Okay, so I hear a lot of black people get offended by the term "black" and say they prefere the term "African American." Well, say there is a "black" guy, of whom people refere to him as African American, but he is Austrailian, neither American or African! Also, doesn't that phrase assume that all black people come from Africa, ignoring the native blacks from Haiti, Jamaica, Austrailia, and other places completely unrelated to Africa? Also, it assumes that all people from Africa are black, but there are plenty of white people from Africa who have said citizenship. (Dave Matthews Band.) Citezenship is another issue, as most black who live in America have no African citizenship, or haven't even been there. All in all, the phrase is completely busted. If you are offendedn by it, then you are ignorant. I am a white male, and I have yet to hear any black person refere to me as a German-American. Usually it is cracker or honky anyways.
What are your thoughts?
2006-06-15 09:23:01 · 6 answers · asked by fret_guy89 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Other - Society & Culture
Why can't you call people by their given name? What difference does it matter the colour of their skin? Then again sometime you have to look over some uneducated people.
2006-06-15 09:29:25 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 4⤋
Africa is a contintent, not a country, so if one were to reciprocate with a similar label, I would have to call you a European-American, instead of German-American. After all, Germany is just a country within a contintent.
You have pointed out a difficulty of classifying races by skin color. I believe races are meant to classify what continent people originate from. Dark skin may mean that you originate from Africa and light skin means that you originate from Europe or Asia - whereby the shape of the eyes becomes more important in identifying race then. Sometimes physical appearance does give a clue about a person's ancestry, but you're right... It is imperfect. You can have dark skin, but it doesn't guarantee that your
(recent) ancestry goes back to Africa.
Also, what if you are an in-between shade, not purely from one contintent, then how would you be able to use appearance to define your originating continent?
I want to note, too, that referring to your ancestry does not refer to current citizenship presently or within less than a few generations ago. So your reference to compare citizenship and race does not apply.
Perhaps, instead of picking different labels for races that are "less offensive," or "more offensive," we just drop these labels altogether. If you want to talk about somebody's skin color, you can describe it the same way you would hair - i.e., describing the actual color. If you want to describe your continent of origin, then I think it is appropriate to say, European, African, or alternatively a specific set of islands, but only if you are pretty confident that you know your ancestry.
2006-06-15 09:34:32 · answer #2 · answered by Kestra SpiritNova 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
ummm...like black is not a skin colour...and why would you wanna label a person anyway? I'm offended if someone labels me and were all people anyway so why should you worry about what to call a person? Are you going to be all like "Hey, you black guy" or "Hey you African American guy" ? You wouldn't like it if someone said to you "Hey you white guy", right? Therefore it shouldn't label people and if you don't know their name just address them as sir or ma'am. We are all people and we look different so don't categorize them.
2006-06-15 09:58:36 · answer #3 · answered by Mandie 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
African American <--- politically correct expression
Black <-- legacy term
In the end neither one is accurate but most of the world (exclude the US) don't say "African American" or "African European" (sounds a bit ridiculous)
2006-06-20 08:58:41 · answer #4 · answered by mjasmin_ht 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
my husband is Haitian and prefers to be called black, or Haitian as he has a lot of pride in his heritage. Not all black people are African American...so go with this general absolutely safe way to talk about any one...if they are born here they are American...if they are not then ask what country they are from (every one like to talk about home) and then speak of them as they are from there home just like the french, or German, or Jamaican, or Haitian...people from Africa aren't solely from Africa either there are countries with in Africa, and people like to share that as well...like members of my church are from the Congo, and Sudan.
2006-06-15 09:33:01 · answer #5 · answered by micki_g 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i'm with you bro.make it simple call ppl by the color of their skin unless you know of their orgin
2006-06-15 09:48:14 · answer #6 · answered by BobVu 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋