Reply to When you think of Africans

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "When you think of Africans"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Just to further drive home the point that there is no "right" definition of African American - here's more from the Wikipedia definition.  Especially note the author who considers Obama African American but not black.

Who is African American?

Since 1977, in an attempt to keep up with changing social opinion, the United States government has officially classified black people (revised to black or African American in 1997) as "having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa."[138] Other federal offices, such as the United States Census Bureau, adhere to the OMB standards on race in its data collection and tabulations efforts.[139] In preparation for the United States 2010 Census, a marketing and outreach plan, called 2010 Census Integrated Communications Campaign Plan (ICC) recognized and defined African Americans as black people born in the United States. From the ICC perspective, African Americans are one of three groups of black people in the United States[140]

The ICC plan was to reach the three groups by acknowledging that each group has its own sense of community that is based on geography and ethnicity.[141] The best way to market the census process toward any of the three groups is to reach them through their own unique communication channels and not treat the entire black population of the U.S. as though they are all African Americans with a single ethnic and geographical background. The U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation categorizes black or African American people as "A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa" through racial categories used in the UCR Program adopted from the Statistical Policy Handbook (1978) and published by the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce, derived from the 1977 OMB classification.[142]

The African-American experience
In her book The End of Blackness, as well as in an essay on the liberal website Salon,[143] author Debra Dickerson has argued that the term "black" should refer strictly to the descendents of Africans brought to America as slaves, and not the sons and daughters of black immigrants who lack that ancestry. In her opinion, President Barack Obama, who is the son of a Kenyan immigrant, although technically African-American, is not black.[143][144] She makes the argument that grouping all people of African descent together regardless of their unique ancestral circumstances would inevitably deny the lingering effects of slavery within the American community of slave descendents, in addition to denying black immigrants recognition of their own unique ancestral backgrounds. "Lumping us all together", Dickerson wrote, "erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress".[143]

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics