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I don't call black people African Americans any longer after getting a scolding from a man that was born and raised in Africa and later moved here. I can see the man's point since the black people here for the most part were born here and
not in Africa. I chose to call myself just an American as every grandparent came from different European country. If I don't feel like running down the list when asked I just say I represent most European nations.
I am a full on mutt when it comes to heritage with a lot of western European such as Dutch, Irish, English and Welch as well German and Hungarian even some Native tribes including Canadian indigenous tribes. I however am white. I am mostly Irish but I am second generation American on my mother's side and even more on my father's side. I cal myself a white mutt American. I'd say ****** if it is on the self identify list...
If he was born in Mexico and if their laws acknowledged him as a legal citizen at the time of his birth, then yes - he is a Mexican American. Regardless of his parentage, or his ethnicity. Mexico is a country, not a race. If you're born in that country, then you are a Mexican. If you are born in Mexico, then move here, you're still a Mexican. If you are born in Mexico, move here, and acquire legal citizenship, then you are a Mexican-American.
On the other hand, if his parents never acquired legal citizenship for him in Mexico, then he was never Mexican, even if he was born there. That has nothing to do with anything though. We're not talking about Mitt Romney and his Mexican birth.
We're talking about referring to people of a certain skin color, by a term used to describe a nationality. African = of Africa. There are blacks who aren't from Africa, whose parents aren't from Africa, whose grandparents aren't from Africa. They aren't African. There are ALSO whites who are from Africa, whose white parents are from Africa, whose white grandparents are from Africa. They - are African.
There is an entire ethnic group of white Africans, called Afrikaners, whose ancestry leads back to Dutch settlers in the 1600s and 1700s. They are of European descent - and yet - they are African. Any of those Afrikaners who move to the USA and acquire citizenship, would rightfully be called African-Americans.
I never call somebody African American unless they were born in Africa and now live in the USA. Black and African American are two different descriptions.
There is an entire ethnic group of white Africans, called Afrikaners, whose ancestry leads back to Dutch settlers in the 1600s and 1700s. They are of European descent - and yet - they are African. Any of those Afrikaners who move to the USA and acquire citizenship, would rightfully be called African-Americans.
I'd rather called them South African Americans than African American.
It's like some people seem to forget that Africa is a continent, not a country. The choice of African Americans is because they traced their ancestry from different countries who didn't exist with the same borders at the time and it was impossible for them to trace their ancestry because of slavery. A person from Senegal or Nigeria is more likely to be called Senegalese American or Nigerian American rather than a AA.
Why is it people accept that Volga Germans and Austrian Germans can be hyphenated but refuse to use the term African Americans, is it because the African American experience is not noble like the experience of Scotch Irish, Volga Germans and Austrian Germans? They all share the same fact that they are born in one place but retain "cultural ties” to another.
Slavery and segregation is how for 250 years Africans lived in America in virtual isolation and retained their cultural ties to Africa. Different Africans in America homogenized into a single group. The term White means that all the Europeans homogenized into one group, purposely leaving Africans in Isolation to stay African and not American. The etymology of the term African American is what most people are ignorant of but they will still assume it means what they think it means.
Einstein says an intelligent mind is one that can entertain a concept without first having to accept or reject it.
Last edited by thriftylefty; 07-09-2015 at 05:40 AM..
I don't know how old you are, but I am old enough to remember when black culture, even popular black culture (i.e. movie stars, musicians, etc.) had a very similar viewpoint regarding America and the promise she held for ALL Americans.
Many, if not most were God fearing people who were children and grandchildren of people who had suffered the sting or REAL RACISM, and were thankful to God and society at large for having delivered them.
Things were not perfect by any means, but considering where their ancestors had come from, they were working to achieve the American dream. Another words, they were not only free, but had a deep desire to assimilate into the American culture as a whole. Not to be white per se, but be American and part of the melting pot.
While that spirit still exists within some of the black culture, many have heard the drumbeat of malcontents and race merchants like Sharpton. They are now buying into the grievance industries narrative of white = evil, and the "white power structure" (mainly of white LEO's) are holding them back.
Fortunately, the blacks I know and can call my friends are not infected with such negative views.
Sure one can hear the call and want to follow a Malcolm X, but decent folks are willing to lend credence to a less provocative, and ultimately righteous path of a MLK.
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This is pure fiction.
So called black culture is American culture.
People use words and don't seem to understand their meaning.
Black Americans as a group can trace their family lineage further back in this nation than any group of Americans including white folks, most of whom didn't get here until 100 years or less.
So that means of any group black Americans have only been exposed to American culture the longest time.
What you don't get is that with your phrasing, you admit you see black culture and therefore black Americans as not really American, as not really representing America, or fully integrated into America because that's the only way a group that has been here as long as black Americans can't represent American culture.
That's why you can then pretend to understand this foreign backwards black culture.
Your basic premise is a lie, therefore your conclusions are irrelevant.
Why are we only focusing our PC on "black" people, why not "white" people? What is a "white" person? If we are going to call black people African American even though they have no African cultural, why not call white people English or Irish or German or Polish or whatever "new" or "old" immigrant country they cam from American?
As a matter of fact since all people originally came from African, why don't we call everyone African American, why just black people?
When do we draw the line of African American people in the U.S.? 400 years removed or 10,000 years removed?
What do you want to be called "white" people? I have never seen a white person before? I have seen some "black" people before, but never a "white" person.
I'm going to start calling all "white" people European Americans...... I think they should be reminded where they are from as well as Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and African African Americans......... You never here Armenian American, Italian American, Russian American, German American......so European American is appropriate no?
Why not cut to the chase. We are Indo-Europeans or Aryans!
Because white people are real Americans and the other races aren't.
Cue sarcasm.
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