# What is an "African-American"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 7, 2006, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813 "2006-05-07T22:47:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/61 "2006-05-11T06:34:42Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Ahem. They were Arabs and Berbers from the sultanate of Qayrawan in what is now Tunisia. Berbers being indigenous to North Africa, this is how I trace my connection to the soil of Africa. The shape of my cheekbones and around my eyes has that Berber look. > . . . > Islam was brought to Sicily in 827 by an expedition led by the _qadi_ of Qayrawan, Asad ibn al-Furat, who was of Syrian Arab lineage. The Muslim population of Sicily, in addition to Arabs, Berbers, and Greco-Sicilian converts, included black Africans and Persians. > The only Vandal I see around here is you, Tom, what you’re doing to Arab history. Yeah, I was being a bit facetious with the claim that only the Polish Vandals were the “African” invaders of Sicily. (I generally expect that folks on this site will be aware that the Vandals’ were dominant for around 40 years, but perhaps I am over optimistic.) On the other hand, you seem bent on going overboard with some other odd claim, noting that a Syrian Arab (_i.e._, Asian) leader brought a group of Arabs (Asians) and Kabyles Berbers (not considered “black” by any ethnologists I have ever met\*) into Sicily accompanied by Persians (Asians, again). And, of course, this Asian/(non-black) African invasion survived fewer than 150 years before a bunch of Normans wandered down and overthrew _their_ government, as well. And you have not provided any statistics for the number of Nubian or Sudanese Muslims who may have come along for the spoils. The point of my post was to note that the story of the (sub-Saharan) African Sicily was mostly fiction. It is. This is not to say that no sub-Saharan African ever made it to Sicily, only to point out that they never comprised any significant portion of the population and stories of “black” Sicilians are wildly exaggerated. - The Tuareg Berbers have a substantial sub-Saharan component in their ethnic identity, but they live farther West and South than the groups that the Aghlabids or Fatimids relied upon for troops–who tended to be of Mediterranean stock. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/62 "2006-05-11T21:11:11Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > What’s the big deal if the teacher did? Who said it was a big deal? I just wondered how it got to be a big deal in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/63 "2006-05-11T23:50:30Z")
What is an “African-American”? The correct answer is someone who holds dual citizenship with the USA and a country in Africa. Although technically, the hyphenation should be for that country. For example, someone with dual Egyptian and American citizenship would be an African-American, but more correctly would be an Egyptian-American. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/64 "2006-05-12T03:37:55Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I doubt that someone with a remote berber ancestry could notice such features when they don’t even appear on actual berbers. I meet berbers every day, and I’m yet to notice any peculiar cheekbones shape, or anything specific around their eyes. It depends on where they’re from. In France most of your Berber population is from Kabylie or Morocco. The look of the eyes that I’m thinking of is further east in Tunisia and Libua (especially Libya). The Berber population in those countries is mostly blended with Arab, but this isn’t an Arab look, just specific to Libya and Tunisia, which were historically Berber areas before Romans and Arabs invaded. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/65 "2006-05-12T03:48:51Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > The correct answer is someone who holds dual citizenship with the USA and a country in Africa. Although technically, the hyphenation should be for that country. What would make that answer “correct”? Compound words linking nations of origin to American citizenship, even to U.S. citizens several generations removed from the immigrant generation have been employed for well over one hundrd years. “Hyphenated-American” forms have never been limited to persons holding dual citizenship. (In fact, U.S. law prohibited dual citizenship well into the latter part of the 20th century, so the “hyphenated-American” terms could not have indicated dual citizenship at the time they were coined.) Language is determined by usage, not by imposed meanings from incorrectly supposed etymologies. Based on the usage of “hyphenated-American” terms dating back to the 1890s or earlier, the term African-American was coined no later than the 1960s. Any claim that there is a “correct” meaning that ignores actual usage (direct for 40 years and by analogy for over 100) is probably, itself, incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/66 "2006-05-12T12:59:31Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > The correct answer is someone who holds dual citizenship with the USA and a country in Africa. Although technically, the hyphenation should be for that country. Why do people insist on being so literal with “African-American”? I don’t get it. People call me black and my skin is nowhere near that color. Yet, everyone who wants to call Charlize Theron an African-American rarely comment on the “imprecision” associated with the term Black. By the way, add me to the other pile of black people who don’t consider African-American to be a replacement for a “black” but rather a shorthand way of refering to the descendants of American slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/67 "2006-05-12T13:37:46Z")
My take on it: African-Americans are an ethnic group indigenous to North America. They trace their ancestry to Western Africa and Western Europe, and have a unique culture and history. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/68 "2006-05-12T14:12:00Z")
I’m amazed that we’ve gotten this far without stating something that seems very important here (I think I’ve seen a glancing blow or two…): _African-Americans are not at all purely African in genetic origin_. You have an admixture of a West African base (and at this point a mixture of various ethnicities who look different from there at that) with European genes from the bad old days of slavery and Native American genes in many cases as well. Of course there’s also the “common experience” component on the subculture end a couple of posters noted. In contrast Africans are… from Africa. African immigrants who arrived last year are not at all “African-Americans” in the sense commonly meant. This has only cropped up as a linguistic challenge for the US recently as African immigration has only spiked recently. It’s always very easy to spot African immigrants here to me as they look distinct from African-Americans pheotypically/facially and the way they dress (generally sharper and neater in appearance than Americans of any ethnicity…) and carry themselves. There’s actually a bit of tension here in one of the neighborhoods here where West Africans have started to settle in largish numbers in that the immigrants are generally better educated and driven - it is a self-selected group of people with skills and drive - and have taken over local businesses. A number of African-Americans resent that the immigrants “think they’re better” and a number of the immigrants find many African-Americans to lack discipline and to be troublemakers and underachievers. Not everyone on either side thinks these things but many do. Bottom line though these are two self-recognized distinct populations. And of course they are… all of ancestors are from Europe but I’m in no sense “European” and this is no different. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/69 "2006-05-12T14:13:55Z")
**Alessan** said very succinctly what I meant while I was composing… something to be said for brevity… ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/70 "2006-05-12T14:33:47Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > Why do people insist on being so literal with “African-American”? I don’t get it. People call me black and my skin is nowhere near that color. Yet, everyone who wants to call Charlize Theron an African-American rarely comment on the “imprecision” associated with the term Black. > > By the way, add me to the other pile of black people who don’t consider African-American to be a replacement for a “black” but rather a shorthand way of refering to the descendants of American slaves. Like I said earlier, looking at it from a linguistic perspective, there’s no rule that compound words mean the same thing as their component parts. In fact, they tend not to. Pretending that “African-American” means “African” and “American” and therefore applies to Charlize Theron or Dave Matthews (does he live in the U.S.?) is like calling a room with the lights off a “darkroom” or worrying about the poor babies who got ground up to make baby powder. It’s absolute nonsense. But frankly, most people are stupid, so this rather less-than-clever line of reasoning based upon the word is enough to convince them that white South Africans are “African-Americans.” This is because most people are gigantic freaking morons. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/71 "2006-05-12T15:14:57Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Pretending that “African-American” means “African” and “American” and therefore applies to Charlize Theron or Dave Matthews (does he live in the U.S.?) is like calling a room with the lights off a “darkroom” or worrying about the poor babies who got ground up to make baby powder. It’s absolute nonsense. Furthermore, no one makes threads about how confusing and inaccurate “Native American” is. Seems to me that all those literalists who get fired about A-A should have major problems with what we call the descendants of this continent’s indigenous people. [channeling the morons of which **Excalibre** speaks] I mean, dude, 'cause like if you’re born here and stuff, that makes you just as much of a native American as one of those…_searching for non-PC term_…American _Indians_! [/channeling…] ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/72 "2006-05-12T15:33:07Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > Furthermore, no one makes threads about how confusing and inaccurate “Native American” is. Seems to me that all those literalists who get fired about A-A should have major problems with what we call the descendants of this continent’s indigenous people. > > [channeling the morons of which **Excalibre** speaks] > > I mean, dude, 'cause like if you’re born here and stuff, that makes you just as much of a native American as one of those…_searching for non-PC term_…American _Indians_! > > [/channeling…] Actually, last I heard, a lot of Indians prefer to be called Indians. Though I don’t think anyone construes “Native American” as offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/73 "2006-05-12T16:04:06Z")
Ditto. I live in a state with a lot of tribes, and they usually refer to themselves as either their specific tribe, or generally as Indians or American Indians. Not as Native Americans. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/74 "2006-05-12T16:50:29Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Ditto. I live in a state with a lot of tribes, and they usually refer to themselves as either their specific tribe, or generally as Indians or American Indians. Not as Native Americans. Which is interesting in relation to this discussion, since most black Americans have no problem with black and refer to themselves as such. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/75 "2006-05-12T16:57:23Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > Which is interesting in relation to this discussion, since most black Americans have no problem with black and refer to themselves as such. Overall, in my experience, people rarely take offense unless it’s meant. The fact that one person refers to herself as black doesn’t mean she’ll get upset if you call her “African-American”, and vice versa. This idea that there’s a new “politically correct” name every month and a half for every group and they’ll get offended if you use the old one is pure myth, and it in essence works to trivialize it when people _do_ get upset over truly offensive racial slurs. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/76 "2006-05-14T06:18:36Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > _African-Americans are not at all purely African in genetic origin_. You have an admixture of a West African base (and at this point a mixture of various ethnicities who look different from there at that) with European genes from the bad old days of slavery and Native American genes in many cases as well. Well — There are some offshoots of African-American families whose genetic heritage is pretty “pure.” I have tons O’ cousins in Charleston, South Carolina, some of whom have this thing about marrying people as dark-skinned as they are, and they have fuller lips and broader noses and several shades darker than me. Also, based on what I’ve seen of some of the Carolina and Georgia Gullah peoples, their racial admixture appears to be pretty damn slight, and their culture is more distinctly “African” than pretty much anywhere else in African-American culture. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813/77 "2006-05-14T11:33:46Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > My take on it: African-Americans are an ethnic group indigenous to North America. They trace their ancestry to Western Africa and Western Europe, and have a unique culture and history. Best damn answer we’ll ever hear. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-african-american/355813.md?page=3)