and just how do you expect a regular everyday person to tell what country someone from Africa hails from? I have trouble telling the difference between somone from Mexico and someone from EL Salvador...adn those two countries are right on my doorstep adn I have had plenty of interactions with folks from both those countries. Im far from ignorant on geography...it was one of my favorite subjects in school(along with history). I think you are asking too much of anyone on this planet, much less us ignorant( ) Americans.
seven. just teasing. this thread would make for an interesting study on the human mind's need to categorize stuff. anybody here study that kind of stuff? Also, what if where you're born has no impact on your identity? I was born in Pakistan, both my parents are Iranian, but I feel more like an American than anything else. Do I have to be Pakistani-American, or am I Iranian-American, or can I just be American? what constitutes American? point being, any broad generalized label may be inevitably incorrect when applied to the individual, aside from skin color - and using either to associate a person with a cultural group (the real problem) is ultimately doomed to meet with objection. I agree with what I think the OP is trying to say though. our main MO should be to pick up a book/map and learn something, then use that knowledge to strike up a conversation and learn more about the individual ... rather than slapping a label from afar.
Countries makes sense. There is enough in common in a country regarding people's past and future to group them into one category. Continents are useless. Laws are not similar. Peopel are not similar. Culture is not similar. Language is not similar. Resources are not similar. Weather is not similar. It's useless.
It would be as if people were to call you European American. You could say that you're part Cherokee or Martian but it would feel like it didn't matter if the responder already had that impression.
I just can't understand how anyone could really be concerned with all of this. Everyone's too damned sensitive about labels. Really, as far as I'm concerned, we're all just people. Ethnicity shouldn't even matter.
I wouldn't consider it offensive myself, but I could see how others find it annoying. Just like how I could see people getting a rise out of others through saying "unPC" words.
The problem with "African" and "Asia" is that they aren't just regional but racial designations. "Asians" refer to people originating from East and Southeast Asian with a certain set of features like straight black hair, high cheekbones and an extra fold in the eyelid. I think its primarily become popular because previous racial terms like "Mongoloid" and "Oriental" have other taken on other negative connotations in American English. The same why "African" is used to refer to people with a certain set of features and tracing ancestry to Africa because the previous term "Negro" is out of fashion. So for me if I am to describe myself in a standardized classification I go like this. Nationality: American Ethnicity: Chinese Race: Asian
