Fantt said:
Usually, the race of a person is irrelevant unless you need to describe them to someone else...
...I try very hard to use non-racial terms when speaking about someone else. I'd rather say, "He's the new guy that always dresses really nice and he wears glasses" than "He's that black guy."
I agree with you, and I try to do the same thing.
Elizabeth said:
What politicians are you referring to as promoting these referential changes in the language ? As I recall, it was blacks themselves that argued for African American that would reflect a higher awareness of ethnic identity, assert ancestral or group pride, etc., although a majority today seem to prefer 'black' over the newer terms.
Well, I tried to find it, but I couldn't. All I know is that I remember hearing on the news that politicians were talking about making it so that people had to refer to others in as gentle a way as possible, and using "African-American" was one of the new terms (but maybe it wasn't). Sorry if that's not accurate, but the point remains that it's still an artificial and cosmetic solution to the lack of unity among black people. For example, exactly how has the black community become any more aware of their ethnic identity, or asserted any more ancestral or group pride
as a direct result of referring to themselves as "African-American?" Show me some evidence, and like I said, I'll consider changing my position.
Also, black people aren't the same everywhere. Why would they try to group all of them together into one general group in order to create unity? I doubt that a black person in the suburbs of New York City is going to be grouped in the same way as a black person living in South Central L.A., or a black person living in rural Kansas
as human beings. Saying that they think the same way and have the same hopes and desires in life just because they both happen to be black is just plain stupid. My point is they were wrong in thinking that they could create unity by changing the way that they're referred to when the status quo was accurate (at least as far as "white" is), and includes
all black people, not just ones from America. The name is inaccurate and its introduction seems to me to have been pointless, even though the intentions were good. Here is what I mean by being inaccurate:
Wikipedia said:
Recent black immigrants from Africa and the islands of the Caribbean are sometimes classified as African Americans. However, these groups, especially first- and second-generation immigrants, often have cultural practices, histories, and languages that are distinct from those of African Americans born in the United States. For example, Caribbean natives may speak French, British English, or Spanish as their first language. Emigrants from Africa may speak a European language other than English or any of a number of African languages as their first language. Caribbean and African immigrants often have little knowledge or experience of the distinctive history of race relations in the United States. Thus, Caribbean and African immigrants may or may not choose to call themselves African American.
Also, Dr. Williams said,
Dr. Williams said:
Today, it has become fashionable to refer to me as an African-American. I protest. One reason is that I risk being confused with an American of Egyptian or Afrikaner ancestry since both can legitimately be called African-Americans.
If they just want to refer to black America as "African-American" to further subdivide themselves, then it's still not as accurate as "black American." So I'm missing the point as to why anyone would say that black people should be referred to as "African-American." I will grant that the tie-in with politicians seems flimsy at best without my being able to provide any evidence of my own, but I could have sworn that that was its origin (which is why I'm holding on to "flimsy").
I think that the situation with "Indian" is quite a bit different. It wasn't some forced change on the language, but a misunderstanding of location that caused this misnomer, as far as I know. Confusion is then created when we say "Indian," because is it someone from India or someone from a native tribe of America (Canadian tribes also get included in this, if I'm not mistaken)? Even "American Indian" is confusing, because are we talking about an immigrant from India who has come to America, or are we talking about someone from a native tribe?