How ridiculous is the euphemism "African-American"

[Andy9o8 2]

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Wouldn't a Canadian technically still be considered a member of North America and as such still be able to be considered an "African-American"?

No. That would be an Africanuck.
Get with the program.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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So it got me thinking, ok, America is the only country where we feel like we are "doing the right thing" by going along with the black preference (is it even universal among black people in the first place?) to use "African-American" instead of "black."

America isn't a country.
Yes the politically correct do say "African-Canadian," although most of the blacks I know better fir the label 'African.' In a few years they will become "African-Canadian." Their kids will be Canadian.

[Amazon 7]

Hey call em whatever you want.... if you want to use the N #$%@ word go for it man.. It seems that is the basis of what so many "conservatives" are REALLLLLY saying after all...

Go for it.


Personally when I hear someone use terms like that the thought that jumps right to mind is some ignorant backwoods hick.. that does not give a shit about other people other than his own little insular group of tabaccy chewin.. missin teeth..banjo theme music.. militia belongin..sheet wearin redneck.

[grimmie 186]

As long as CNN, Fox News and the rest of the media keep putting humans in "categories", it will be impossible for Americans to stop giving a rat's ass where someone is from or what color their skin is.

And just for the record, Gary Beyer is my favorite "African-American".

[Steel 0]

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Actually the Wikipedia that you cite supports what consistently I’ve written (& does not support your assertions).

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Actually it doesn't, it just what you focus in on. I don't focus in on what it meant 500 years ago when people didn't know geography But what it meant in the 19 and 20 century. Once again.

"but came to refer to Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians in the 19th and 20th century US,[33] where most Asians were Chinese (and later Japanese and Filipino"

If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

[Skyrad 0]

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Shoulda turned your head to cough.

By the way, no, the post is not meant to be a troll at all. And I am not trying to get people to discuss that word.

I really just want to look at what I feel is the absurdity of using "African-American." I'm opposed to the entire "hyphenated-American" thing in the first place, but it's particularly stupid to apply "African-American" to blacks in America when no other country does this kind of thing to desperately avoid the word "black," and if you're talking about a black person in any other country, you're essentially stuck calling them black.

Couldn't agree with you more, most so calld African Americans have never even been to Africa. They are simply Americans, as are Irish Americans and Italian Americans

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[nerdgirl 0]

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"but came to refer to Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians in the 19th and 20th century US,[33] where most Asians were Chinese (and later Japanese and Filipino"

Are you really sure you want to use that Wikipedia snippet (not even a full sentence) to base your argument?

You claimed that Southeast Asia = "Orient".
The quote you cite above suggests, Oriental = Japanese and Chinese. Are you asserting that Japan and China are Southeast Asia?


Again, I've previously referenced 20th and 21st Century examples of the use of "Orient" and "Oriental" to mean anything and everything from Eastern Europe to Kyoto:

(If, like the quoted phrase, one wants to extend to the 19th Century, it's going to be a lot longer list of examples.)

One of the most famous ‘Orientals’ was Edward Said [jpg], he was from the Levant and died in 2003.
The Museum of the Ancient Orient, which opened in 1917 and one can visit today, is in Turkey; it displays Anatolian pieces from Hittite empires (Turkey) and pre-Islamic items from the Ottoman Empire.
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London covers all of Asia, including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and former Soviet States; the Near East; the Middle East; and Africa. It was originally the School of Oriental Studies when created in 1916. One can study those areas there today.
The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago (today, still that name) is world-renowned for its ancient Near-eastern artifacts (specifically Sumerian); the institute’s archeological interests range from Anatolia (ancient Turkey) to Nubia (ancient southern Egypt and Northern Sudan), through Syria, Yemen and Iraq (Mesopotamia) to Persia (Iran).
What was the termini of the Orient Express in 2001? (Budapest). Throughout the 19th and 20th Century other termini included Athens, Venice, Bucharest, and Istanbul.
From 1900 - 1947, what was the terminus of the British P&O shipping line? India.
The Garden Oriental is an Italian restaurant in Kyoto that I ate at a few years ago (okay, that one's another new example ).

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Dumpster 0]

So how do the Brits refer to "African-Americans" then?

Easy Does It

[nanook 1]

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And just for the record, Gary Beyer is my favorite "African-American".

"er. . .um. . .Did you know peanut butter was invented by an African American?"
"it's too late, Doc."

_____________________________

"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

[Steel 0]

Are you asserting that Japan and China are Southeast Asia?
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Yes, if you don't belive that look on a Map of Asia.
Northeast Asia is all Russia.

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It comes down to you wanting to hold on to use of word that makes it difficult for you to communicate precisely because of its ambiguity.
/Marg

Actually I don't find myself having any difficulty communicating. I work with man Indians and interact regularly with Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese and I am sure there are more that I won't enumerate.

I like to refer to people as what they are specifically. That is to say, when I talk to a Mexican I would not refer to him as an Amerindian, certainly I wouldn't call him Hispanic. I would just say he is a Mexican. If somebody is from Belarus or Ukraine, I would not call him or her Russian.

I believe that if you are going to classify a group it should be based on something. Just as you wouldn't arbitrarily take a Haitian and a German and suddenly starting putting them together in a group. I wouldn't put the French with the Haitians eithers. Or the Domincans with the Spanish. In this case, I wouldn't put the Chinese with the Indians or the Pakistanis, which is what the Asian classification would do. As I have said previously, in my opinion its stupid to take a continent and arbitrarilly exclude countries in that Continent, and refer to everybody else as that adjective of that continent.

The reality is that the Southeast Asians have physical characteristics in Common and that is why when they became known as Orientals, it stuck. Regardless of how much you or anybody else wants to do away with that, you can't. You can get U.S. citizens to fear being politically incorrect, but the rest of the world will continue to laugh at you.

To stick to the topic at hand anyway. I agree that the African-American title is indeed stupid as well. But not necessarily for the same reasons that have been stated.

Jamaica may not be in the African CONTINENT, but its clear that the black people in Jamaica came from the Congo (in Africa) as slave to the Caribean Island of Jamaica. Its also clear that all Black people in the world descend from Africa.

However, not all people in the CONTINENT of Africa are black. Morroco, Tunisia, Algeria, Lybia and Egypt come to mind. I won't name the Europeans who immigrated to the Union of South Africa, because its quite clear that they did just that and that their blood lines are clearly not African of any type.

If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

[nerdgirl 0]

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Are you asserting that Japan and China are Southeast Asia?

Yes, if you don't belive that look on a Map of Asia.
Northeast Asia is all Russia.

This may make more sense now – you’re redefining geographical descriptors to fit the usage you want.

Today East Asia is most commonly -- from US State Dept to CDC to CIA to DoD to NATO to UN -- verbiage for Japan, China, Taiwan, DPRK, and ROK, not Southeast Asia.

Although historically (WWII), the term SACSEA did apply to Lord Montbatton throughout all of the Pacific theater. NATO still uses SACEUR but I don't know when the last SACSEA post existed (end of WWII?). So if you want to build a case based on WWII NATO commands, I've given you an example.

Russia is usually considered central Asia (since the predominance of the land mass is central Asia) or West Asia (since that's the predominant political mass, i.e., Moscow & St Petersburg).


As another counterexample, if you assert China is Southeast Asia and therefore Oriental … what phenotypic characteristics do you think native folks in Xianxiang exhibit?

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I like to refer to people as what they are specifically. That is to say, when I talk to a Mexican I would not refer to him as an Amerindian, certainly I wouldn't call him Hispanic. I would just say he is a Mexican. If somebody is from Belarus or Ukraine, I would not call him or her Russian.

Fabulous, then we concur. As “Amerindian” is more akin to calling someone from Asia, the Middle East, or Near East “Oriental,” than using a political boundary based term like “Mexican” (if one is a Mexican national, whether Amerindian/Native American or Spanish in ancestral origin). If one is from the geographical boundary (on a map) of the Asian continent or from any of the countries that make up Asia similarly they are “Asian” (rather than “Oriental,” which is an ambiguous historical term).

/Marg ... heading off to the airport

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Steel 0]

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Fabulous, then we concur. As “Amerindian” is more akin to calling someone from Asia, the Middle East, or Near East “Oriental,” than using a political boundary based term like “Mexican” (if one is a Mexican national, whether Amerindian/Native American or Spanish in ancestral origin). If one is from the geographical boundary (on a map) of the Asian continent or from any of the countries that make up Asia similarly they are “Asian” (rather than “Oriental,” which is an ambiguous historical term).

/Marg ... heading off to the airport

I am not sure how you figure Amerindian is like Oriental. I see Amerindian more like Asian. Ameridian which is how the CIA classifies native Americans comes from the fact that Columbus thought he was in India and therefore called the natives Indians when in fact they were not. Later they became Amerindian as in American Indian.

The reason, I see that like calling somebody Asian is because its taking many different groups and putting them together as one. An Amerindian could be an Inca, a Maya, a Cherokee a seminole, etc... I guess one difference you can point out is that you are not taking a member of that logical group and deciding to exclude them. But actually that is still being done with another term 'Native American'. When most people think of Native Americans, they are thinking about Amerindians in the U.S. territory. It doesn't really make sense to exclude the South or Central American natives from that equation, but it is done anyway.

If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

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[DrewEckhardt 0]

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I was thinking about this as I read the newspaper recently.

I was reading an article that could not refer to blacks as "African-Americans" because the blacks were, I think, Canadian.

So it got me thinking, ok, America is the only country where we feel like we are "doing the right thing" by going along with the black preference (is it even universal among black people in the first place?) to use "African-American" instead of "black." I mean, it has to be the only one, because you would not refer to blacks in England as "African-American" (duh!) and I can't imagine they call them "Black-Brits" or something dumb like that. I don't know that they call them anything but "blacks" there. Or Canada.

So given that America is the only place where PCism demands that we can no longer use "black" and have to use "African-American," can't we say definitively that it's fuckin' stupid? If the kind of black person who prefers and demands "African-American" goes to Canada and hears "black," does she get offended?

Let's hear your views about using this euphemism, please. I'm serious, I can't see how, in light of this hitch, it can even have survived as long as it has.

I think it's silly, since Africa is a continent and not a country.

I think it would be more resonable if black people referred to themselves like white people do. In the same way I'm an Danish-English-German-Irish-American my neighbor might be a Kenyan-Nigerian-American.

On second thought, that's too much of a mouthful so I just say American.

[Amazon 7]

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Jamaica may not be in the African CONTINENT, but its clear that the black people in Jamaica came from the Congo (in Africa) as slave to the Caribean Island of Jamaica. Its also clear that all Black people in the world descend from Africa.

http://www.orac.net.au/~mhumphry/aborigin.html

I think the Aboriginies of Australia might disagree with that..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito

or the Negrito of the Phillipines...


Or the people of Southern India the Tamil's

[Capt.Slog 0]

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I was thinking about this as I read the newspaper recently.

I was reading an article that could not refer to blacks as "African-Americans" because the blacks were, I think, Canadian.

Last time I checked, Canada was the largest country in America (north or south).

[Steel 0]

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Jamaica may not be in the African CONTINENT, but its clear that the black people in Jamaica came from the Congo (in Africa) as slave to the Caribean Island of Jamaica. Its also clear that all Black people in the world descend from Africa.

http://www.orac.net.au/~mhumphry/aborigin.html

I think the Aboriginies of Australia might disagree
with that..

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Actually after I wrote that, I imediately remembered about the Aborigines, and figured I would see if anybody would mention them. Congrats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito

or the Negrito of the Phillipines...
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Never heard of these, I try to look over the link in a bit here.


Or the people of Southern India the Tamil's

Dark skin and Black as in the nose shape, the Kinky hair and all I don't equade. That is just because they are very Dark Indians, it doesn't put them as the same blood line as Black Africans.

If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

[Amazon 7]

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html

United States
Area:
total: 9,826,630 sq km
land: 9,161,923 sq km
water: 664,707 sq km
note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia

Area - comparative:
about half the size of Russia; about three-tenths the size of Africa; about half the size of South America (or slightly larger than Brazil); slightly larger than China; more than twice the size of the European Union

Canada

Area:
total: 9,984,670 sq km
land: 9,093,507 sq km
water: 891,163 sq km

[Capt.Slog 0]

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https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html

United States
Area:
total: 9,826,630 sq km
land: 9,161,923 sq km
water: 664,707 sq km
note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia

Canada

Area:
total: 9,984,670 sq km
land: 9,093,507 sq km
water: 891,163 sq km

[SpeedRacer 1]

have fun in your kayaks, then.

Speed Racer
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[Amazon 7]

Do you live on water Capt..

.Most countries base their size on Land area...otherwise I think Some of the Island nations of the Pacific might be a tad larger if they include their ocean area.

[Capt.Slog 0]

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Do you live on water Capt..

.Most countries base their size on Land area...otherwise I think Some of the Island nations of the Pacific might be a tad larger if they include their ocean area.

Does any of your nitpicking alter the fact that Candians are Americans?

[Steel 0]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito

or the Negrito of the Phillipines...

In the first paragraph there I see this statement.

suggesting that they are either surviving descendants of settlers from an early migration out of Africa, or that they are descendants of one of the founder populations of modern humans.

If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

• Quote

[Capt.Slog 0]

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Do you live on water Capt..

.Most countries base their size on Land area...otherwise I think Some of the Island nations of the Pacific might be a tad larger if they include their ocean area.

"USA Geography - note: world's third-largest country by size (after Russia and Canada) and by population (after China and India); Mt. McKinley is highest point in North America and Death Valley the lowest point on the continent " CIA Fact Book

[Leapinglizardto 0]

No more ridiculous than any other

"---------- American"

Except of course

'Native American'

It's pretty pathetic when you have to TELL people you're fucking cool Skymama «narrative»This thread will lock in 3..2.. What a load of narrow-minded Xenophobic Bullshit!-squeak

[SpeedRacer 1]

many people have pointed out here that, for example, those of us with Irish or African ancestry shouldn't call ourselves Irish-americans or african-americans, if we've never been there ourselves.

so by that logic, all US citizens born here are Native Americans.

Speed Racer
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