African-American vs. Black

[Arylett Charnoa]

I don't really like using African American because it feels too formal for everyday use, really. It means to me that you're not comfortable talking with black people, and you're super afraid that you're going to offend them. I want to treat them as casually as possible, and not make a big deal of it. That's the sort of thing that belongs on documents. If possible, I'll try to avoid mentioning race period. I don't think it should be necessary in conversations to keep bringing it up. But if it's somehow relevant, I'll just go with black. If you can call white people white, you can call black people black. I honestly am more scared of mentioning these sorts of things in front of white people, because they tend to be far more touchy about it, I've found. Don't want them to glare at me for being "racist", heh.

 

[Kanzler]

So the consensus seems to be that "African-American" definitely belongs in a more formal setting, to the point of appearing too "polite" in certain scenarios and is definitely an Americanism, and "black" is generally more welcomed in more settings, especially if you're not from the States, unless you're scared of seeming racist and defer to using "African-American".

 

[Mobile Tsk]

"African American" is a ridiculous term in my opinion because it is incorrectly ascribed to people whose ancestors are not from Africa or whose nationality is not American. There is nothing offensive or impolite about calling someone black. It is no different from calling someone white. Notice how rare the term "European American" is. I have rarely heard black people refer to themselves as African American; it is mainly white people who fear being labeled as racist. But it's silly because black is the more technically correct term for someone when you don't know their ancestry or nationality for sure.

 

[Sir Codin]

I'm going to parrot Maddox here and state that African-American is ridiculous because 1) you're assuming the person is American and not British, French, German, Polish, etc. and 2) you're assuming he's African, as opposed to Indian, Brazilian, Jamaican, etc and 3) you're assuming everyone in Africa is black.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

I use the term "black," because it's much shorter to say than "African-American," and I want to save my breath for other complex sentence structures. I really don't see how it's a big deal if you aren't saying someone's ethnicity the correct way, so long as they share the same meaning.

 

[Fannie]

I always thought the term African-American was strange. irish-American, Italian-American, Mexican-American, etc as well. I suppose these terms are used because the US is still a new country and it's citizens retain a lot from their respective cultures. But at what point are you just American?

 

[Junier]

Ummmm we actually perform the term "mahogany" instead, thx very much, check your privilege, micro-aggressions, etc.

 

[Neil Peart]

As far as I know, we usually use the term to define black Americans descended from enslaved Africans.

 

[Jauntier]

I don't understand the issue with it, honestly. In the U.S., government forms that list race actually list white people as "White" and black people are "African-American/Black". There is no distinction with us whites, since we're all apparently mutts anyway and we haven't risen up to shout about being called "European-Americans" or some other foolishness like that. At the same time, "black" to describe skin-color and self-identity is now only ascribed to people whose ancestors were African, but we really mean real Africans, you know, not those invasive Dutchmen in South Africa, am I right? We're talking about possibly Egyptian to definitely South Sudanese in terms of both skin color and political boundaries within the African continent.

But even to use colloquial color terms on these government papers, it would be seen as purely, utterly racist to describe Asian-Americans as "yellow" or Native Americans as "red", or any and everybody else to just list themselves off as "brown". That last one is just too broad a concept to do anyway, yet we just write "white" for us whites and "black" for us blacks.

There is no proper standard here. If we want to ask about someone's ethnicity on these government forms, effectively, we shouldn't see the option "white". Ask a white person who understands what ethnicity is, and you will get answers like "Irish-American", "German-American", "French-Romani-American", "Spaniard", "Aryan", etc. But being correct in what an ethnicity is and listing off choices in that regard is ridiculous since there are just so many ethnicities, and it comes off less like you being American and more like someone with a dual-citizenship.

And then there's "Hispanic." This term applies foremost to people who fit the two criteria of 1) speaking Spanish and 2) are especially of Latin-American descent, or Iberian (Spain, Portugal). But apparently, calling yourself "Latino" is, by one, likely small group of people's standards, pejorative social empowerment through identity politics since Latinos apparently can't speak Spanish fluently as this one group says, and calling yourself "Latin" is seen as being a foreign immigrant to the U.S. What are all these subdivisions and why are criteria suddenly relevant for one ethnic group but not another? Hispanics get special treatment in government programs where I live, otherwise they wouldn't ask if you even have part somewhere in you. They're like the new "Native American" in terms of special interests.

We should get rid of all of these terms, and if we are to mention actual race, merely go by the race classifications of Caucasian for whites, Mongoloid for Asians, and Negroid for blacks. We probably have no aboriginals in the United States, so I wouldn't put Australoid in there, but who knows. We have racial biological traits beyond the color of our skin that place us in these types, but people are getting sensitive over words and creating their own stigmas. Christ, I can just imagine a young Asian-American woman getting upset that she had to mark herself off as a Mongol, even, claiming that she isn't from Mongolia so why is she being called such, or that it implies her chromosomes are not in order.

But I digress. We social creatures are just so damn finicky about classification and identity politics, something I consider a non-issue is somehow a hot button.

 

[FreakyLocz14]

"Black" refers to people of negroid racial background. "African-American" means an American citizen or national with African ancestry. That would include the descendants of white settlers in Africa. In the PC world, AA is used synonymous with black, but that is inappropriate because African ≠ black.