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If a Chinese woman flys to Africa and has a baby ,then goes back to China with that baby, then that baby is Afro-Chinese? I find it amazing that one would believe that the very ground you are born on rearranges the DNA in your body. So if Charliese Theron never came to America she would just be another little African girl?
Being born in the confines of a church does not make the child a Christian..jus soli is so wrong. Is the blood that matters. Not a spot of Earth.
It's far more complex than where a person was born or where they currently reside. I have already gave my opinion. And who coined the term was no other than Jesse Jackson. So he is the really the source to this and how he defined African-American does not match up with the neo-logical line of thought being displayed on here, which is I think falls a bit on cultural stupidity. So truth be told, it's really many posters on here trying to redefine what has already been defined over 20 years before this thread was made. What many people saying on here is almost like saying English is an American language, a Canadian language, a Jamaican language, an Australian language, etc. Just because the language is widely a primary language outside of Europe doesn't divert it from its origin. It remains a European language.
Black people in America have been called Africans since the seventeenth Century. I am not sure how Jessie Jackson got credit for coining this term in the 80's but It was already in use by the seventies. I think it was already being used in the works of W.E. B. Dubois at the turn of the century. William Dubois, the the first African American to receive a PhD. in sociology, saw this as an appropriate term to define a people whose cultural identity is the result of an event and not a place. This term is not unlike other terms used in social science to define other groups of people like ;Austral German, Russian Jews, and Scotch Irish.
can only black people be called African Americans?
What about the Arabs in the North? The Whites in the South?
The issue with non-blacks calling themselves Africans is they come to Africa with a settler mindset. They remain 100% culturally European...they just seek to claim resources. This guy is wholly Portuguese by blood after 3 generations in a mostly black nation. That means they took a lot of care in maintaining their European ancestry. There is nothing wrong with that but why pretend to be African?
No. The term "African American" has a cultural and historical context. It denotes and connotes, within those contexts, the legacy and descendents of African slaves in the U.S.
BS
There are Whites in Africa so if they moved to America (North, Central, or South) & became citizens they would by every context of the word be considered African Americans.
There are Whites in Africa so if they moved to America (North, Central, or South) & became citizens they would by every context of the word be considered African Americans.
No. They would check off the box right next to the word "White". That's how that works.
Afro-American is synonymous with skin color only on the isolated plant called The USA. I cannot find one dictionary where the meaning of Afro means the color black. Another case of us defiling the English language.
Technically I'm Russian-American cause I was born in Russia and spent my early life there but I am so culturally Americanized that I basically just call myself American. I don't feel much of a connection to Russian culture anyway. If I did I would probably call myself Russian-American. There are a lot of Black Americans that just call themselves American because they have as much of a tie to African culture as I do to Russian. In fact, most Black people in America are much more far removed from African culture than I am from Russian culture because they weren't even born in Africa, haven't lived in Africa, and haven't even visited Africa, whereas I've done all three in regards to Russia.
If you think about it for a second, it makes sense. The main reason Black people still get called African-Americans after multiple generations of having lived here, while other ethnicities that were more recently immigrated here just get called plain old American, is because Black people look different. In many people's eyes, "American" is still "White". But how often do we call someone Irish-American or Italian-American or German-American, when their grandparents came here more recently than the African ancestors of many of our Black Americans?
African-American still gets used so heavily after so many generations of cultural integration because Black Americans go against the mental image many Americans have of "American," which is White/European/Caucasian. In many ways our culture is still very Eurocentric--even on the global scale. When many Black Americans visit other countries, they get seen by locals as African, not American.
Black Americans are just as American as any other American, so why not just call Black Americans...American? In a conversation about ancestry and heritage, I can understand using African-American, but I think it's ridiculous we use it as the "counterpart" to White on TV and in public discourse when we don't make those distinctions among White Americans anymore.
I don't disagree that black americans are just as American as anyone else, I think that's primarily because there is no single definition of what it actually means to be an "American."
But there is a cultural/genetic association that African Americans have with the African continent which I think some are conveniently ignoring. Whether you are Russian or Chinese--heritage and genetics do count for something. It simply can't be fully ignored, as unPC as it may be to say.
According to some of the arguments here it is a matter of simple identity and acculturation and that's not necessarily the case once you leave this country, because in this country there is [allegedly'] no mainstream definition(we don't eeven technically ave an official language or religion). But in other countries you do have to have an ethnic identity particular to that country both through your ancestry and your current nationality. In many cases, being born "Russian" does not always make someone Russian by nationality or ethnicity in Russia.
Either way, being that Americans are an extremely diverse demographic mix of ethnic and genetic variations, African Americans do have a connection to West Africa which obviously makes us unique from other hyphenated Americans. It can be observed in some parts of language, family structure, dance, music, food, traditions as well as appearence. It is not simply based on appearence. To say otherwise would be to say that African Americans are identicle to German Americans, Irisih Americans, Italian Americans, Chinese Americans as well as Russian Americans and that just is not true. There are obvious similarities but there are obvious differences as well.
No. They would check off the box right next to the word "White". That's how that works.
Yup, I think people are just accustomed to how the rules work in America, where just being born here provides you with automatic citizenship and association. . But in other countries, just being born there does NOT give you that particular ethnic identity or nationality.
If any of us who are non-muslim had our children born in Saudi Arabia there is a very good chance that we would not be recognized as Saudis by the government.
There are Whites in Africa so if they moved to America (North, Central, or South) & became citizens they would by every context of the word be considered African Americans.
ROFL. I can see it now...A pale skin white dude from South Africa, walking up to a group of black brothas in New York, and saying, "Hey guys, I'm African American".
Last edited by dorado0359; 12-24-2011 at 01:38 PM..
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