Click here for AnswerPool.com Home page




Google

    AnswerPool.com  Hop To Forum Categories  News & Reference  Hop To Forums  Words & Language    "African-American"

Moderators: Koz
Go
Post
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
  Login/Join 
Diamond
Enthusiast

Posted
What's all this "African-American" in all the primaries, American media, just everywhere American.

It's such a clumsy,multisyllabic term. What's wrong with 'black'? Nobody in public life there is using it: everything and everyone is 'African-American'.(Not quite 'everyone': Barack Obama was described originally as not African-American enough for the African-Americans, but that's political analysts for you.Best not take their stuff literally!)

What happened to "Afro-American" ? It was shorter.

In Britain the correct adjective,and the one used of themselves, is 'black'.

The term Afro-Caribbean is in use. It's used by the community of black Caribbean ancestry to describe their community precisely. That apart, they call themselves 'black' and not British Caribbean,or Anglo-Caribbean, or Anglo-Trinidadian etc

We don't have Africans, Anglo-Africans (or Afro-Africans Smile)either. People who are of direct black African ancestry call themselves 'black' too.

And, of course, we have Asians.These people are not oriental. They are from the Indian sub-continent. (Anglo-Indian is either a style of cookery or furniture or a historical reference to people, in the days of the British Raj, who were of half-Indian and half- British parentage)
 
Posts: 7194 | Location: Newmarket, UK/ Antibes, S.France | Registered: 07-14-02Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
Diamond
Enthusiast

Picture of juanruiz
Posted Hide Post
Attempting to stay on top of the current PC nom du jour can be a challenge. Vestiges of previously acceptable forms are still around: NAACP (Colored People), UNCF (Negro), Black Panthers (gone but not forgotten).
 
Posts: 7180 | Location: Medieval Spain | Registered: 06-06-02Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
Diamond Enthusiast

Posted Hide Post
I used to attend an annual conference of about 1,000 people. Onc gentleman, an immigrant from Zimbabwe who had become an American citizen, claimed to be the only African-American in the group. He was white. And he had a good point.
 
Posts: 7494 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
Site
Administrator
Picture of DorianGreyed
Posted Hide Post
So you are saying that Teresa Heinz-Kerry was as she claimed, an African-American? She caught a lot of flak from the right when she said that.
 
Posts: 16177 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02Reply With QuoteEdit or Delete MessageReport This Post
 Previous Topic | Next Topic powered by eve community  
 

    AnswerPool.com  Hop To Forum Categories  News & Reference  Hop To Forums  Words & Language    "African-American"

© 2002-2008 AnswerPool.com



Visit DiscussionPool.com!