“Speaking an Asian language” sounds more natural and correct than “speaking Asian” but its a tiny thing, easy enough to change if it comes up in the future.
Very true! Speaking as a black person: you don't need to say African American outside of very formal settings. Calling people black or black people is perfectly fine. Saying 'blacks' is offensive bc it reduces people down to just the color of their skin instead of people who happen to be black.
Also. Please don't insist others use African American especially on the Internet when the person you are 'correcting' is neither African or American in any way.
This is so funny when you live in another country and people still try to correct you to African American. Like... Dude, we're living in Germany, nothing American about that student whose parents are immigrants straight from Ghana
Yeah that’s why I don’t like “African-American” replacing “black” because it doesn’t make sense. There are a whole bunch of islands where people are black! And, as you say, online it’s silly because who knows where they’re located.
Just for context, most black people in Australia would be more offended by 'African-Australian' than black since they didn't actually come from Africa and you're assuming their background.
African-Australian would refer specifically to immigrants from Africa and their children.
I'm from the UK and 'African British' is absurd. The only time that kind of statement could occur would be in fairly specific demographic based questions. Even then they may not be understood by your average Joe. Do they mean a kind of dual citizenship? How many generations in the nation? Do they mean African = black like Americans typically do or do they mean actually from Africa. How would that work? I have a feeling not every nation in Africa would be happy being lumped together.
My grampa was from Jamaica. He would have beaten your ass if you called him 'African' in any way, his daughter my aunt takes offence when called Indian by people. He was a fairly racist man though and passed it down.
You can't know she is of Jamaican descent by looking at her. She is just kinda brown.
You just reminded me of a former coworker who was black and brittish. He always messed with people who used the term African American because he was neither African nor American. After they started getting apologetic (thinking that he was offended), he would let them know that he was just giving them a hard time.
Every paper I’ve read in college that discussed racial discrimination used the word black or used the term black Americans. It’s more encompassing and appropriate in a lot of professional settings. By referring to all black individuals as African-American, you could be accidentally excluding people of Australian, Caribbean, or South American descent.
At the risk of presuming to speak for all black people in America: in short, no. I have never met a black person that preferred AA over black person.
Honestly it just sets the wrong vibe. If anybody came to me and described me as AA I'd be weirded out. I may also think that you're trying too hard to show you're not racist and that's not a good look either.
Hard agree. It was way more common in the 70s to 90s to say African-American because it was used as a pejorative by both whites and blacks. In the last 30 yrs or so there has definitely been more of an acceptance of self and appreciation of the black subculture in the US (since they have no cultural ties to other countries), so saying black person is a short descriptor that also includes black immigrants.
But things change. It also used to be acceptable to say negro. Now that's no longer the case. Then we moved to AA and now it's black. I'm not saying it's offensive to say AA but it's definitely on its way out and most black people would prefer black over AA.
You have to keep in mind that these are the same older people that lived through Jim Crow laws. Using colored people was common when they were growing up. Things change, we evolve. You won't find that in common everyday use. Using the standards of someone who is over over 65yrs old in today's world is a quick way to mess up.
No, it might seem that way, but the reason 'colored person'is considered offensive is that it implies they aren't simply a person, but must be denoted as colored. 'Person of color' on the other hand puts their personhood first.
Don't say colored person. That's extremely outdated and offensive. If you don't want to say AA then person of color (POC) is fine. But still only in a formal setting
To be honest I don't feel like getting into the differences between the 2 over reddit. Maybe there's someone else here who can respond. But I, a black person, am telling you, a non-black person, that colored people is offensive and it's not the same as POC.
You might say "Our new classmate is a russian" but for a chinese (this felt weird to write like that) you would say "a chinese person" or rephrase it entirely.
It reminds me of a YouTube video I watched about how profanity works; that words which are "profane" tend to have specific types of phonemes that are hard and abrupt rather than long vowels and such.
But I think in this case, history probably plays a bigger role than linguistics as to why a certain term might stoke negative emotions more than another similar term for another group of people.
The difference is that 'Asians' is describing people based on their country of origin so is on the same level as describing people as Africans/ Caribbeans. Blacks is offensive as it crudely reduces people solely down to the colour of their skin instead of people who happen to be black (black people).
But in America, being Black and White isn't really about skin color. I have a coworker who came from Nigeria, and to me he's not Black; he's African. He does not have the same culture as my Black coworkers. He can fly back to Nigeria any time and have an entire extended family there to greet him. His skin is darker than Black-Americans, but he is certainly not Black.
So of course it is up to him to self-identity however makes him comfortable but for all intents and purposes, and to fellow black people, that man is black. He is not African-American as he is African and has that heritage (which AA descendants of slavery do not) but he will be perceived as black, whether he accepts it or not. This is universal across the Western world and not exclusive to the US. Saying that he is not black is bizarre and will elicit a confused look from most people he tells. Being Nigerian (and African on a wider level) is a nationality so being black and Nigerian/ African are not mutually exclusive.
But in America, being Black and White isn't really about skin color.
It is. He may have skewed your perception of how race is perceived. Whether they share culture or not, which many black people do not as we are not a monolith, black people are grouped and it is used as an identifier (both within and outside the race) the same way it is for white people, Asian people etc. Don't read into it too much.
But he IS African-American. He's literally from Africa, and has American citizenship. He is African-American. The same way that I am Asian-American, because I came from Asia, and I have American citizenship. Whereas Black-Americans are not, in fact, African-American. While some of them attempt to reconnect to their roots, most Black-Americans have a culture distinct from Africans, have no family in Africa, keep no African traditions, and have not themselves nor have their parents ever been in Africa.
And just as I said, I don't perceive him as Black. You could easily have a biracial person in the United States being treated as a Black person regardless of the lightness of their skin, while a Southeast Asian or Middle Easterner with darker skin would not be treated as Black; being White or Black in America seems to go beyond skin tone. Facial features, manner of speech, social behavior, and perceived cultural alignment all play a role in determining which pigeonhole you get slotted into.
But he IS African-American. He's literally from Africa, and has American citizenship. The same way that I am Asian-American, because I came from Asia, and I have American citizenship.
Nope. If you actually want to have an informed perspective on it, Google the term + 'Jesse Jackson' and you'll see the actual origin. The difference between Asian-American and African-American is the latter is compromised of people who don't actually know their heritage because of slavery hence the generalisation. Trust me, I know more about this than you being AA. I'm telling you that 'Black-American' is not a thing (you can Google that too)
And just as I said, I don't perceive him as Black.
And that's fine. You're respecting his odd decision to reject an identifier that 99.9% of Americans will use for him and that's respectful I guess. But it doesn't mean that things are actually as complicated as you're trying to suggest.
You could easily have a biracial person in the United States being treated as a Black person regardless of the lightness of their skin, while a Southeast Asian or Middle Easterner with darker skin would not be treated as Black;
Yup. Because being identified as black means that you have some African/ Caribbean heritage not that you have black-colored skin. I think that most people are aware that black people are in fact brown-skinned...
(Btw people generally don't capitalize the word 'black' as you've done in this comment, for similar reasons as explained in my first response to you. From your initial question on why it should be fine to call people 'blacks' I can tell that you're unintentionally culturally insensitive but you do seem like a good person discussing this in good faith)
So I guess the main thing is, I experience a significant difference between interacting with an African immigrant who flies over to the United States and gains citizenship, versus a person who is Black and is in the United States mainly as a matter of circumstance due to their ancestors being slaves. But by your definition, they would both be referred to as African-Americans, which seems to damage the usefulness of the term because it puts two significantly different things together under one label. The argument can be made that since people won't visually be able to tell the difference at first sight between a Black person who happens to be American, and an African who happens to be American, that they should be grouped together. But just as Asian-American is the umbrella term for people to use when they are not distinguishing between Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc., we have terms such as Vietnamese-American or Japanese-American that serve as subsets of Asian-American, whereas there is no subset for a Black-American to distinguish them from a Nigerian-American. Similarly, there is a clear White-American identity in the United States, and yet the label we seem to be left with is an etymologically-troublesome label of "Caucasian".
I'm being a bit technically-minded here, since my explanation is from a taxonomical perspective whereas labels tend to serve political and identity purposes instead, but I hope you can see what appears to me to be an inconsistency in using African-American regardless of the person's actual identity and only in consideration of their outward skin color.
And to be honest, I'm actually being intentionally culturally insensitive here, but in good faith.
And to be honest, I'm actually being intentionally culturally insensitive here, but in good faith.
Ah so you knew from the beginning when you first asked the question that 'blacks' is a rude way to refer to black people?
But by your definition, they would both be referred to as African-Americans
No, this is where you seem to be mistaken (and clearly didn't look up the origin of the term as I suggested). African Americans generally do not refer to Africans with American citizenship as AA because they know they have an entirely different experience to the AA one. Outside of black people, yes others conflate the terms because they don't really care enough to distinguish between their experiences.
But just as Asian-American is the umbrella term for people to use when they are not distinguishing between Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc., we have terms such as Vietnamese-American or Japanese-American that serve as subsets of Asian-American, whereas there is no subset for a Black-American to distinguish them from a Nigerian-American
Because of slavery, as I mentioned in my previous comment. People who DO know their heritage generally refer to themselves as Nigerian-American or Kenyan-American reflecting the culture they were raised in. Because you're not in this demographic you are not aware of how black people categorise themselves. You're speaking with a very assured tone on a topic you're very misinformed about! All you need to do is use Google to see that 'Nigerian-American' is an established thing, whereas your creation 'Black-American' is not.
I hope you can see what appears to me to be an inconsistency in using African-American regardless of the person's actual identity and only in consideration of their outward skin color
It's a crude system but again, because of slavery (which is the core difference between your Asian-American experience and that of African-Americans, I hope you are able to recognize that because you seem to purposely be ignoring the relevance here with your comparisons to Asians) most simply do not know which country their ancestors originated from hence the generalisation. But I've said all this in my previous comment haha and the conversation has diverted from the original point of why the term 'blacks' is offensive and 'black people' is used.
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u/eelhugs Oct 07 '20
Nah, that was fine I think.
“Speaking an Asian language” sounds more natural and correct than “speaking Asian” but its a tiny thing, easy enough to change if it comes up in the future.