Why “African American” IS the Most Accurate Term
By Guest Contributor invisiman52, originally published at Max Protect
(An African Methodist Episcopal Church and stop on the Underground Railroad)
On his blog at The New Republic, John McWhorter argues that “African American” does not accurately describe the descendants of African slaves who live in the United States today. He suggests that the term should be reserved for “actual Africans” who emigrate to the United States; but for those whose ancestors were brought to the North American mainland in chains, “black will have to do,” McWhorter says. There are several reasons why his logic in the post (as well as that in this Bloggingheads with Glenn Loury) is flawed. If one takes the time to understand the historical, geopolitical, and ethical ramifications of the term “African American,” he might realize that it is the most precise signifier for the people whose ancestors endured the traumatic encounter with European enslavers in the North American colonies and United States.
First off, it bears noting that if someone has a personal aversion to the term “African American” there is no need to try to convince her otherwise. (Indeed, people do not like the names a parent gives them and change them as a result.) Yet McWhorter’s argument does not rest on personal predilection, but rather it is an attempt to reason and eventually settle on the most exact designation for black people native-born to the U.S. As such, the first concern is one of history. (And McWhorter recognizes this, as his title suggests: “Did ‘African American’ History Really Happen in Atlanta, Cleveland, Philly, and Detroit? Listening to the Census.”) That most black Americans have not been to Africa, do not speak an indigenous African language, and/or cannot trace their ancestral line to a particular tribe or region is beside the point. The “African” in African American is not that grounded; it is does not signify the particularities of Africa. Instead, the “African” in African America refers to a very distinct historical process of acculturation, trauma, and community building. As historian Ira Berlin puts in his definitive text on slavery, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America:
When the captives boarded ship in Africa, they did not think of themselves as Africans. Their allegiance was to a family, clan, community, or perhaps–although rarely–state, but never to the continent itself. By the time they reached the American shores, that had begun to change; as they disembarked, the process by which many African nations became one had already gained velocity. The construction of an African identity proceeded on the western, not the eastern, side of the Atlantic, amid the maelstrom of the plantation generation. (104)
It is this historical activity that “African” connotes. That these people and their descendants would eventually lose the distinctiveness of their native clans, and instead merge strategies of survival and elements of culture means that only a term as capacious and ambiguous as “African” can forcefully capture them. Paradoxically, the “African” in African American has everything and nothing to do with the places of Africa.
However, one might argue, as McWhorter does, that “African American” is a better label for a person who emigrated from an African country, the so-called “actual African.” Today, over 1 million black people in the United States are from Africa; and yet, I argue, the term “African American” is not the most accurate signifier for these subjects. Why? Because “African” is too abstracted for them. That is to say, an immigrant from Nigeria is a Nigerian-American, just as one from Ireland is an Irish-American. Because the immigrant from Nigeria knows he is from Nigeria, he should be hailed accordingly. This recognizes two realities of geopolitical modernity: one, the importance of the formation of nation-states; and, two, that most black people born in the United States do not know precisely from where they come. This is how one distinguishes a descendant of slaves from an African immigrant from, say, Kenya: the former is an African American, the latter is a Kenyan American; whereas the Kenyan knows he from Kenya, the African American is from everywhere and nowhere in Africa at the same time.
Of course, a person from Kenya is also an African, but so too is someone from Cameroon or Lesotho. What I am after is the most precise and utilitarian of terms. (The cultural and social politics of locating such specificity accounts for why white people say they are “Italian Americans” or of Anglo Saxon heritage, as opposed to the broader “European Americans.”) The problem with calling the descendants of slaves simply “black American” is that it doesn’t do enough to separate them from black African immigrants in ways that “African American” can.
Just as McWhorter (and others) disavows the term “African” because he finds little of Africa in his way of being, so too should he dismiss “black” because, as his headshot shows, he is far from the color. (I think both African American and black serve their respective purposes; but I am trying to point out the lapse of a logic that on the one hand relies on absolute preciseness, while on the other hand, does not.) Moreover, McWhorter claims that we need to get away from “African American” because it too easily evokes a kind of false pride, couched in Africa, that has little to do with the American experience. As he puts it, “Among black Americans in 2010, true black pride does not call itself ‘African.’” Well, tell that those who worship in the African Methodist Episcopal or the African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches. Tell that to those who trace their educational pedigrees back to the Free African Schools of the antebellum North.
Overall, what bothers me most in the disavowal of the term African American is the orientalist projection that many, including McWhorter, thrust on African people. McWhorter says at one point: “In truth, a black man from Jacksonville has more in common with a white one from Tucson than he does with a man three years out of Senegal.” Unfortunately, I cannot grant this truth. While the black man from Jacksonville and the white one from Tuscon might share a first language, there is no guarantee that their similarities go beyond this one. Especially after the time of colonialism, Africans share a great deal with their black counterparts native to the United States. What must be asked is this: What does that man from Senegal look like to McWhorter? Indeed what do the African people look like to African Americans in general? If we, African Americans, shutter our own imperialist gaze we might find more in common with Africans than we thought. We are too quick to say “I’m not African” without knowing what “African” is in any sense of the word.
And, to answer McWhorter’s question, African American history happened all over the United States.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Sean wrote:
I’ll have to respectfully disagree with John McWhorter’s essay. This is still problematic to me. I just can’t get behind describing the race of a person by using his/her nationality.
How would a Black or Asian person born and raised in, say, Italy, who moved to the United States be described?
My brain hurts already.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 11:36 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
though i was born and raised in the united states, i typically don’t use the term african-american unless i am trying to get really specific in a piece i am writing or something (i.e. to show that i am referring to people born on american soil who are of african descent).
i tend to use the term “black” or “black american” as i prefer to be more inclusive of many people of the diaspora who live here (i.e. people from europe, africa, the caribbean and latin america who can easily share cultural claims and experience with discrimination in the states with us-born blacks, framing their experience to be very similar to those of african-americans in many ways.
i like your attempt here to dissect mcwhorter’s argument, particularly as i have noticed that many of his pieces tend to be a bit on the …i am not sure how to put it…but renouncing blackness in a strange way. or i should say, he tends to take a more conservative take on black america and blackness as a whole (which is fine, but sometimes troubling and not very inclusive)
it’s interesting to note, however, that several of my friends who are of african descent but by way of a different national heritage than the us (i.e. nigerian, dominican, etc), while they express pride and cultural ties of their families’ places of origin, they identify as african-american and/or go by the term black (even if in their or their family’s place of origin, they might not have been classified as such)
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 11:44 am ¶
jen* wrote:
this is an interesting argument and I certainly appreciate it. I have a question, though.
Would similar terminology apply in another country? Take Jamaica as an example. Would black Jamaicans be more properly Afro-Jamaican, than simply Jamaican? And if they moved here, would they be Afro-Jamaican-Americans? Or just Jamaican-Americans? Or could they be called African Americans?
I ask, because I have a friend who refers to herself as both Jamaican and African American (at different times). Doesn’t really matter to me either way, but I’m just wondering if there’s a more apt descriptor for non-US, Western hemi-folks who are descended from African slaves when they come to the states. [Of course, this may just be a bit out there, but it got me thinking...]
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 12:00 pm ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
Interesting… I am with Wendi– I’ve never used the term “African American” and have always said “Black Americans” because I’ve always been told by my Black American friends that they hated being called “African-Americans.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t “African-American” actually coined by WHITE people?
Secondly, when my family and I emigrated to the USA, I thought “African American” referred to African immigrants, so I was very confused for a while when I learned that wasn’t the case.
But of course, since I’m a Muslim immigrant, I know many African immigrants at my parents’ mosque and they always made sure to differentiate themselves from Black Americans.
YET– at the same time, I understand the need to use the term “African American” because if you say “Black American” you’d have to include Black Latinos or Black Arabs, but none of them are African-American in the sense of having slavery roots.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 12:06 pm ¶
TAG wrote:
“Today, over 1 million black people in the United States are from Africa; and yet, I argue, the term “African American” is not the most accurate signifier for these subjects. Why? Because “African” is too abstracted for them. That is to say, an immigrant from Nigeria is a Nigerian-American, just as one from Ireland is an Irish-American. Because the immigrant from Nigeria knows he is from Nigeria, he should be hailed accordingly. ”
Thank You! I wonder maybe this is the reason why some ppl still think of Africa as a country. I am Nigerian. When someone asks me where i am from, i don’t say Africa, I say Nigeria. There is no false pride in knowing where your ancestors came from.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 12:08 pm ¶
Christine wrote:
Nice post, I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately. I find myself conflicted over whether African American, Black , or something else not yet in use would be most accurate. I like your justification of African American, because the “African” indicates the inability of people to state a specific place or tribe of origin in Africa, due to the experience of slavery. However, it does seem inaccurate to me because, I’m not African. The disconnect that “African American” highlights is what makes the term inaccurate. While I like the allusion to slavery that “African American” provides, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the connection to Africa that the term indicates. The reason for this is that in my travels outside the US, particularly within South Africa, African people who lived there were adamant about me not being African or having that connection to the any part of continent. Black, to me, does represent the general African diaspora, so it’d be accurate but to broad. Perhaps Black American is the most accurate. I think I tend to use either African American out of habit or “Black” (as shorthand for Black American). Not really sure what’s best though. Does the accuracy of another term win out over the significance tied to “African American”?
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 1:05 pm ¶
Micah wrote:
Personally, I don’t think African-American is the best term and I prefer Black or Black American as well. For me, I am far more American than I am African and I don’t want to put another hyphenated word before my Americanness, to separate me even more. For all that America is, I am proud to be an American. To say that I am Black American acts more as a modifier (since there isn’t any country called “Black”) as opposed to Africa, a continent with its own histories and cultures that, by virtue of my ancestors being here 400 years, cannot relate to.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 1:08 pm ¶
Rok Johnson wrote:
I find the term “African American” to be confusing and indeed a misnomer when describing the descendants of African slaves who were born in the in the US. Where matters of culture and immigration are concerned, African American more accurately describes someone who was born on the continent of Africa and who has migrated to the US.
I find the term “Afro-American” to be more appropriate in describing we Black peoples born in the US. Afro-American also more consistently aligns us with other descendants of slaves inhabiting The Americas (i.e. Afro-Latino, Afro-Cubano, Afro-Colombiano, etc) and Europe (Afro-Franco, Afro-Italiano. etc).
I find that the term African American is a further denial of the impact and existence of the slave trades. Over time one may conclude no distinction between one who immigrates to the US voluntarily and one who is a descendent of slaves in using the Term African American for both.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 1:33 pm ¶
Brandon wrote:
I love this topic.
A concern of mine is that white people take this in and respond with “Why can’t they just decide what they want to be called?” or “What do they want to be called NOW?”
Because, you know, it’s so hard to get it straight. And god forbid you should ever have to apologize to someone, or actually listen to them, or treat them like an individual.
Anyway… I was actually watching this yesterday, which is in line with McWhorter’s ideas. Smokey Robinson doing Def Poetry Jam, and pretty poorly…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_KKyw8V-l0
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 2:09 pm ¶
MoonCat wrote:
What’s the most accurate term? I don’t know, and I don’t think that’s what matters. Communities and individuals have the right to define themselves with a term that makes them comfortable. I know people who call themselves Black and others who call themselves African American. It’s all about whatever makes the person comfortable.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 2:22 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:
When describing myself, I tend to stick to “black” and “American-born black” because it seems like the most explicitly racialized moniker (which I find useful in the context of my experiences), smacks of modernity and does not depend on all of the parentage branches of my family tree to have identified as that same. It’s inclusive of Africaness, Dutchness, Senecaness, Surinameseness and so on in a way that I’m not sure “African American” is (or needs to be).
When discussing cultural product I do sometimes use “African American” but rarely in a contemporary context. It’s interesting that an image of an historically significant site and not a person of/in this moment accompanies this post.
Is “African American” unfairly bound to the past? A useful/useless tether to keep pulling the past forward? Will it die in the future?
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 2:35 pm ¶
Iggles wrote:
Eh, I used both. When I was younger I used to write down “Afro-American”.
I think Black American encompasses all black people in america — included those recently from Africa, Latin America, and the West indies. Though most of the time people mean descendants of slaves, it’s as encompassing as African American is.
I actually think African American is more specific for descendants of African slaves because it has been used for our group specifically for decades. If we knew which part of Africa our people came from we would say Kenyan American or Bantu American — but most of us don’t which is why we refer to the whole continent.
It’s a misnomer but so is Black American. We are not a color and there is only one race — the human race. To make an exact name we’d have to go by Americans of Slave Descent. Somehow I doubt that will catch on.
Anyway, I am a Black American. My ancestors were brought against their will to this land as slaves. They came from Africa. So I am African American too.
Funny how no one questions when fourth generation American who’s family hails China calls himself Asian. Or Chinese for that matter. I don’t see anything wrong with acknowledge our roots from Africa as well as our heritage in the USA.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 3:00 pm ¶
Medusa wrote:
Yes. This.
I wrote about thismyself. Seriously, there are very things that annoy me more than being referred to as African American, especially because I AM NOT AMERICAN and I don’t come from a country called Africa… And, I mean, I don’t get offended by someone talking to me and thinking I’m American, because I do have an America accent, however, when I have TOLD YOU WHERE I COME FROM, where I’ve lived, and who I am, and you still refer to me as African American, it’s clear that ” some ppl [you] still think of Africa as a country.”
And to be honest, I don’t even refer to “African Americans” as African Americans. I’ve never, ever met a single one who objected to being called black, and personally, I feel when I use the term “black” it shows solidarity between different African and African-descent groups, but if you want to specify which group you are talking about, you can use a more accurate and defined term.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 3:01 pm ¶
Keeley wrote:
To be perfectly honest, I have always found it pretty offensive to assume every Black person’s lineage dated back to Africa, hence the term, African American. What about the Black people from Brazil or Haiti or countless other countries? Is it appropriate to refer to them as African American as well?
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 3:06 pm ¶
Brenda wrote:
I am glad this article was written as this is something I also became more and more confused about. For most of my life, I identified myself as African-American but am debating about whether I want to change to Black American or not as I have mixed blood through both of my grandparents and was told by a family member that I have ancestors from Kenya. Plus, I didn’t grow up practicing any traditions or celebrations typically identified with being African American or from my ancestral Kenyan clan.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 3:12 pm ¶
Iggles wrote:
@ Keeley:
“To be perfectly honest, I have always found it pretty offensive to assume every Black person’s lineage dated back to Africa, hence the term, African American. What about the Black people from Brazil or Haiti or countless other countries? Is it appropriate to refer to them as African American as well?”
Those Black people from Brazil and Haiti ALSO descended from Africans.
Specifying that your are “American” is denoting a nationality just like “Brazilian” and “Haitian”. They would be for example, Afro-Brazilian. If they were born/raised in American they would be Afro-Brazilian American. Or Brazilian American. etc. Just like any of us they hold many simultaneous identities.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 3:49 pm ¶
Heather Leila wrote:
This is such an interesting topic. For some Americans, it confuses them so much they will call Black people in other countries African Americans (completely not comprehending that the -American means they are from America). I had trouble with this with students of mine. In trying to teach them about the diaspora in Latin America, they either refused to believe that there are Black people in Colombia, Cuba, the DR, etc. or they assumed the Black people in these countries were exactly like the Black people in America. It’s hard for Americans to separate Race and Culture. It’s hard for us to understand that you can’t know someone’s culture just by looking at the color of their skin. Africans, Afro-Latinos, African Americans all have distinct cultures (albeit with ties and bonds between them).
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 3:58 pm ¶
J.A. wrote:
@ Iggles, GET. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD. I was totally going to write that, but you already did.
So, right on.
@Keeley
How do you think those black people got to Brazil, Haiti, etc.? The Atlantic slave trade ships did not just stop in America, they stopped at almost every piece of land that borders the Atlantic Ocean.
It may not be appropriate to call them all African-American, but they’re ancestors certainly did come from Africa.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 4:06 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
well, keeley…to be perfectly honest, people from those other countries also have African lineage, and historically ended up there because of slavery or colonialism, particularly the two countries you cited: Brazil and Haiti.
they are people of african descent. i don’t think the author is saying that one should call those people african-american, primarily because they are not american. in my experience in visiting and living in other countries, most people do not play the hyphen game like we do here. they call themselves by x-race and then if asked nationality, name the country in which they were born or live. here, we’ve come up with hyphenated names for a number of reasons, one of them being racial solidarity (as people here tend to focus more on racial/ethnic origin than national ties to america…too long to go into in just a comment, but hopefully someone out there is nodding and knows that i am getting at).
in other countries, people would use the equivalent of black -or- their country of origin, but typically not hyphenate. in brazil, since that’s the country you referenced, keeley, most people would say branco (white; and, if one knew their country of origin, much like here, they’d say “italano” (italian), “portugues” (portuguese) or “espanhol” (spanish), “frances” (french) etc), preto/negro (black; in this case meaning primarily very very dark skinned person of african descent, though negro has more of a political meaning and preto, in some cases, can be considered offensive), mulato/moreno (person of multiracial descent/darker features, though typically medium to light brown skin), and for people of asian descent, i more often than not heard “japa/japones” (japanese), “chines” (chinese), etc and not like a blanket term. no one once said “i am african-brazilian.”
afrobrazilian is a term, but it’s mainly one of american (us) invention that is used here, but not really accurate when applied to brazilians themselves (as they often acknowledge race in different ways, one of them being that they tend to be more inclusive of ALL of one’s makeup, not solely considering what one’s appearance may say)
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 4:16 pm ¶
KDS wrote:
I use both terms. Black is my racial identification. I think of black as broad term for “black” people throughout the African Diaspora, inclusive of all nationalities and ethnicities. “African American”, I understand to be my ethnicity. I use African American when I am speaking specifically of the descendants of US slavery. Not sure that African American is the best term, but it is important to somehow make this distinction semantically. I think the Huxtables actually introduced me to “African American” and I remember hearing that the term was about tying the descendants of slaver to a place and a history that preceded captivity. This argument given here for the use of “African American” is new to me, but it makes a lot of sense.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 5:03 pm ¶
Talis wrote:
@ Keely
I think I get what you mean. I identify as Haitian American or black. So do my family members. It’s a matter of culture. To my thinking African descent is automatically implied in that. I know where it all started. I know how my family got to Haiti. I know Haiti. I don’t know Africa. So when you ask me who I am. I respond with what I know.
DIMA:
“YET– at the same time, I understand the need to use the term “African American” because if you say “Black American” you’d have to include Black Latinos or Black Arabs, but none of them are African-American in the sense of having slavery roots.”
The Terminology is weird and limiting. Just because you don’t identify as african american or black american doesn’t mean that you’re ancestors weren’t slaves. Unlike African Americans the French own my folks reparations.
Medusa:
“I don’t get offended by someone talking to me and thinking I’m American, because I do have an America accent, however, when I have TOLD YOU WHERE I COME FROM, where I’ve lived, and who I am, and you still refer to me as African American, it’s clear that ” some ppl [you] still think of Africa as a country.”
So much word.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 5:48 pm ¶
Kat wrote:
I don’t understand “African American” unless you REALLY want to speak about the African heritage (which not knowing exactly where their ancestors were kidnapped from, as the author rightly pointed out, can then not be affiliated with one single African state). However, in reality when people actually use it, they really mean the skin color of the person (thus, a Black person who emigrated from the US from Germany or Russia or Jamaica is still ‘African American’), not some pan-African identity. IMO if you want to speak about the skin color of a group of people and how this affects them etc, then say the skin color. What about White South Africans? Or is a White Argentinian a “European American”? And why are people whose ancestors might have been kidnapped from Africa in the 1600s and then lived in the Caribbean “African American”? If Gannibal had emigrated to the US, would he have been “African American”? I think he would rather be a Russian American Black man.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 5:57 pm ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
Since November 2009, I began calling all of the white characters in my plays “European Americans” in character descriptions, because it’s not fair that White people are called “American” while everyone else are assigned a label.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 5:57 pm ¶
Digital Coyote wrote:
“African-American” (with or without the punctuation) has always bothered me.
Thanks to some deliberate generational forgetfulness, white people have convinced themselves that “minorities” made themselves hyphenated Americans. In reality, it started when nativist movements became concerned about being overrun by immigrants (especially the Irish, German, and others considered “undesirable”). The immigrants were made hyphenated Americans in an attempt to mark them as “other.” Although these European groups have been largely assimilated by white Americans, the hyphen is still used on people of color without a second thought.
Being hyphenated makes us suspicious and “inauthentically” American, even if our families have been here long before those claiming default “American” status. It irks the living shit out of me.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 5:58 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:
@KDS: that’s what i do. Race: black, ethnicity:AA. AA may not be perfect but we have to have some kinda term for descendents of african who are american.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 6:04 pm ¶
Talis wrote:
BTW I got the biggest laugh when I heard some media person refer to Naomi Campbell referred as African American . I was like wow.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 6:11 pm ¶
Winn wrote:
Iggles & KDS: thank you. Your responses encapsulate why I use both African American and black, and why I feel comfortable switching between the two depending on the subject matter, audience, and context attendant to the discussion. To me, African American symbolizes my identity as the descendant of enslaved peoples from the continent of Africa, and that fact that, dubious DNA tests to the contrary, there is little I can do to determine definitively from what country, tribe or clans my family descends in Africa, and much of that aspect of my heritage is lost. But I am united with other slave descendants in that, and in the unique experience we share as descendants of slaves and survivors of Reconstruction and Jim Crow segregation in America. That is a distinct experience from people of African descent from other countries, and just because people may stupidly call a Jamaican immigrant an African American, that’s not a reason to jettison the term or conclude that it is imprecise. Nor is it a reason to concede the term to recent African immigrants, who know exactly what their country of origin is, and generally identify themselves by that, as TAG noted. For me, African American symbolizes displacement and loss combined with resilience and solidarity. Particularly when it comes to politics, it is a term that has great meaning and nuance, and I will certainly continue using it. McWhorter is gifted and savvy in his field of linguistics, but when it comes to issues of identity, social justice, and racial politics, his opinion is the last I give credence to.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 6:37 pm ¶
n wrote:
I personally prefer no term at all. I have a brother whose mother is from a country in Africa and I’d say that there is definitely a difference between his mother and out father, to use the same term is problematic. So I wouldn’t call her and myself both African-American.
I also have family and friends who have African ancestry, but are Latino so sometimes are African American, sometimes Puerto Rican, sometimes Dominican or Haitian.
My kids and I are borderline “black” in appearance and after many years of outright scoffing, I dislike using that term if I want to b e accurate.
And while I am an afrodescended person, I am not of only African descent.
My closest friend is an old white woman and I have to agree that I have more in common with her than I do the friends of my “african” stepmother. She and I share a common language, culture, we eat similar foods, grew up watching the same tv shows,experienced the same events, had grandmothers who grew up in the depression and lived a similar lifestyle.
We also have different experiences based on race, but as people with a few hundred years of history in the Southern US, we have more in common with one another than I would with a Kenyan or she with an Australian.
Ultimately, I think the African American label doesn’t work for me and my family and I choose not to use it, or any label.
I am an American. I have ancestors who were brought to the US as slaves. I don’t see why a label is needed.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 8:18 pm ¶
Kat wrote:
@Celeste:
Well, but already here in the comments there is an issue among only those that advocate the term:
Some use it only to refer to Black Americans with African slavery ancestry (and don’t know from which African state their heritage is), while you and some others say that it’s for “descendants of Africans who are American” (so also those who do not have slavery ancestry).
Digital Coyote: very interesting. Thanks!
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 8:59 pm ¶
miga wrote:
This is such a tricky topic. I was brought up to use African American because it (at least how I was taught) denotes a sense of pride and a link to where I came from. Yes I may be generations removed, but I’m still from somewhere in Africa (I mean, I still call myself latina even though I don’t speak much spanish). Secondly, I am nowhere near the color black (I’m more of a coffee I’d say), and neither were the people I knew growing up. Even a very dark skinned person was more brown than black and it never made much sense to me. Plus, I read a lot of childrens books that described brown skin colors as “baked bread, clay, caramel, cocoa,” and so on- it seemed sad to limit all that beautiful variety. So I would always say AA and get annoyed when people did otherwize. However, I met just as many if not more people who were comfortable with calling themselves Black and were offended to be called AA because they were not “African,” as they said. Afro-American sounds like the best term to me now, but I don’t know if I could use it- it brings up thoughts of bell-bottoms and platform shoes :p so I feel old-fashioned (as a 20 year old saying it).
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 9:15 pm ¶
Clnmike wrote:
I prefer the term African American, it speaks specifically to those people whose ancestory is linked to Africa. Black is way too broad and describes skin color, it could mean, (and has been used to describe), dark skin Indian, Aborigines and other people with dark skin. Thats not the same thing as African.
Regadless if you can not trace your line to any one African Nation, (and considering that those nations and their borders were created by Europeans thats nothing to lose sleep about) , or tribe (which in some nations are more important then the state), we know you came from there, hands down.
Everything else to me is a sub-label Nigerian/Ibo and so on.
And finally America refers to the Western Hemisphere as a whole and not the United States by it’s self. Americans from the United States have taken on the term to describe themselves and managed to convince the rest of the planet as well. If you were born to any nation in the Western Hemisphere and you are of African descent, then you are an African American.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 9:44 pm ¶
Keeley wrote:
@Iggles, Wendi, JA
Thank you for explaining that to me. Now I have a better understanding on how and why that works- still though, I always feel more comfortable just saying ‘Black’ unless I am specifically asked to say African American instead (which I have been).
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 9:47 pm ¶
Sonnyboy wrote:
Talis wrote:
BTW I got the biggest laugh when I heard some media person refer to Naomi Campbell referred as African American . I was like wow.
Ditto when students (of all ethnicities) in my classes have also identified Koffi Annan (sp?) and Nelson Mandela as African American because they believe the term simply means someone is black or to use an even more archaic term, Negro. None of them get that African peopel are dispersed all over the world. The concept of black Hispanics blows their minds to the point I have given up trying to explain it.
Personally, I hate African American. I prefer black. And I cannot get over how forced it sounds when people use the term.
Posted 23 Feb 2010 at 11:11 pm ¶
Sharon Cullars wrote:
Although I’ve used black and Af-Am interchangeably, I discern between the two as such: black is the race, Af-Am is the ethnicity. Black is the umbrella under which various ethnicities fit, including Jamaican American, Nigerian American, Caribbean American, etc. Just as white is the umbrella for various ethnicities, including Irish American, German American, Polish American, etc.
I understand the confusion, but here is how I view the issue. As one poster above stated, someone from Nigeria would claim his ethnicity as an Nigerian American, just an Irish descendant can proclaim himself an Irish American. Those who are descended from the disapora have lost their specific ethnicities b/c they don’t know where their ancestors hail from on the wide continent of Africa. To allow us no ethnicity, but only the racial designation of “black”, continues to rob us of a culture that has been built over the decades and centuries. It is a specific and ever morphing culture, garnering the best and worst from the residual traditions that came over to the new world with the captured labor force as well as the subsequent traditions sometimes forced upon them.
No it is not a culture particularly shared with those hailing from African countries today, or someone coming from Jamaica. I can’t lay claim to either of these cultures; I can lay claim to the African American culture that arose through the persistance and resistance of my forebears.
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 12:20 am ¶
wendi muse wrote:
yes, keeley, to be more accurate, “black” works because you don’t know the country of origin of the person with whom you are speaking.
but even then, black is relative. for example, i am black in the us and not considered black in a lot of latin american countries, and sometimes not even here (at least when people initially assume i am “not all black” or “mixed” based solely on my appearance, even though both of my parents are black (in the one drop rule american context).
so i suppose it’s just a matter of with whom you are speaking and where. race is indeed very complicated!
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 7:30 am ¶
Medusa wrote:
Sonnyboy- Seriously?? Kofi (one f, by the way) Annan and Nelson Mandela referred to as African American???
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, though when I have white American friends who refer to black people that they see walking around in France as African American, but still…
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 7:33 am ¶
deathblossom wrote:
Funny how no one questions when fourth generation American who’s family hails China calls himself Asian. Or Chinese for that matter. I don’t see anything wrong with acknowledge our roots from Africa as well as our heritage in the USA.
My thoughts exactly. We’re not the only people who do it, but per usual, we’re the ones white people drag through the mud about it until everyone starts to agree with them.
I will never go by just American. Despite any lofty ideas to the contrary, America to the rest of the world is white people and white culture and this will never change. I embrace the distinction because otherwise, we’ll be left with the umbrella of being America, but without any external respect from other countries – or even respect from our own. I have no problems with Black American, but just as many blacks feel pride in hailing from the Caribbean and wish to distinguish their culture and ancestry from America, so to should I be able to distinguish my culture and ancestry.
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 9:23 am ¶
Zahra wrote:
This is a great post. I really like the use of the quote from Ira Berlin.
Berlin has recently released a new history called The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations, which is an attempt to recast the narrative of black history in the US that he covered in Many Thousands Gone to be more inclusive of the people who have come to the US from the Carribean, Latin America, or specific African nations. At the same time, he’s using the new frame to find unexpected or overlooked aspects of the history of those descended from black slaves within the US. I’ve only started the book, but it’s making me think a lot about the tensions and commonalities between the different communities.
There are so many historic commonalities and differences, and I think it’s important that we have multiple terms that we can use in different contexts.
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 1:18 pm ¶
lynn wrote:
I’ll be glad when the term ‘African-American’ dies out, as it eventually will. It sounds forced and awkward. I like being black. Black American sounds just fine to me.
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 1:44 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:
When I was a very young child in the 60’s, we had a black lady who took care of us, my mother worked.
One day my little brother, who was no more than 3 or 4 looked up at her and asked, “Lola, why are you black”? Lola’s eyes squinted as a look of rage overcame her. “Boy, don’t you EVER call me black, my skin is brown”!
I explained to her that he asked because he had seen something on tv about Black power. She mumbled something about “troublemakers” and gave him a hug and told him that “colored or negro” was the polite words to use.
Ok, fast-forward 40 years…. I signed up to do some mystery shopping. To be brief, I basically had to describe any employye who’s name tag was not showing. I was told to describe white people as caucasian and black as African-American. I immediately saw the ridiculousness of this. How the hell do I know if the guy is American? I’ve met black folks from England and the Netherlands. To assume that anyone that is black must be American seems like some kind of ism in itself.
But, I have never forgotton Lola’s response. For many years growing up, I always felt a little weird about using black, although my black peers seemed to prefer it. But, here’s the part that bothers me….. I am not white in color, although I am caucasian, and I’ve never seen a “black” person. It seems to me that the words black & white are opposite, which leads one to believe that we are somehow opposite peoples. It’s as if the terms we use put us immediately at odds.
Since nowdays all my black friends refer to themselves as black, that is the term I use, but honestly, I think it would be nice if we could agree on something not so contentious.
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 4:43 pm ¶
Keeley wrote:
“(in the one drop rule american context). so i suppose it’s just a matter of with whom you are speaking and where. race is indeed very complicated!”
It is indeed. But is the ‘one drop rule’ still in effect? I thought it was outdated. It must not be for some people then… although I’ve never had it brought up to me. My maternal grandfather is Black, Cherokee, and White so technically I would be in the ‘one drop’ category. But I don’t look it and nor have I ever been identified as being Black by other people and in turn I don’t identify as being Black. So does that mean that in the mindset of other people (or white people if you will) that being Black only means how you look?
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 6:42 pm ¶
Andrew wrote:
This topic makes my head explode! I can not understand what so confuses people about the term African American. It is specifically used to denote those descended from the 3-4 million slaves freed during and after the Civil War. End of story!
Thank you for this post, but even in the comments here, you have people like Keeley, who still do not or refuse to understand. And it seems that 2 strains of disagreement are going on. Some people are confused about who the term refers to. Others are confused about why, how and what the “African” means. But there are resources out there that cover both objections (the Wikipedia article on African American was a good place to start last time I looked).
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 7:52 pm ¶
Titanis wrote:
“Americans from the United States have taken on the term to describe themselves and managed to convince the rest of the planet as well.”
It helps that we’re the only country that actually *has* “America” in its name.
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 9:28 pm ¶
AMarie wrote:
I only call myself African-American on college applications and statements of purpose.
“African-American” versus “Nigerian American” is a valid distinction, as Africa is not a country. However, Afro-American/Brazilian/Cuban/Fijian/etc makes sense. The African diaspora is more than the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism.
I respect those who self-identify as African-American or Black, but my ethnicity is not only African-American, and my skin is not black. As a child, I said I was BROWN. I thought everybody was brown- some pinker than others, but all brown.
In the end, I belong to a human race. Society foists labels on me, but I defy them in the end.
At least that’s what I’d like to believe
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 9:51 pm ¶
MsF wrote:
In following this thread, I’m thinking about the politics of gender identification, and the simultaneous discomfort and need to ASK the individual in question (as in, how do you identify, what pronoun do you prefer?). While I believe that gender identity, ethnicity and race are different, I also wonder how we can create a space in which asking, opening up dialogue, etc. is possible, especially since a few posts suggested that some folks here “don’t get it.” Outside of broad theorizing, how and when do more specific, grounded examples of this conversation occur? Identity is far too complicated for the “one size SHOULD fit all” model, but confusion around race and ethnicity is often read as a particular form of *dangerous* ignorance, and this fear often forecloses the possibility for dialogue. I see benefits in certain folks being called out on their ignorant assumptions and racial privilege, that calling out is way overdue (in my opinion). But the fear of being seen as racist (opposed to existing as quietly racist) has completely shut down (it would seem) a lot of dialogue along the lines of race, ethnicity and identity.
Posted 24 Feb 2010 at 11:41 pm ¶
Cwen wrote:
McWhorter seems to have some very skewed logic. But personally… I don’t identify with the term African-American for several reasons: Culturally (and unfortunately), I am more defined by slavery than by Africa, whether we try to escape that connotation or not. Secondly, I am not too fond of the idea that Africans (though they did not identify as such at the time) likely sold my ancestors to white men, and would rather not identify with them in that way. I’ve found “black” to be all-encompassing, especially in regards to Carribbean-Americans and other similar backgrounds. (Third: My mother is white, so I have a whole lot of other interesting stuff going on in here.)
Finally, census terms shouldn’t have to be argued for/analyzed — being politically correct tends to make no real sense, and it’s not decided by those whose voices matter most.
I wish we could define ourselves.
Posted 26 Feb 2010 at 2:17 am ¶
pingpong wrote:
I think the question here is why not just use the country they come from. If they’re from Nigeria then Nigerian American, Ethiopia then Ethiopian American, etc… Why must we categorize millions of people under the continent they come from despite their diversity. That said if they feel as if they feel no connection to the country their ancestors come from they should just be called black american or just american or a New Yorker or Texan.
Posted 01 Mar 2010 at 12:21 am ¶
A.D.M. wrote:
By the way, Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist, white people did not coin the term. Malcolm X started it (I’m glad he did).
Posted 01 Mar 2010 at 2:52 pm ¶
A.D.M. wrote:
I, too, find it funny no one questions the term Asian-American. The people we call Asian come from the eastern side of the continent of Asia. What about the South Asians? They’re called ASian in the U.K. What about a recent Chinese immigrant? Why call him Asian when he comes from China? See what I’m saying?
Posted 01 Mar 2010 at 2:55 pm ¶
Alee wrote:
I came across this post after writing a report that I was growing more and more weary by writing “African American”. (For the need of the report though I am going to use Afro-American as it fits better in its definition (like Afro-Cuban, etc.)
I’ve rarely used the term to refer to myself/family/friends who are Black because I don’t like how “African” was dropped in front of the “American” part.
I have slipped into using the term on occasion, and don’t jump down people’s throats that use it. I feel the same about the term Black or Black American too… I even thought about “American Black” being a better fit, but still not quite right to me.
In the last 3 years, however, I’ve been moving away from those terms as well because I feel that it still removes me from my country of origin: U.S.A.
YES, I recognize my ancestors and all the struggles they went through in this country!
YES, I face levels of struggle in this country still today!
But this is where my behind was born, and both of my parents, and their parents.
There is much to be done in this country to reach a level of true unification, and I feel that starts with taking the term ‘American’ and owning it. Recreate what people see as an American today.
Americans are not White alone- Americans are made up of a crazy mix of folks, and it’s about time we made that known.
I’m prayerful that we can do it, even if it’s one American who’s of African descendant by way of the African Diaspora (a.k.a. African Holocaust a.k.a. Slave Trade) at a time!
Posted 25 Mar 2010 at 5:45 am ¶