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Using the word IMMIGRATION in the same sentence when discussing black people to me is laughable I said this last week on another thread......black people are not immigrants. I would not call being FORCED INTO A SLAVE SHIP and taken to a strange place immigration!!
As far as having non African names such as Williams or Johnson........another thing that slavery can be blamed for. Black people have those names because years ago when slavery was going on the white slave owner gave his slaves his last name........black people were no longer allowed to use their African names (see the movie Roots) speak the African language, practice the African religion or do anything that would allow them to have any pride in there country of origin. Therefore the non African names carried to the present day and this is the reason black people do not have African names. We are the only people living on the planet that have no memory of our past besides what we read in a book!
For most our memory stops with our great, great grand parents if we happened to be fortunate enough and had great, great grand parents who were living while we were growing up. Me as an example......when I was in the 3rd grade I was fortunate because my great, great grandmother was still living.......she was very old and had been born in the 1800's. She was the child of an African slave but due to the painful memories would not talk to the family about it. That is where most of our memories in the black community end and some of us can not even trace back that far.
I know the origins of my ancestors - but, while I have had discussions about my ancestors with family and friends, there is absolutely no need, no desire, no purpose to "hyphenate".
I am an American. I was born in the United States. My loyalties are too the United States of America - not to the area where my ancestors came from.
Mine are too, at least they would be if society wouldn't be so bent on emphasizing our differences. You feel as if you can be loyal to this country because you have always felt comfortable here. You have never been made to feel second-class by your "countrymen." Believe me, from the day I was born, I have been, and although things have changed some, the sentiments are the same. Just read C-D.
And I don't spend most of my days thinking about hyphenation; most of the thought of that, frankly, comes when I read some of the stuff I do here. Every ethnic group on Earth has its own definition and its own name. Only (some) whites in America feel as if they can think of themselves as uniquely American, and this is because they are the majority, default racial group here.
Any perceived or real separatist thoughts on my part have been thrust on me from the outside. Where I live, for example, nobody wishes to see themselves as part of a larger community. My neighborhood and town are very diverse, but largely Asian, and these people, immigrants with children who are American born, have no desire to really associate with my family. They don't want their children playing with mine. The only thing they want out of America, it seems, is to make money. And I really don't want to get into the countless other situations where I have been thought of as, and treated like, an outsider simply because of what I look like.
If we were all one people, we wouldn't have these situations. Would we?
If Africans were imprisoned, enslaved, and removed from their homelands and brought to Americas why isn't there a desire to return to the land of their ancestors. Why do they want to stay in the country that enslaved them.
If my ancestors were brought here by force, were made slaves, I would want to return to the home of my ancestors..like the Jewish people returning to the land of Israel.
Are you kidding? you are are'nt you? For one Africa is a continent, which mean that there are many countries. Thanks to slavery very few blacks in the US KNOW what country they are from so why in the hell would you they want to go back.....Let me put it this way....BACK TO WHERE!
I never could figure out why whites have issues with american blacks as far as their history is concerned. Don't you think after over 250 years of building this country why leave? this country is as much as the American Blacks as it is the colonist that settled it
Ok. I have read every thread in this stupid post and no one has answered the question yet.
We as blacks have not really decided what WE want to be called, instead we have accepted the labels given to us by others.
Negroes
Coloreds
Blacks
Afro-Americans
African-Americans
Whats the difference? the first three are physical descriptions which if you are describing a person is correct.
Afro-American is a term that was created during the Black Power movement to show a sense of pride in being black in america since many blacks at that time had afros (I guess)
African American- well Suni's dad hit it on the head, describes a UNIQUE group of people in the world that are decendents of american slavery that happened to be from africa. This why anyone coming from Africa during modern times cannot (will not) say that they are African American and would denote the country of origin-American.
The weird thing thing about America is that this is the only country that hypenates it's citizens.
I went to Jamaica and I seen an Asian brother with dreads and I asked him what nationality was he and he said "JAMACIAN". The same thing in Canada where I seen a sister with olive skin she replied that she was "CANADIAN"
But really folks does it really matter?
In another 40 years we will be called something else anyway
I constantly see it being used in the forums and general media referring to American blacks. Yet there is nothing "African" about American black people and furthermore most American blacks have no intention of visiting or living in Africa, so why do people continue to insist on using this term? Are whites called "European American"? No. In fact, American blacks are even more Americanized than white Americans. Many black families have been here for 200-300 years. They have no connections to Africa at all.
Discuss.
Start by not calling Native Americans "Indians" since they are not from India
I say "black" "asian" "white" "hispanic" etc when describing people. I'm not big on the something-american thing.
Me too!
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I said this last week on another thread......black people are not immigrants. I would not call being FORCED INTO A SLAVE SHIP and taken to a strange place immigration!! 
