Why do we still call darker skinned Americans "African American"?

My otherwise loser older brother had untreated pneumonia somehow develop into IGA nephropathy and got a reciprocal transfer from my younger brother in 2011. So I hope your kidneys are more ironic than this.

 

IGA is rare among African Americans so that is some bad luck.

 

Asian Americans don't create enough social problems to be noticed and recognized culturally.

 

because believe it or not, many "black people" don't want to be associated with what you so elegantly stereotyped as FOB African immigrants. the sad truth of the matter is that some black folk are actually racist against their own race. Their reasoning is not of my concern, but it is unique in the sense that I'm not sure there's another group that has these notions towards their own demographic

I myself hold no negative predispositions towards any race, but that's my experience.

 

NM... read it wrong

 

I've not seen much of that myself. Will people make fun of an accent... Sure... But pure racism? Rarely. I've often seen quite the opposite far more often.

Blacks are not the only ones. Just think how some white people treat Jewish people... Yes even the non christian ones.

 

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For affirmative action/corporate 'diversity' reasons.

 

You really think black people are the only ones who don't like FOBs of their own race?

Really?

 

I'm still wondering whose alternate ID this guy is...haven't ignored him yet because his posts are always worth a chuckle.

Otherwise, the devil has double-crossed Faust by not paying up with the expected knowledge and worldly pleasures that was part of the deal.

 

Well, it's not like I'm set on the idea. It's just something I've witnessed in my life.

Care to share your experience?

 

Why do any of ya'll care? Seriously, if somebody wants to be called jwardfart, what do you care? Does it change your life if any meaningful way?

Do you question a parent why they called their own kid "Jeff"? You have to put that on an application too, right?

The anti-PC rhetoric pendulum has peaked, hopefully, and we can head back to the middle for the next decade.

 

Yeah, it's common for companies to dip their standards to hire some diversity

 

They should call them darker-skinned Americans. And when people need to differentiate the darker-skinned Americans - that can call them "darker-skinned Americans who's ancestors can be traced at least partly to Africa as opposed to India or other countries."

I think that would be a lot less offensive than African American.

 

63% of the population...??? Wow that's a lot.

 

The short answer is...because racism precedes race. No one would have ever needed to make a distinction unless there was a social reason to, and what generally matters is appearance. At least we aren't as specific as the Antebellum South used to be, or as Brazilians are, where there is a Portuguese word for every possible variation of skin tone, each one corresponding to an entire perceived class system based on something as heads-scratchingly mundane as how much light a person reflects.

The long answer is African-American, imperfect as it is, is more specific than any other term and it describes a specific people with a specific culture derived in this particular corner of the African diaspora. Imagine a Jazz quartet, all black, with one guy from New York, one from Nicaragua, one from Guadeloupe and one from Rio. The might all be jazz musicians, they might all have West African ancestry, but each speaks a different native language, comes from a vastly different culture, as well as great distances from each other, and certainly...only one is properly speaking, African-American. If you are a music journalist, writing for an American audience, that's the term you're most likely going to need to use to describe the New Yorker to them.

So it's a useful term for that reason and not necessarily a weaselly artifact of political correctness.

 

Jazz bass virtuoso Charlie Haden very recently passed away and I was reading about it on the web. My roommate doesn't know much about jazz and read the article I was reading, describing his life in LA, his battles with substance abuse, his solo ventures into free jazz and so on...and it ran this old photo of him.



She asked which one was Charlie Haden. I told her to guess.
I knew she wouldn't pick the clean cut white guy...because she's old and prone to stereotypes. But the point is, even I avoided saying "the white dude" and it bothered me that the legacy of a great musician, was for many, exceptional because he was the white guy that played with Ornette Coleman, not because he was one the greatest bassists that ever lived.

 

a long ass time ago.

 

looks like you're the one having a "problem"... just by asking a question does not necessarily mean he/she's got a problem. And fyi, not all light skinned americans are called Caucasian cause there are light skin Hispanics too who looks white.

 

Because we don't call them "darker-skinned".