I think Obama has explained why he considers himself culturally black because until he became well known, cab drivers in New York refused to pick him up.
Ed
“African American Canadian” is just ridiculous, and no intelligent person would use such a convoluted term.
I’ve also never heard of aboriginals from Canada referred to as “Native Americans.” “Native Canadian” is a reasonably easy term to find, actually.
The current Governor-General of Canada, Michaëlle Jean, has African ancestry, and some people probably call her “black”, but she’s not African American, since she didn’t come from the US: she was born in Haiti.
arg
I should have typed “The are Canadians who are African Americans”
Google hits
“Native American” Canada 6,170,000
“Native Canadian” Canada 80,200
“African American” Canada 21,700,000
“African Canadian” Canada 459,000
The first hit with that search – Black Canadians - Wikipedia – says:
So it does not support the idea that “African American” is used to describe Black Canadians.
And a common term used for the indigenous peoples of Canada is “First Nations”, while another is “aboriginal”. Canada is not a mini United States.
I do not think the identification of a individual with a race is necessarily a left-over from bigoted concepts of the past. In our times it’s usually a self-designation. To the extent that races are phenotypically typical, it can be a bit tricky to look like one “race” and self-identify with another, but the whole notion of “looking like a race” bogs down pretty rapidly due to genetic diversity and diversity of phenotypic expression.
Genetically, Mr Obama is “European American” if all that is meant by that is that his genetic ancestry comes in part from European ancestors.
However the term “____”-American is usually shorthand for a self-identification with a culture or a particular historical heritage. There’s a tacit understanding that at least some genetic heritage has to be from the first half of the term; if that requirement is eliminated, you got yourself a poser, or at least a Navin Johnson.
On the other hand, there’s no requirement at all that anything close to 50% of your genes needs to be from some sort of pure population stock to self-identify. For example, the self-identification term “Native American” for the purpose of qualifying for a minority affirmative-action benefit is not going to have some sort of genomic qualifying test. There isn’t one. You might be only one quarter Cherokee ancestrally but still self-identify with that group. You’d qualify for inclusion without any grief.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You can find a lot of pages that have the terms “African American” and “Canada” on the same page. So?
Tell you what; find me reputable sources that list “African American Canadian” as a legitimate term for a black person from Canada. Or explain how a Canadian is an African-American, when that term is specifically used to describe residents of the United States, which is a different country.
True. I’m a 16th black, and never have been called “black.” Neither has my mother, who is 1/8th. And you know why? Because we don’t consider people black if they have milk-white skin, blue eyes and red hair. Obviously neither I, nor my mother or brother self-identify as black, but even if we did, I seriously doubt we could convince other people to think of us that way.
As for Halle Berry’s kids, if instead of like this they looked like this, people would fuss and insist they are “not black,” just as is not infrequently insisted about the babies in that photo.
How about Britannica . Are they reputable enough for you?
I specifically searched out an African American from your area who I’ve talked to on a bus in Hamilton when he was an MP.
I might add that he was born in Toronto.
It could be worse. I once saw a Black History Month poster in school which included Nelson Mandela as a “famous African-American”.
This points out a particular annoyance of mine: Using numbers of Google hits to prove a point is both lazy and likely to be specious.
Ed
Where in the article is the term “African American Canadian” used?
Check my post #45.
Alright, then on to the Britannica article:
They’re wrong. He’s not an African-American, because he’s not American. He’s Canadian.
The use of “African-American” to describe black people from other countries is just laziness and stupidity; as has been pointed out, it’s been applied to people from the United Kingdom and Caribbean nations too. It’s a product of it being used in polite company to replace “Black,” and growing from there, as people think they have to use the newest term to describe anyone who looks like they have AFrican ancestry.
I agree. Its not my intention to quibble, but a case can be made that the term reflects as continental-continental rather than continental-country. Check out this site
On the other hand, having made the obligatory claim that anyone in the Western Hemisphere has “an equal claim” to be identified as “American,” the rest of the article never uses the phrase and refers to Brazilians of African descent as “Afro-Brazilians” throughout.
I am not about to tell anyone how they should identify themelves, but I would note that 1) using a term that no one else appears to understand or using it in a way that runs counter to a widely accepted definition is liable to bring grief to the speaker and 2) applying a term to others when they have not embraced the term generally leads to confusion and bad feelings.
The origins of the “hyphenated-American” terms (in English) are rooted in the particular experience of the waves of immigrants to the United States (of America). African-American was explicitly chosen by Jesse Jackson and his meeting of black leaders for the purpose of referring to the black community in a way more similar to their Irish-American, Italian-American, Polish-American, etc. neighbors.
This usage is not cast in concrete, of course, but any use of the phrase in a different context is liable to cause confusion or bring derision down on the head of a person who employs it.
Get back to the OP…
Obama is not considered white merely because of the color of his skin and doesn’t identify as white because of it. It’s sort of like cancer, all you need is 1 cancer cell and you have cancer. 
Fighting ignorance here in the OP. While DNA evidence does indicate a Jefferson male was in the gene pool for one child, no conclusive evidence exists to tie Thomas to the woman’s children. Over twenty Jefferson males were available. A better statement might have included the terms, “alleged”, “rumored”, or “might have fathered”.
At least one claim for another child / family was refuted by the DNA examination.
The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society and Thomas Jefferson Foundation came to opposite conclusions when examining the same evidence.