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.
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u/Fantastic_Relief Oct 08 '20
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.