African American

How did that has come to mean all black people? Not all black people are Africans or have had African ancestors. And not all African Americans are black. And I don’t call myself Dutch American.

2 Responses to “African American”

  1. The Author Is Blank Says:
    November 21st, 2006 at 09:53 PM
    Black Americans descend primarily from enslaved Africans brought to the United States, especially the American South, between 1619 and 1807, the majority of whom were brought in the 18th century.

    Blacks in the United States have been known by various terms at various points in U.S. history. Today, the most common term is probably African American, with Black also commonly accepted since the late 1960s; Afro-American, common from the late 1960s into the 1980s, remains generally acceptable, but less common, and has lately been developing a “period” connotation.

    In the late 1980s, Blacks began to abandon the term Afro-American, adopting the autonym African American instead. Some did so out of a desire for an unabbreviated expression of their African heritage that could not be mistaken or derided as an allusion to the afro hairstyle. Others wished to assert their pride in their African origins. The term dated back at least to Black nationalist Malcolm X, who favored African American as more historically and culturally defining over other terms, and used it at an OAAU (Organization of Afro American Unity) meeting in the mid-1960s, saying, “Twenty-two million African Americans – that’s what we are – Africans who are in America.” However, it did not become widely used at that time. During the 1980s, the most influential proponent of the widespread adoption of the term was Jesse Jackson. Jackson and like-minded persons argued that African American was more in keeping with the United States tradition of “hyphenated Americans”, which links people with their ancestors’ geographic points of origin, and allows people to assert pride in their immigrant or ethnic heritage, while maintaining an American national identity.

    This usage of the term African American refers specifically to black African ancestry and American nationality. It does not include whites or Asians from Africa, nor does it include Africans in Africa, the Caribbean, or elsewhere. Still, there is disagreement as to whether the term should refer only to Blacks who can trace their American roots to the colonial period or slavery, or whether it also should include black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America and their descendants.

    (so says the Wikipedia at least)

  2. Joe Says:
    November 21st, 2006 at 11:27 PM

    Hm, interesting. Thanks.

    by the way, I fixed your comment to use the blockquote html tag. It’s prettier now.

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