# Why "African American"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 23, 2000, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304 "2000-09-23T21:41:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![headshok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@headshok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/headshok)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/21 "2000-09-24T18:24:37Z")
My mother is Japanese; my father is white (part Irish, part German, some other stuff). So what do I call myself? Japanese-American? I’m not Japanese-American, my mother is. White? I’m not white, my father is. Amerasian? Then it sounds like my dad knocked up some woman when he was in 'Nam. Japanese-Irish-German-American? :rolleyes: Try putting that on a census form. Other? Mutt? How about just American? My own experience has taught me that trying to attach a simple ethnic label to someone is a little pointless. I am proud of my Japanese heritage, but I don’t really care what you call me, as long as it isn’t done out of malice. I would hope the same could be said for black people, or African-Americans, or whatever. I grew up saying “black”; I certainly don’t mean any harm by it, and considering where I live (the Bible-belt South), it beats the vile crap I have heard from some of the people I work with. If someone tells me they want to be called “African-American”, I will do it out of respect for another human being’s wishes. But I think that we place too much emphasis on ethnic distinctions that are not only inaccurate, but tend to highlight the kind of racial division we are trying to get away from. ---
**Author:** ![oldscratch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@oldscratch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldscratch)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/22 "2000-09-24T18:24:42Z")
Oh come on stop your whining. If people want to be called African-American let them, so what if it doesn’t apply to everyone in Africa. You wouldn’t call an Israeli or a russian asian-american. Yet, no one is complaining about that term. Many people who you would call asian-american have not in fact come from Asia, they were born here, as were their parents, and their parents parents. What should we call them? Yellow? Oh no wait, that would be offensive. Yet black isnt. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Piell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@Piell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Piell)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/23 "2000-09-24T19:29:54Z")
I seem to have been misunderstood. I was asking why the transition to African-American from black? As I understood it, black was just as good as white. I personally have never heard of a Polish-American or a German-American. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/24 "2000-09-24T20:20:21Z")
You can call yourself whatever you want. Me, I’m black. My daughter prefers brown. I am not an African-American. I have never been to Africa. My parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great grandparents nor great-great-great grandparents have never been to Africa. Africa is not a country, it is a huge continent with many different cultures, ethnicities and religions --none of which I am too familiar with. I am black and American. I have Jamaican-American friends. And Ethiopian-American, Hatian-American, Nigerian-American. These people are proud of their heritage and family background. Mostly, I have black friends. There heritage and family background is rooted right here, in the American black experience. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/25 "2000-09-24T20:56:42Z")
I think Whoopy Goldberg also objects to being called “African-American” ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/26 "2000-09-24T21:29:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Biggirl \* > **You can call yourself whatever you want. Me, I’m black. My daughter prefers brown.** How dare you charge in here and ruin the perfectly good debate we white guys were having over what black/African-Americans prefer to be called! 🙂 I will ask you to clarify: when you say you have mostly “black friends” do you mean that’s how you think of them, or that’s what your friends prefer to be called? If I’m understanding you correctly, at least as far as you and most of your circle of friends go, “African-American” is in fact a PC creation, _not_ your preference. Did I get this right? Also, your reference to the “American black experience” suggests that this name–or “black”–has been the common name for the culture of the American black, that is, until the PC troops stormed the beaches to let you know what you really prefer. This is, of course, not true. “Negro” and “colored” spring to mind as examples just from this century. If anyone’s real wish is to maintain what has been the traditional name for the longest period, I’m not sure “Black” does the trick–though I don’t know and have no cite. I’m still of the mind that whatever someone prefers is OK by me (how big of me!)… ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/27 "2000-09-24T22:13:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > **I’ve also, thanks to living in non-homogenous cities, heard white folks such as myself claim further identifiers, such as WASP, Italian or Irish (American implied since those saying so are native born, and their grandparents likely were too)** I have to stick something else in. Here in the Boston area, we have a substantial number of immigrants, legal and otherwise, coming from Ireland. Often the best-educated and most ambitious will advance economically quicker than the “native” Irish, who resentfully call them “FBI” - “Foreign-Born Irish”. That differentiates from the genuine Irish born in America, I suppose. I love this country. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/28 "2000-09-24T22:33:55Z")
Does anybody remember the story of the little girl who painted a picture of Jesus, except in the picture, Jesus was black? I actually met someone who reffered to this painting as the “African American Jesus.” 😃 But, hey, I say, call yourself whatever you want if it makes you happy. I think a lot of the motivation is that by changing a label you make the problem go away, which is not true. In the past 200 years, it’s been something like nigger -\> negro -\> colored person -\> black / afro-american -\> African American. But we still have a lot of the same problems… And I agree with **sailor** , a white person from Africa is certainly African American, but we wouldn’t call him that. Thus, the term is simply another synonymn(sp?) for “black.” ---
**Author:** ![Sterra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Sterra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterra)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/29 "2000-09-24T22:56:59Z")
I think the best terms would be Wazzup bitches and Yo niggas.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/30 "2000-09-24T23:03:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Arabs are Africans and are not black. Some Arabs are Africans, and some Arabs are Asians. [Prince Bandar](http://saudiembassy.net/message/message.html), the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., looks pretty “black”, while the late [President Assad](http://syriaonline.com/aboutsy.html) of Syria looked pretty “white”. At any rate, [Arabs](http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,8248+1+8139,00.html?query=arabs) are members of an ethnolinguistic group, not a “race” (Arab being defined as “one whose native language is Arabic”); as the Britannica says, “This diverse assortment of peoples defies physical stereotyping. Most Arabic-speaking peoples are of the European (Caucasoid) geographic race, but there is considerable regional variation.” The speakers of Arabic were originally from the Arabian peninsula of Asia, but the North African region is now ethnically and culturally Arabic as well. As to the original question: Call people whatever they want, I say. (Well, unless they insist on being addressed as “the Only True Human Beings and Lords of Creation”.) “African-American” isn’t perfect, since it isn’t generally applied to Dutchmen or French Huguenots who immigrated to the U.S. after stopping off at the Cape of Good Hope for a few centuries; sub-Saharan Africans who came here via Jamaica or Haiti; or Nigerians who just got off the boat (or plane, as the case may be). Then again, what ethnic label is perfect? Irish-American, which has certainly been a label of considerable significance in our history, has definitional problems of its own: do you count those Scots-Irish or Ulstermen or whatever you call them? What about people whose great-grandparents were from Limerick, but who have since converted to Protestantism? “African-Americans” (or blacks or Negroes or colored people or People of Color or Children of the Sun-God and Rightful Lords of the Earth, or whatever), i.e., the descendants of the former slave population of the United States, make up a reasonably coherent ethnic group, distinct in culture and history from Nigerian-Americans or Caribbean-Americans. (Thus, “African-American” isn’t precisely synonomous with “black”; it means “racially” “Negroid”, but been here long enough not to have any other national or ethnic identity; i.e., not a Jamaican or an Ibo or a Somali. Once upon a time, practically all “blacks” in the U.S. were also “African-Americans”; now we have other “blacks”–sub-Saharan Africans–with different backgrounds.) Of course, there are internal complexities to the African-American identity, but this is true of any ethnic group. Sure, it would be great if we could all just be “American” together, but let’s be realistic here; many people in this country have various ethnic identities beyond just “100% red-blooded American”. Personally, I would have trouble describing myself much more exactly than “American” (or “white guy”), but that’s just because my mongrel ancestors came from too many parts of the British Isles and Northern Europe for me to get too precise; at any rate I have no strong ethnic consciousness beyond “American”. However, that’s easy for me to say; no one ever put “No English-Scottish-Irish-Germans Need Apply” on a “Help Wanted” sign or water fountain. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/31 "2000-09-25T00:06:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bob Cos \* > I will ask you to clarify: when you say you have mostly “black friends” do you mean that’s how you think of them, or that’s what your friends prefer to be called? If I’m understanding you correctly, at least as far as you and most of your circle of friends go, “African-American” is in fact a PC creation, _not_ your preference. Did I get this right? \*\* Let _me_ clarify. I don’t have mostly black friends. I have many black friends. We (they) have no problems being called “African-American”, but refer to ourselves as “black”. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bob Cos \* > > Also, your reference to the “American black experience” suggests that this name–or “black”–has been the common name for the culture of the American black, that is, until the PC troops stormed the beaches to let you know what you really prefer. This is, of course, not true. “Negro” and “colored” spring to mind as examples just from this century. > \*\* I suggested nothing of the sort. I called it “the black American experience” to distinguish between foreign born and native born blacks. Or blacks with a strong connection to another country/culture. ---
**Author:** ![Spider\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Spider\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spider_Woman)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/32 "2000-09-25T00:52:30Z")
Our area (Central Minnesota) is not highly integrated, and somewhat xenophobic. A friend of ours changes residences frequently in our city, and because of this, he has his mail delivered to our house. Because our friend is a very dark-skinned black, he is highly visible here. I tactfully mentioned to him, the last time he picked up his mail, that I’d like to introduce him to the new neighbors across the street, and he laughingly replied, “So they don’t think some big black guy is stealing their mail?” I have never heard him refer to himself as African-American. He is originally from St. Louis and some of his family still lives there. Next time he comes over, I’ll ask him what he prefers to be called, if someone feels the need to refer to his skin color. My s.o. is of Mexican-American descent. I just asked him (as he was running up the stairs) what he preferred to be called, and he goes by the old stand-by, “Whatever, just so long as they don’t call me late for dinner.” ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/33 "2000-09-25T08:22:36Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by spooje \* \*\* > [@](#): > > ## _Originally posted by Bob Cos \* \*\* but where I’m from, most whites indeed identify themselves, when asked, using a specific ethnicity (Irish American, or whatever_\* > > If I may ask, just where is this place? > \*\* I’d venture any large East-Coast urban center with highly mixed settlement. > [@](#): > > \*\* > \*\*Prior to the “African American” designation emerging, “Blacks” were the only ethnic group (that I can recall) that were identified not by their nation of origin but by a distinguishing physical characteristic–and even that was something of a misnomer, in that I have never met anyone who was actually black. \*\* > > Have to disagree here. Historically speaking, this is wrong. I base this on, in large part, on the ‘seperate but equal’ markers from the old South. The ones that said ‘White/Colored’ for different schools, bathrooms, and water fountains. > \*\* I’m having a hard time seeing your distinction. African Americans, using the phrase here in the sense I have noted above, seem to be the only group, besides American Indians perhaps (think redskins), to be identified by physical characteristics. Colored is a synonym. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Prior to the “African American”, I had never heard any whites refer to themselves as otherwise. Nor were we refered to differently in the press. By and large, we still aren’t. > \*\* That is certainly not the case in high immigration cities where “whites” or Europeans of many very different origins came together (esp. mixing of East, North and Southern European origins, underlining their disparate origin cultures despite the supposed ‘white’ homogeniety). Your experience is fooling you: valid for where you are but not generalized. Since large numbers of African Americans live in the same urban centers I have lived in, their usage makes a lot of sense. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/34 "2000-09-25T11:06:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by spooje \* > > \*\* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > ## _Originally posted by Bob Cos \* \*\* but where I’m from, most whites indeed identify themselves, when asked, using a specific ethnicity (Irish American, or whatever_\* > > > > > > If I may ask, just where is this place? > > > \*\* > > > > I’d venture any large East-Coast urban center with highly mixed settlement.\*\* > > \*\* Correct. See my prior post that begins, “I was born to poor but honest folk in a log rowhouse in Philadelphia…” ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/35 "2000-09-25T15:24:26Z")
**No one asked me either** Im originally from Detroit. During my lifetime (im in my 30’s)I’ve been everything from **negro** to **colored** to **black** to **afro-american** back to **black** and now finally **african-american**. I’ve always used **black** as a means of self indentification, maybe because Ive used it longer. But really on the whole I think it’s a non issue and will call anyone what they prefer to be called. FWIW, all my black friends refer to themselves as black. ---
**Author:** ![Ptahlis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a8b319/32.png) [@Ptahlis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ptahlis)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/36 "2000-09-25T16:39:08Z")
Insofar as I can tell, “black” is still an acceptable term for everyday use, regardless of the speaker’s race or origin. I’ve never heard it said that “black” was in any way a pejorative term. The biggest bit of silliness in the whole debate is when the Ultra-PC Politeness Squad descends to gently remind the barbarians that the “proper” term is, in actuality, African-American. As it is commonly used, the two terms equate. Very occasionally someone may draw a specific distinction between Jamaican-Americans and African-Americans on cultural grounds, but that is far from the norm. African-American=black is an equation that holds true in our common usage better than 99% of the time. FWIW, the other ethnic groups _not_ racially based (e.g. Italian-American, Irish-American, etc.) are used generally (in my experience anyway) to either refer to actual immigrants and their immediate families, or to people living in cultural enclaves that have very strong ties to their former ways. The terms Asian-American and African-American are the only ones that seem to be applied to people whose families may have been here for many generations, and who have zero connection to any former foreign culture. So, my great-granparents were they alive today, might be referred to as Danish-Americans, since they actually hailed form Denmark. By the time we get to me though, I wouldn’t exactly claim that label for myself. I’m just plain American, because I have no cultural connection to Denmark. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/37 "2000-09-25T16:43:40Z")
**Piell** : > [@](#): > > . I personally have never heard of a Polish-American or a German-American. If I may ask, where do you live? One literally cannot travel through any large American city without seeing Irish-American meeting halls, or Polish-American, or Slovak-American, or Czech-American . . . it boggles the mind to think you’ve never heard of these terms. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/38 "2000-09-25T17:51:23Z")
Just wondering… why is Negro a bad description. Certainsly in takes into account the fact that the person may or may not be of direct African descent. It covers both Africa, the Carribean and South America equaly well. I know that it has very neggative connotations in America but that is not the case in other parts of the world where blacks happen to live as well. Similarly with Asian. What the hell does Asian mean anyway? Most of Russia is in Asia so yeah, the people from Novosebirsk are Asian geographically speaking but they are as white as most of their European countrymen. Oriental used to be the word used to describe the ethnicity of people we now call Asian. Oriental fell out of favour with the latest PC labels just like Black. We still use Arab to describe Arabs but that somehow seems wrong in the spirit of things. Shouldn’t we call them Semites so that we can include Jews as well? Never mind that a good half of Israeli jews are either from Europe, Asia or America. Never mind that a large population of Arabs actually lives in northern Africa. Some very close friends of ours are from South Africa and are now living in the US. They are white. It’s very strange to them to hear black Americans being called African Americans because in truth, they themselves are more aptly described as African Americans than a majority of America’s blacks. And while we’re on the subject, why bother with Italian Americans and Irish Americans and Polish Americans. Aren’t they all European Americans? How silly is all this going to get, I wonder… ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/39 "2000-09-25T18:40:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Just wondering… why is Negro a bad description. Certainsly in takes into account the fact that the person may or may not be of direct African descent. It covers both Africa, the Carribean and South America equaly well. I know that it has very neggative connotations in America but that is not the case in other parts of the world where blacks happen to live as well. Im not really sure, maybe it’s like some of the posters here have mentioned, it’s not actually a valid description. Negro being latin for Black. Or maybe it’s the negative connotations you mentioned. FTR, I remember the Afro-American capaign. It went hand in hand with the Black is beatiful slogans, thought I don’t remember how we got back to black, but may have had something to do with some people thinking we were being identified with the hairstyle. I just wish everybody would settle on something, Im getting an identity crises here. 😕 In the interim just call me Steve 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304/40 "2000-09-25T18:56:45Z")
**QuickSilver** : \*Similarly with Asian. What the hell does Asian mean anyway? Most of Russia is in Asia so yeah, the people from Novosebirsk are Asian geographically speaking but they are as white as most of their European countrymen. Oriental used to be the word used to describe the ethnicity of people we now call Asian. Oriental fell out of favour with the latest PC labels just like Black. \* And for the same reason, **QuickSilver** : it’s too broad a term to be equally useful as an ethnic designation. “Asian”, on the other hand, can be qualified with all sorts of handy geographical descriptions: “South Asian” (e.g., Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi), “Central Asian” (Afghanistani/Tuvan), “East Asian” (only Japanese/Chinese, AFAIK), “Southeast Asian” (Vietnamese/Cambodian), “West Asian” (Middle Eastern) and so on and so forth. Who ever heard of an “East Oriental”? The different varieties of “Asian” make it possible to come up with meaningful categories based on shared regional histories and/or language families. It’s not a perfect system, of course (what kind of Asians are Chinese Tibetan refugees in Nepal, for example? :)), but it’s more useful than the blanket term “Oriental”. And as for why the old terms like “Negro” and “Oriental” are often regarded as not only out-of-date but actively distasteful, that’s an easy one too: vocabulary is generally taken to connote attitude, and the racist attitudes about blacks and Asians that were common (at least in the US) back when they were called “Negroes” and “Orientals” are not considered equally acceptable today. Of course, it is not logically correct to assume that just because somebody uses an obsolete term for a group of people, he or she necessarily has an obsolete attitude toward them too, but language is much more about connotation than about logic. It would not be logically correct to assume that someone using the old terms “Dutchies” and “Dagoes” is necessarily prejudiced against German-Americans and Italian-Americans, either; but still, I don’t think most German-Americans and Italian-Americans (the ones who even know what those words mean, at least) would particularly enjoy hearing them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-african-american/34304.md?page=3)