Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So presumably, we came up with the term "African-American" ( never mind that it's a misnomer ) because the term "black" sounded too derogatory (?) and so now all white people use the term "African-American" when referring to black people.
What's confusing me is, you'll often hear both terms used in practically the same sentence quite often. I noticed this while listening to Clinton, Sanders, and O'Malley talk at the Urban league conference last week.
"Black" seems to be the term of choice when talking about numbers and statistics.
I'm just wondering, why is the term "Black" considered too derogatory in some contexts, but perfectly acceptable in others?
I call them "black". I will never use the term "african-american".
I agree. A black person is a black person. Not all black people are of African decent. I'm not aware of black people taking offense to being call black. After all, the NAACP calls them colored and that's not exactly a popular term to refer to black people.
I was once in the Bahamas and some stupid Midwestern American woman there on a cruise was talking about all the 'African Americans' in the Bahamas. I just shook my head because A) they're not American, they're Bahamian and 2) there are plenty of white Bahamians (as well as white Africans).
If that theory of human evolution is correct, then we certainly are.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.