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The term "African-American" actually came from the US Census Bureau in their attempts to classify everyone hence why there are a ton of options on the Census form.
The term "African-American" actually came from the US Census Bureau in their attempts to classify everyone hence why there are a ton of options on the Census form.
The US Census Bureau didn't add "African-American" to the census until 2000.
Many credit Jesse Jackson for starting the trend of using the term back in 1988.
In 1988, Rev Jesse Jackson convinced America’s black population to adopt the term “African-American”. It has stuck for 24 years. But in recent months, a significant number of African-Americans have been clamouring to drop the “African” and go back to just “black”. As the African Union brings the African Diaspora to a summit in South Africa on 25 May, our correspondent Leslie Goffe looks at the arguments for and against dropping the “African” from African-American.
It's more like the term "African-American" built a following in the early 90's and as grega94 pointed out in this thread, replaced the term "black" in popularity around 1997. Then the US Census Bureau decided to include it in the 2000 Census.
The Census Bureau usually follows societal norms and not the other way around.
Well, my father was Irish-American and I am Irish-Swedish-Danish-American and my kids are Irish-Italian-Ukrainian-Swedish-Danish-American. To be Irish-American in my father's heyday may have been a cultural marker, but those days are really gone.
My nationality is American. My ethnicity is an entire conversation.
I can't speak to what others call themselves at any given time and under what conditions.
Most Blacks today, even the boomers are far removed from Africa, with over 150 years passing since the last slaves were brought over. My father came over from Portugal at age 3 in 1922, and I don't identify as Portuguese American. Like most Blacks living here I was born in the USA so I am an American. One co-worker came here recently from Nigeria, she could truly qualify as African American but doesn't.
The term African-American may seem to be a product of recent decades, exploding into common usage in the 1990s after a push from advocates like Jesse Jackson, and only enshrined in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001.
Well, surprise surprise. Mr. Exploit It All, JJ and Friends. If you're born and bred in America, you're an American.
I would suggest that anyone who has earlier family that has lived full time in the USA for five generations should automatically be given the epithet of "American". By that time all the influences of the USA have been incorporated.
Skin color is just a descriptor, like eye color, or height, etc. Language spoken will definitely be English by the second generation of any emigrant family.
Delineating people by their distant ancestory (much of which has had interracial mixing) is an artificial means of categorizing people that tends to encourage unnecessary friction.
Along with this comes not giving special consideration for anything but health to different groups of people. Health? A few genes may vary in familial lines such that those groups may have health issues that need to be addressed with special solutions. Examples: sickle cell anemia (melanics) vs. premature balding (eurobians).
The test of a definition or label, is how egregious are the unintended consequences. Elon Musk is quite literally an "African American". Was that the intent? Imagine if Tesla or Space-X were, in earlier stages of their life as corporations, applying for a federal government grant, with set-aside for disadvantages minorities. Would Mr. Musk's companies be eligible as "minority owned businesses"... because he's an African American? Seems bizarre, and downright foolish.
What about a US citizen whose parents are say from Morocco or Libya? Such a person by ethnicity is likely Arab or Berber. But just like Musk, he'd be an "African American".
What about a black African, say from Benin or Tanzania, who lives and works in the US on an H1-B visa, with no intention of becoming a US citizen? Would he be an African "American" - just because his race is black?
And then there is the story of a white American visiting Germany for the first time in the 1980s. Sitting in the Frankfurt airport surrounded by thousands of Germans not speaking English, feeling a bit isolated. And then he sees another American, a soldier in uniform, who happened to be black. He goes over and makes a friend "from home" ...
Then there were two Americans sitting in the airport surrounded by thousands of Germans not speaking English.
No disrespect intended to Germans. Have been back many times and also have German friends.
…
If you're born and bred in America, you're an American.
I’ll raise you.
Every year thousands of people take an oath of allegiance in front of the judge to become Americans.
Not born and bred here, but naturalized, yet - still Americans.
People of all ethnicities, backgrounds and skin colors are joining the American “melting pot”
My ex wife hated that term, and would get very riled if someone called her an African American. She would always correct them and say "I'm not African American, I'm Black". As a white guy, I agree w/ her. That term smacks of colonialism. You can't even think its the right term. For one thing, they may not be from Africa. They could be from Cuba, Haiti, all sorts of places, and they certainly may not be an American.
It reminds me of the time I was on a bus in 'frisco (deal w/ it) and a group of Haitan Blacks were speaking Creole and French. Most of the other bus riders looked simply amazed, especially the local Blacks. They apparently had never seen anything like that. S.F. may have thought of itself as a big city, but it still had its share of hicks from the sticks.
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