Do you prefer/say African American or black?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an AA/Black, I am afraid that this thread does not clear up anything for those of other races who just want to be sensitive to the race. It, in fact, muddies the water. As 22:47 said, either AA/Black is fine. If someone gets offended by your referring to them as either, that's their problem -- not yours.

I, for one, will be happy when this thread dies.

Then sorry to keep the thread going, but I'm curious that you use black as a descriptive noun rather than an adjective. Saying "a Black" sounds offensive to me. Do the AAs here feel that way?

PP here, "a Black", would be offensive. I used the descriptive noun (capitalizations) to underscore that either adjective is acceptable. That's it, nothing more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am black. Neither my parents nor I have immigrated from Africa. If you call me colored things will get ugly.

well, people call me Irish-American (if anything), when describing ethnicity or background, and my family has been here for 200 years +.

Sidenote: I'm Irish and that just pisses me off.

confused, why? do you think people who are more than 2nd generation shouldn't be called Irish-American, or Italian-American, etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm black....99% of the time, I say black. If I'm in an environment where I deem it appropriate (univ where I took AA courses), I use AA. I think there's much pride in the AA tag...it does not reference African immigrants, post-slavery. AA is a term used when talking about Blacks in America whose ancestors were brought over during slavery.

What about African immigrants who were raised in the US from childhood? I think many of them may identify as AA.

Nope...African immigrants are not AA (and many would be offended if you called them that). African immigrants can trace their country of origin, AA's can not...hence the term AA..it references our ancestors who originated from Africa who were slaves in the US. A Black person from Nigerian is not AA..they're Nigerian....or Nigerian-American if they're 2+generations if they wanna get really technical.

I think Barack identifies as AA, not a Kenyan American. Maybe that's different since he was born in the US?[/quote]

No, it's because he's a politician and wants to garner the AA vote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am black. Neither my parents nor I have immigrated from Africa. If you call me colored things will get ugly.

well, people call me Irish-American (if anything), when describing ethnicity or background, and my family has been here for 200 years +.

Sidenote: I'm Irish and that just pisses me off.

confused, why? do you think people who are more than 2nd generation shouldn't be called Irish-American, or Italian-American, etc?

Yes. Not the PP.
I'm German, as in born-in-and-raised-there-came-here-late-in-life. However, I have been speaking English all of my life and have no accent. So when I say "I'm German", I get a lot of "oh, I'm German too"....but then people don't speak it. Or have even been there.

You're German (or American or fill in whichever country) if that's what your passport says. I don't think one should identify themselves as hyphenated citizens....pick a nationality, not two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I'm black but not American. I prefer to be called black. I hate any variation on the theme (colored, of color, Negro) because it feels to me that the person is concentrating too much on the difference between us and over-thinking it. To me (may be different for others), black is more matter of fact and I prefer that.
What I do dislike is people assuming I am a particular nationality, whether African American, West Indian, or whatever, without asking, but that's a whole other thread.

Same here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm black....99% of the time, I say black. If I'm in an environment where I deem it appropriate (univ where I took AA courses), I use AA. I think there's much pride in the AA tag...it does not reference African immigrants, post-slavery. AA is a term used when talking about Blacks in America whose ancestors were brought over during slavery.

What about African immigrants who were raised in the US from childhood? I think many of them may identify as AA.

Nope...African immigrants are not AA (and many would be offended if you called them that). African immigrants can trace their country of origin, AA's can not...hence the term AA..it references our ancestors who originated from Africa who were slaves in the US. A Black person from Nigerian is not AA..they're Nigerian....or Nigerian-American if they're 2+generations if they wanna get really technical.

I think Barack identifies as AA, not a Kenyan American. Maybe that's different since he was born in the US?[/quote]

No, it's because he's a politician and wants to garner the AA vote.

Good grief people give it a rest!!! Read his book! He identifies with AA culture from his time in Chicago and yes because he was born in the USA. SHEESH!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am black. Neither my parents nor I have immigrated from Africa. If you call me colored things will get ugly.

well, people call me Irish-American (if anything), when describing ethnicity or background, and my family has been here for 200 years +.

Sidenote: I'm Irish and that just pisses me off.

confused, why? do you think people who are more than 2nd generation shouldn't be called Irish-American, or Italian-American, etc?

Yes. Not the PP.
I'm German, as in born-in-and-raised-there-came-here-late-in-life. However, I have been speaking English all of my life and have no accent. So when I say "I'm German", I get a lot of "oh, I'm German too"....but then people don't speak it. Or have even been there.

You're German (or American or fill in whichever country) if that's what your passport says. I don't think one should identify themselves as hyphenated citizens....pick a nationality, not two.

I think you are over-thinking it. I don't self describe as Irish-American, but if anyone asks what my ethnicity or origin is (which often comes up as Americans are all immigrants), I say Irish and I try to have a few pints on St. Patricks Day. I feel SOME connection or attachment to Ireland, its in my DNA. Just like Italian Americans or Peruvian Americans or anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Depends .... in a situation were I don't know the people I use the PC term African American

Other times I will use black, black American, dark skin (to describe a person -"the woman over there with dark skin")


when speaking to someone who is African with light skin - I do not use the term 'black' to refer to others as I have found that term to be offensive

[Anonymous]

I'm white. I'd prefer to say "black" because there are a number of definitional problems with "African-American" (eg, recent African immigrants have a different experience from people descended from Africans enslaved generations ago. Also, white people whose families have lived in Africa for generations - who are they - European-African-Americans?) but I generally use AA because it seems important to a sizable segment of that community and I want to respect that.

What really bugs me is being called Caucasian rather than white. "European-American" would make more sense since my ancestors came from Europe but I have no connection whatsoever to the Caucasus. I suspect people tend to use it a lot because they feel there should be syllabic parity - that is, "African-American" has a lot of syllables so they say "Caucasian" in order to balance it out. I understand that tendency but it just doesn't jive with reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm white. I'd prefer to say "black" because there are a number of definitional problems with "African-American" (eg, recent African immigrants have a different experience from people descended from Africans enslaved generations ago. Also, white people whose families have lived in Africa for generations - who are they - European-African-Americans?) but I generally use AA because it seems important to a sizable segment of that community and I want to respect that.

What really bugs me is being called Caucasian rather than white. "European-American" would make more sense since my ancestors came from Europe but I have no connection whatsoever to the Caucasus. I suspect people tend to use it a lot because they feel there should be syllabic parity - that is, "African-American" has a lot of syllables so they say "Caucasian" in order to balance it out. I understand that tendency but it just doesn't jive with reality.

but if you want to be accurate, why use "black" instead of "person of color" or "colored"? I really think black sounds dumb. Black is the color of this keyboard. People are mocha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm white. I'd prefer to say "black" because there are a number of definitional problems with "African-American" (eg, recent African immigrants have a different experience from people descended from Africans enslaved generations ago. Also, white people whose families have lived in Africa for generations - who are they - European-African-Americans?) but I generally use AA because it seems important to a sizable segment of that community and I want to respect that.

What really bugs me is being called Caucasian rather than white. "European-American" would make more sense since my ancestors came from Europe but I have no connection whatsoever to the Caucasus. I suspect people tend to use it a lot because they feel there should be syllabic parity - that is, "African-American" has a lot of syllables so they say "Caucasian" in order to balance it out. I understand that tendency but it just doesn't jive with reality.

but if you want to be accurate, why use "black" instead of "person of color" or "colored"? I really think black sounds dumb. Black is the color of this keyboard. People are mocha.

Okay, mocha people rock!

[Anonymous]

but if you want to be accurate, why use "black" instead of "person of color" or "colored"? I really think black sounds dumb. Black is the color of this keyboard. People are mocha.

Look, the colored slave ship has sailed. You can't get colored back. Besides, if we are going to get all accurate, white people have color too. We're not transparent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Africans in America are harder working, more educated and wealthier than black Americans.

I am African. This is simply not true. You are comparing a whole population of AAs in the US with the few educated Africans that come over to the US to work so you are not making a fair comparison. There are hard working and lazy people of ALL races. The are extremely well educated and hard working AAs in America and your president happens to be one of them whether you agree with his politics or not.

His father is African and his mother white. He has no ties to the Black American community.

Uh huh, except for his wife, his kids, his extended family...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

but if you want to be accurate, why use "black" instead of "person of color" or "colored"? I really think black sounds dumb. Black is the color of this keyboard. People are mocha.

Look, the colored slave ship has sailed. You can't get colored back. Besides, if we are going to get all accurate, white people have color too. We're not transparent.

Seriously. When I was a little kid I remember once asking my parents why my friend Karee was called "black" when she looked brown to me and why I was called "white" when I was more of a pink color. My mom cracked up and just said I don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm white. I'd prefer to say "black" because there are a number of definitional problems with "African-American" (eg, recent African immigrants have a different experience from people descended from Africans enslaved generations ago. Also, white people whose families have lived in Africa for generations - who are they - European-African-Americans?) but I generally use AA because it seems important to a sizable segment of that community and I want to respect that.

What really bugs me is being called Caucasian rather than white. "European-American" would make more sense since my ancestors came from Europe but I have no connection whatsoever to the Caucasus. I suspect people tend to use it a lot because they feel there should be syllabic parity - that is, "African-American" has a lot of syllables so they say "Caucasian" in order to balance it out. I understand that tendency but it just doesn't jive with reality.

THERE ARE NO DEFINITIONAL PROBLEMS WITH USING AFRICAN AMERICAN (and yes I am screaming) PEOPLE REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND THE DEFINITION. SOMEONE GAVE A PERFECT DEFINITION ON AN EARLIER PAGE!!! IT DOES NOT APPLY TO AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS OR WHITE PEOPLE FROM AFRICAN COUNTRIES!!!!!!!!!!!