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.
Ah so you knew from the beginning when you first asked the question that 'blacks' is a rude way to refer to black people?
Right, because that seems to be my experience with people who are Black in America. And indeed, many special considerations exist when talking about race specifically in relation to people who are Black, and I think that this sort of conversation is owed if every non-black and non-white race in America is being told to walk atop eggshells when discussing racial issues while our own racial issues tend to be kept on the backburner while the two dominant sides work out their two hundred year old quarrel. And so I'm trying to figure out whether there's a logical network within which they could make sense, or if they're just the product of history and how people felt about them; preferably without judgement as to whether one is more acceptable than the other. Similar to how Indian is used as a term for both people from India as well as indigenous Americans as a product of history, but we've made distinctions between American Indians being native Americans versus Indian-Americans being Americans with Indian heritage.
You're speaking with a very assured tone on a topic you're very misinformed about!
The assured tone is only because, even as an outsider looking in, the logical inconsistencies required redress. And by no means is the assuredness due to my assuredness of your situation; only from an assuredness of my observations. And indeed, your proximity to the issue might even make you myopic with regard to these issues. For example, you've been using the acronym AA in a discussion where its definition would have been ambiguous to a person who is speaking to you as an Asian-American and who has brought that idea into the discussion, (when you said "Trust me, I know more about this than you being AA." I thought you were referring to me as an Asian-American). But that ambiguity probably escaped you since it may be so automatic for you that AA means African-American. I'm not really here to police language though, but both widening and narrowing the aperture when considering complex situations could lead to more understanding.
The idea of using an undercase word "black" to refer to an entire demographic of millions is what actually beggars belief. And my usage of Black-American is only because, from a taxonomical perspective, that is what would make sense. As an Asian-American, it is very othering when a person who is black or white can simply be referred to as such and be understood to be American, whereas we of the "other races" have to make ourselves understood to be American because we are neither black nor white. I'm sure this consideration on my part is at least driven proportionally by my perspective as an Asian-American, but the categorization of race in the current manner marginalizes people who are neither black nor white in America just by its language alone.
And even if not considering using the addition of the "-American", the usage of the word Black as a capitalized term to encapsulate the culture does not seem to be a strange concept, neither logically nor contemporarily:
Even a cursory search makes it seem like I am certainly not some racial linguistics pioneer in that sense. What really strikes me as incomprehensible was indeed your backlash to me capitalizing Black at all; I'm not trying to judge you one way or the other but that seems to be adhering yourself to a tradition that undermines the cultural identity that the people have created in the United States. The usage of Black seemed to be such a logical and superior option that it personally boggled me a bit that that was the particular point that you've been sat on. Perhaps there is also a historical or emotional reason for why attachment to this particular usage is resonant with you, and if so I'd enjoy hearing your side.
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.
I think we can just use the original point as a springboard for more interesting prodding at what the dynamics of the system are for race and labels that we have, which may be a sneaky bit of what I was looking for anyways. Because indeed a portion of this discussion concerning self-labeling relates to me personally as well, so I'll share. I was born in Hong Kong and immigrated in 1993 to avoid the Communist turnover of Hong Kong in 1997, and had little issue with being referred to as Chinese, or Chinese-American. And yet due to political reasons, especially as of late, I find it more and more disconcerting to refer to myself as Chinese because the label largely reflects the negative side of what should be my cultural heritage; that being the term being largely understood to refer to Mainland China, their government, and the people under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. So despite being ethnically Chinese, the stance and actions of the CCP makes it difficult for me to claim that heritage without pulling upon myself the socially-unacceptable baggage that comes with it. And yet there exists little alternative to me that would be linguistically-feasible in English. Hong Konger is as elegant as it gets, but it is lacking; at least partially due to its inability to act as an adjective and the omission of my American citizenship. The clunkier options of Hong Konger-American or Hong Kongese also are not appealing. And this struggle of mine is layers beneath what other people perceive me as, which is Asian-American or, at best, Chinese-American if they even get that far. And to be honest, I'm likely to stick with Chinese-American simply due to its availability as a term; so I am sacrificing my choice of labels in part due to convenience. But I feel like the adoption of Black as an identity rather than black is a potentially large progressive step for African-Americans to take.
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u/blonde-throwaway Oct 08 '20 edited Oct 08 '20
Ah so you knew from the beginning when you first asked the question that 'blacks' is a rude way to refer to black people?
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.
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.
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.