specific group of Americans created by specific event…American chattle slavery. You guys keep focusing on skin color, I don’t blame you; the history of the US is weighted with that. However you really need to try to separate the two…color and culture and see this has an issue of ethnicity, nor skin color.
He’s not and he needs to correct them, if it bothers him. The answer isn’t to deny other people the ability to be described in manner that they prefer. Christ, why is this any different than a person from Wales being called an Englishman? They either correct the mistake or let it go, they don’t consider denying other English people the ability to be called English; because the US masses are unable to tell the difference in accent.
Okay, so maybe your friend should grow a pair and call these arseholes on their bias? A little humble pie never hurt anyone, and these guys need a nice hunk of it. Again, I have never heard a native African, refer to themselves as an African-American; it doesn 't make any sense…but it wouldn’t bother me either.
They’re meaningless to YOU…other people value their culture and take great offense in being told that they can’t refer to themselves as anything else other than American or they are doing so just to get along.
I’m clear on the non-American part. My question dealt solely with the term “African”. We have people in this thread saying that there are non-African black people. Okay, this makes perfect sense. These people then go on to explain that the term “African American” makes sense to describe black Americans. You also see some Carribean blacks saying that they have no ties to Africa. This is where it all goes wrong for me. A black American is *just as * African as a black Jamaican. So Bob Marley should be just as African as Martin Luther King Jr.
I’ve never met *anyone * that described him/herself as African American. Recent immigrant, or descendant of slaves.
Omega Glory. Identity can be so fluid. You have black people over here who say that, too. It’s not a historical truth but a personal one. See: Eve’s “Just because my ancestors were Jewish doesn’t mean I am,” remark. She probably has valid reasons for ignoring her Jewish ancestry just as I have my reasons for ignoring my 1/16th Scottish heritage.
No it doesn’t describe “black” Americans. It describes Americans whose decendants were slaves in America and have a certain amount of Eurpoean and Native American admixture. Which is why in my opinion using the term ‘black’ has no meaning, because black-Americans come in a variety of skin color and body types. lena horne and wesley snipes how can they both be “black”? However they can both be African-American. That makes historical sense.
Sure a Jamaican or a Cuban is as much African as other “transplanted” African. I don’t think anyone has said differently. What you may notice is a more of a cultural tie to the new homeland, ie Jamaica as opposed to Africa, because the culture was allowed to trive into well Jamaica. I don’t see the big deal here. I’ve known lot of ethnics that say they no longer have ties to Europe or Asia. What’s the big deal? That all ‘transplants’ from Africa don’t feel the same way about Africa? Even Eve says having a Jewish background doesn’t mean she’s a Jew and she knows a bit about her family history.
I believe you. I trust you believe me that in my circle, the majority of people do.
Sure black has a meaning. Are black people really “black”? No, of course not, they’re no more “black” than whites are “white” and so on. If you don’t like the term, then I’m not going to force you to use it, but if someone calls Mariah Carey black, I don’t think most people will be confused.
The post that brought this question up for me was this “Eve, it’s possible to have black friends who are not African nor American (Bob Marley, anyone?).” So Bob Marley isn’t African. Askia then went on to defend the term “African American”. Did he mean it in the context that I got from it? I don’t know. Honestly it doesn’t really matter because as I said, there are Carribean people out there who claim not to be descended from Africans. His statement reminded me of those people, and I brought it up.
Who said that all transplants from Africa have to feel the same way? I’m not saying that people have to love the country that their ancestors came from. Completely denying that you’re from there makes no sense what-so-ever. Eve’s situation is different because there is debate on whether Judaism is a religion, an ethnicity or both. If you are black, then you most likely came from Africa. Do you have to adopt a name from the “mother land,” or feel some sort of connection to Africa? No, but if you try to tell me that you’re not at least partly descended from Africans, when you clearly are, then I’m going to think you’re strange. The same thing would happen if George Bush told me that he wasn’t descended from Europeans.
Sure. Where are you located, if you don’t mind my asking?
Mariah Carey’s “blackness” is apparent…maybe. Let’s say I’m black. Describe me. Do I have to pass the brown bag test or the one drop rule? Does my blue eyes rule me out? What about my freckles? If you were expecting a black person to walk in the room and I did, trust me you would be confused.
I didn’t see that post and Askia clarified it.
Fair enough. I simply wonder why these discussions seem to revolve around the choices that African-Americans make and don’t seem to asked of other ethnic groups.
This is where historical perspective comes in. There was a time when it was not well thought off to be African, because of the slavery thing. As as been noted, other hypened-Africans, make a clear distinction between themselves and African-Americans. I don’t have an answer that won’t hijack this thread and require way too much work. Suffice to say, there are Latins who refuse to speak Spainsh or Italians that refuse to cook traditional food or do anything to connect themselves with what they consider the shameful part of their culture. It’s a personal thing and I can’t explain it to you; either you can figure it for yourself or you can’t.
Eve’s situation is different because there is debate on whether Judaism is a religion, an ethnicity or both. If you are black, then you most likely came from Africa. Do you have to adopt a name from the “mother land,” or feel some sort of connection to Africa? No, but if you try to tell me that you’re not at least partly descended from Africans, when you clearly are, then I’m going to think you’re strange. The same thing would happen if George Bush told me that he wasn’t descended from Europeans.
[/quote]
What’s different about it? Sorry to use you again Eve, Eve can chose right now to be a Jew, if she follows Jewish Law and does what needs to be done to fulfil them. No one’s stopping her, she has a choice.
So do I. I have blue eyes, pale skin and freckles am I black? How far back to I have to go to call myself African and not European? Would you think me strange, if I called myself European and not African? How dark to I have to be? How wide must my nose be? How kinky must my hair be, before you not think it strange that I consider myself an African-American and not white?
And why do you or anybody else, who isn’t me, gets to choose?
Don’t mind you asking, but I don’t see why it matters.
Fixed quotes:
What’s different about it? Sorry to use you again Eve, Eve can chose right now to be a Jew, if she follows Jewish Law and does what needs to be done to fulfil them. No one’s stopping her, she has a choice.
So do I. I have blue eyes, pale skin and freckles am I black? How far back to I have to go to call myself African and not European? Would you think me strange, if I called myself European and not African? How dark to I have to be? How wide must my nose be? How kinky must my hair be, before you not think it strange that I consider myself an African-American and not white?
And why do you or anybody else, who isn’t me, gets to choose how I can define myself and not be strange?
Don’t mind you asking, but I don’t see why it matters.
It makes sense to describe a particular subset of black Americans, including many who are so light-skinned that the term “black” seems a bit silly.
*I’m sure some do, but some American blacks say the same thing. There are those who don’t like the term “African-American” for this reason.
Of course he is, but people of African descent are a majority group in Jamaica so they rarely have to identify themselves as such. I can’t think of many situations where someone would have to specify that they were “African-Jamaican”, although a white Jamaican on the Internet might have to explain that he is in fact white.
*Well, I’ve met plenty. I don’t know that I can think of any who use “African-American” to the exclusion of “black”, and the latter is much more popular in ordinary conversation. However, I think that’s because in ordinary conversation in the US people generally assume that anyone described as “black” is really African-American. If I said “My friend K is black”, I doubt people would imagine I was talking about a Jamaican or a Kenyan.
In journalism, academic writing, or other more formal or technical situations, it’s sometimes necessary to specify exactly what I mean by “black” in reference to K. Billions of people from many different countries and ethnic groups could be called “black”. Where does K fit in? “Black American” narrows things down a bit, but it doesn’t distinguish between recent immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean and people whose families have been in the US since slave times. “African-American” is perhaps not the clearest term, but I can’t think of a better or more accurate one for the latter group.
Can you please quote the post where I said all black people look a certain way?
Not until after my original post.
Fair enough. I simply wonder why these discussions seem to revolve around the choices that African-Americans make and don’t seem to asked of other ethnic groups.
As I said, you don’t have to identify with your culture in any way at all. If a person is Italian, and he knows that he’s Italian, and someone says are your ancestors from Italy and he says no, then it’s weird. Again, Joe the Italian American doesn’t have to like anything about Italy. He can even hate the country, and all that it stands for. But he is still descended from Italians. Whether he likes it or not. Whether he identifies with other Italians or not. Terms have meanings. I can’t start calling myself Japanese because I love and identify Japan and its culture. It just doesn’t work that way, no matter how much I want it to. Well actually I can, but then what good do terms do if we all get to write our own definitions?
The difference is this. Because Judaism is considered to be a race by some, and a religion by others, atheists who are descended from Jews may or may not consider themselves Jewish. If Eve says that she is descended from Jews, but doesn’t consider herself Jewish then, fine. If Eve claims not to be a descendant of Jews while knowing full well that she is, then something’s not right, in my book.
If you consider yourself African American, then fine, but if you have very white features and someone says “holmes, you have European ancestors”, and you deny it, then that is strange. If you say, “yes I do, but I identify with my black/AA heritage” then okay. If someone talks about being Scottish and Askia doesn’t speak up then okay. If his mother tells him that he’s part Scottish and he says “no, I have no Scottish blood,” then it’s strange.
Because, as I’ve said, I have never, met anyone who calls himself African American. You say it’s the norm in your circles, and I want to know what area, this practice is the norm in.
I’m not saying that the term “African American” doesn’t make sense. My point was that the same people who accept the black American’s connection to Africa will the simultaneously deny that Carribean blacks have the same exact connection.
I’m certainly not recommending that people go around pasting the word African in front of their nationality.
Again, I’m not on the side of the people who want to get rid of the term. My only question had to do with the black people (from any country) who deny that they are related to Africans. I honestly couldn’t care less either way. I’ll also ask you, as I asked **holmes ** where are these people who prefer the term African American located? Because I’ve honestly never met anyone like this.
Obviously, not all (or even most) people that accept the black American connection to Africa deny the Carribean connection. Just adding qualifiers before someone jumps on this.
Just a note: This question is 100% serious. I just wonder where these people are from. The only people that I know who prefer the term are non-blacks.
For my part, I call myself black. I’m 1/16 Scottish due to my great-grandmother’s sire, a man she so hated that my great-grandmother refused to call him her father, only McMillian. She likely never knew him well; my mother said to me once in an unguarded moment my great-great-grandmother was raped. Given this legacy, I don’t acknowledge it much, though i understandably have some doubts whether this is the whole truth of the matter.
In college I hung around with a whole Panamanian/Trini/Dominican international crew and interacting with those students reinforced my racial and ethnic identity as an African-American. We were all black, we just weren’t all African-American despite the fact were at an HBCU southern university.***
On the internet, on forms, in formal usage of a race/ethnic descriptor, when I’m meeting with black immigrants (Kenya, Congo, South Africa, Trinidad, etc.) I clarify I’m an African-American and in thus usage, prefer it to just “black” – aithough if dig around in my post history you’re sure to come up with a few dozen instances where I simply say, “I’m black” and leave it at that. This board is overwhelmingly American and most of you know what I mean by that.
Some Africans-Americans, far more politically Pan-African than I, refer to themselves as Afrikans, eschewing the “American” part altogether, even though I doubt they’ll be expatriating soon. The K is as meaningful a diference in the word as the “a” ending is in blacks who call themselves “niggas.” These people can kick my ass on a whim, so I don’t argue. The late, great Bob Marley potentially fits this category, and if he called himself an Afrikan then that’s what he is, dammit. I’m not about to argue with the man who wrote “Buffalo Soldier.”
Oy yoi yoi yoi Oy yoi yoi yoi.
*** (…actually, that was just the consensus of us in this group; I later learned that cultural assimulation in places like Brazil is enough to make even a very dark skinned brother “whiite.” My Panamanian roommate never did accept the “one drop of blood” rule that I grew up with and considered Mariah Carey very white.)
I’m sorry, I think I didn’t understand what you were getting at before. By “no ties to Africa” I thought you meant people who say things like “I’m not African, I’ve never even been to Africa!” I take it now that you’re referring to black people who deny that they have African ancestors?
I really don’t know anything about this, as I have never met anyone who made such a claim.
As I said before, I can’t think of anyone I know who always uses “African-American” and never uses “black”. But many people use both, and some do prefer “African-American”. I’ve met them in the Midwest and I’ve met them in the South. I imagine if I ever lived anywhere else in the US I’d meet them there too.
I think that both you and Askia mistake the intent of my post. I am simply bemused over the inherent confusion of all these labels. Perhaps I should have used a smiley.
I said specifically that in both cases I was using the term “African-American” in a sense different to that in which it is usually used. I don’t personally have any problem with the use of the word “African-American” to refer specifically to the descendents of African slaves in the United States. (Of course, there are a lot of Latin Americans that will give you an argument about using the word “American” to refer only to natives of the United States). However, the literal meaning (as opposed to the conventional meaning) of African-American definitely has its ambiguities.
Sure, but it is also quite possible to refer to an Asian-American or a European-American. My nephews, literally speaking, are African Americans, though as I said, not in the sense that the term is usually used in the U.S.
Their ties to Guyana are certainly not forgotten. Of course they are white Guyanese-Americans, as well as being black Irish-Americans. Anyway, their father is also part (Asian) Indian, so they are actually biracial (triracial?) Guyanese-African-Indian-Irish-German-Swiss-Americans. What they certainly are not is “African-American” in the conventional sense of the term.
However, American society tends to identify those with any African ancestry at all simply as black, or sometimes just “African-American.” I hope that my niece and nephew are able to identify with, and be proud of all aspects, of their heritage. I hope that society (white or black) will allow them to recognize both that they are Irish, even though they are black, and white, even though they are African. The sooner that all these identities can all be seen as equally valid the better. I’d like to see “Irish-Guyanese” considered to be no more odd than “Irish-Italian” (which is what my other niece is.)
I never knew that Mulatto was such a big deal, my brother’s and I always have referred to ourselves that way. In fact not to long ago my bro was on the phone with some girl and said this; “Black or White? No, Mulatto…Black and White.”
“Nigger” and “Nigga” were always the words that we hated regardless of who was saying them.
Colibri. No, I understood you. You were misapplying the term, “African-American.” That’s what happens everytime you stray from a term in its conventional sense to concentrate on the literal. (See toliet water, for an example. Consider the misnomer, “Indian” when applied to the Sioux, Blackfoot and Edisto. Man’s laughter and manslaughter contain the exact same letters. High income and wealth are not the same things.)
Labels are usually precise. People use them, abuse them, misapply them, ignore them, embrace them, add more hyphens, whatever. What I don’t like is the coining of seemingly equitable neologisms like European-American and Asian-American as if these are actual and useful descriptors of existing populations of people when anyone with an honest historical understanding of the terms and what peoples they are meant to describe knows they aren’t the same. People of Eurasian descent in The United States are almost always immigrants or expatriates here who can with relatively little effort find out something about their immediate ancestry and therefore, are free to embrace/reject the culture, language, religion and naming traditions of their country of origin. The descendents of African slaves mostly aren’t.
I’m at least six generations removed from whatever ancestral progenitors came here from (probably) West Africa and I have absolutely no idea where that is or who “my” people are despite three generations of geneogical research in my family that stop roughly around 1830 in West Tennessee on my father’s side and 1822 in Chareleston, South Carolina on my mothers’. The Alex Haleys of this nation are utterly rare. Because my own heritage is so ethnically vague and historically unique, African-American is appropiate.
Blacks in South America aren’t African-Americans for the simple and overriding fact that our primary language(s), religions, cultures and histories diverge too distinctly to lump the black peoples of we two continents together, other than to note our continent of origin and perhaps to foster a sense of Pan-Africanist pride.
Blacks in the Sea Islands off South Carolina have managed to retain and develop a far more distinct African identity than the rest of us here on the mainland. I’m tempted not to call them African-American, either, or at least respect the fact that they are a unique and distinct group with a culture, traditions and patois all their own.
You said, “clearly” appears to be black and used Ms Carey as an example, that means some type of uniformity, a base to go by… yes? I’m simply asking you to define the “clearly”, that allows you to visually determine whether a person is being strange in their denials of ancestry.
No one’s talking about writing their own definitions, just the ability to chose the term that best describes them, based on their own history; not the history that is determined solely on the basis of their features. There are lots of people who clearly look “black” or “italian” and have never seen Africa or Italy. Sure, if you know for a fact that I’m Italian and I deny it, that’s strange; that’s different than deciding that I “clearly” look Italian and deciding that I’m strange because I won’t admit to it.
You seem to be saying because there’s different ways to interpet Judaism, that makes it less defined than blackness. How can that be? What defines blackness? If I don’t believe in race, how is that any different that not believing in religion? If I believe that one drop of black blood makes me black, how is that any different than believing that Judaism floods from the mother and that all children born of Jewish mothers are defacto Jewish, no matter what? If I have white skin and don’t believe in race, although I am decended from Africans, can’t I honestly not consider myself black? What are the rules? If I walk in a Synagogue, is the Rabbi going to ask me to prove that I’m a Jew or take me at my word?
Fine, but my question is, why would anyone come up to me out of the blue and tell me that I have European or for that matter African ancestors? Unless they’re trying to prove something to me or to themselves. Is this how the conversation goes:
Guy: We white people need to stick together.
Me: I not white.
Guy: Sure you are, you’re white, stop kidding around.
Me: My great grandfather was black and so am I. (Of course in the real world, they would now consider me black, according to the one rule; but for the sake of discussion…)
Guy: Giving me a strange look, “Why are you denying your European ancestors?”
I just don’t see that conversation happening…do you?
I would imaging because people don’t routinely self-indentify themselves in normal conversation. However in discussing other people, such as Thurgood Marshall, the conversation goes, “…he was the first African-American…or African-Americans need to…” This type of conversation, has occured in the Tri-state area, North Carolina, Virgina and Baltimore. The participants were usually older African-Americans, who lived through being called colored, negro, Afro, black and decided that the term African-American defines who they are best. I agree.
YMMV, of course.