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Some blacks insist: 'I'm not African-American' (Breaking news?)
Yahoo ^ | 2/04/12 | JESSE WASHINGTON

Posted on 02/05/2012 7:49:11 AM PST by Libloather

Some blacks insist: 'I'm not African-American'
By JESSE WASHINGTON | Associated Press – 21 hrs ago

The labels used to describe Americans of African descent mark the movement of a people from the slave house to the White House. Today, many are resisting this progression by holding on to a name from the past: "black."

For this group — some descended from U.S. slaves, some immigrants with a separate history — "African-American" is not the sign of progress hailed when the term was popularized in the late 1980s. Instead, it's a misleading connection to a distant culture.

The debate has waxed and waned since African-American went mainstream, and gained new significance after the son of a black Kenyan and a white American moved into the White House. President Barack Obama's identity has been contested from all sides, renewing questions that have followed millions of darker Americans:

What are you? Where are you from? And how do you fit into this country?

"I prefer to be called black," said Shawn Smith, an accountant from Houston. "How I really feel is, I'm American."

"I don't like African-American. It denotes something else to me than who I am," said Smith, whose parents are from Mississippi and North Carolina.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: african; american; blacks
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To: jiggyboy
I’m trying to remember the story about a black athlete from Brazil or somewhere who won a medal in the Olympics, and the interviewer kept calling him “African American” despite being corrected immediately, every time, that he was neither African nor American.

My favourite example of something similar was an introduction of somebody or other as a 'South African African American'.

41 posted on 02/05/2012 9:42:50 AM PST by hecticskeptic
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To: jiggyboy
I’m trying to remember the story about a black athlete from Brazil or somewhere who won a medal in the Olympics, and the interviewer kept calling him “African American” despite being corrected immediately, every time, that he was neither African nor American.

My favourite example of something similar was an introduction of somebody or other as a 'South African African American'.

42 posted on 02/05/2012 9:43:06 AM PST by hecticskeptic
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To: Libloather
Look my people were British till 1776 then we shot at them....your never really an American till you start shooting at people from the old country....ask Eisenhower
43 posted on 02/05/2012 9:46:06 AM PST by tophat9000 (American is Barack Oaken)
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To: Libloather

Hopeless slaves to the Democratic Party (for close to 200 years) arguing how to properly name their chains.


44 posted on 02/05/2012 9:48:31 AM PST by FormerACLUmember
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To: Libloather
The whole thing is pretty silly. I've noticed that Native Americans are going in the opposite direction. They really, really hate any connotation alluding to their somewhat darker pigmentation (i.e., “red”). Remember all the sports teams nicknames controversies back in the ‘90s? That gave rise to the famous “Fighting Whities” bust of a protest, and a lot of college teams dropping centuries-old nicknames to fit into the politically correct Zeitgeist. You need a scorecard to keep the various movements straight. Such are the politics of identity.
45 posted on 02/05/2012 9:54:38 AM PST by chimera
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To: Libloather

Perhaps they need to be recognized for what they seek: reparationists.


46 posted on 02/05/2012 9:57:22 AM PST by mcshot (Voter fraud will be the doom of the Republic as desired by the Lib Dems.)
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To: CSM; norwaypinesavage; Libloather

I remember when the Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson, who was born in Jamaica and competed for Canada, was haltingly referred to by television reporters as “African-American.”

Idiots.


47 posted on 02/05/2012 10:05:56 AM PST by Fightin Whitey
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To: Scanian

my wife does the same

when will those people who call themselves African American unuderstand they are about as African as me.

Next time you ever hear the term then ask what country.
I asked two black guys which country they were from and they said America, I asked why are you saying to me then African American to which they replied, because we come from Africa
I asked what country.
No answer they had no clue what countries are in Africa or who in their family came here hundreds of years ago .

Also I point out that whites too come from Africa as well as blacks of which those who say it too look all confused and even had some say no whites from from Africa


48 posted on 02/05/2012 10:15:28 AM PST by manc (FOX, DRUDGE, HAS BEEN DISGUSTING IN THEIR BIASED ATTACKS V NEWT. I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: Libloather

I have a buddy who is half white and half black who calls himself “halfrican”. He is shameless in admitting that his racial status got him his fire depratment job.


49 posted on 02/05/2012 10:26:44 AM PST by strider44
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To: jiggyboy
I recall something similar from an Olympic event. The winner was a Black man from France. Like your example the interviewer (NBC iirc) kept saying "African American".

The FRENCHMAN was not pleased.

50 posted on 02/05/2012 10:28:08 AM PST by Condor51 (Yo Hoffa, so you want to 'take out conservatives'. Well okay Jr - I'm your Huckleberry)
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All contributions are for the Current Quarter Expenses.


51 posted on 02/05/2012 10:52:17 AM PST by RedMDer (Forward With Confidence!)
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To: Stepan12
negro is better than black as it does not carry the negative connotations that the word black

Well, I'm a melanin enriched American, so I may as well chime in here.

We called ourselves 'negro' when I was a young child, but for a whole lot of reasons you might not be familiar with, most of us black folks weren't all that keen on the term. For one, it was a term that was more or less assigned to us - not one we chose for ourselves. Secondly, the word simply means 'black' in Spanish.

When negroes started calling themselves 'black' in the 1960s, it was a causative act, and an affirmation of personal and group identity and pride. It caught on nearly instantly, and stuck hard. It made a lot more sense to most of us, than the term, 'negro'.

Over the next 20 years or so, black folks did a lot of reflecting on where they came from. Remember the movie, "Roots"? I believe it was somewhere around that time that more radical blacks began looking to further individuate black people from the rest of America. Adopting the term, 'African-American' accomplished that nicely, and served the purposes of the hard left, to further consolidate their hold on that segment of the American people (and their votes).

Even before I rediscovered my core conservatism, I hated the term, 'African-American', and never accepted it. In my mind, I've always been nothing more than an American. I've got ancestral roots that go back to other continents, but so does every other American. Should they all hyphenate their identity like 'African-Americans' do?

It's just silly, and I don't support it. It's just an insidious way to divide Americans. Are we a country, or are we not? It doesn't matter where ones ancestors came from. You're here now, and you either identify with this country or you don't.

52 posted on 02/05/2012 11:08:22 AM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: GenXteacher
They need to go back to this term: (negro)

Not just no, but HELL no.

It may be stamped on my birth certificate, but I threw off that disgusting label half a century ago.

53 posted on 02/05/2012 11:11:05 AM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: GenXteacher

How about “American”, “Un-American”, and “Foreign”.

African American, Negro, Black, White, Hispanic are all Un-American terms, IMHO; we’re Americans first, the rest are just visiting.


54 posted on 02/05/2012 11:20:42 AM PST by King Moonracer (Bad lighting and cheap fabric, that's how you sell clothing.....)
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To: Stepan12

I always wondered how those from the Caribbean felt calling themselves AA when their origins are far from Africa? I think the best argument I ever heard was between a foreign exchange student from Africa and an American black.It was like who’s on first....the exchange student kept asking “where are you from in Africa” and the black student kept saying “I’m not from African I am African American”....


55 posted on 02/05/2012 11:24:56 AM PST by chris_bdba
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To: Windflier

“When negroes started calling themselves ‘black’ in the 1960s, it was a causative act, and an affirmation of personal and group identity and pride.”

We, us, our, American... are all prefered terms to labeling people by color, but when such labelings are required, I have never met a black that didn’t simply prefer “black”; at least among regular folk.


56 posted on 02/05/2012 11:26:52 AM PST by Owl558 ("Those who remember George Satayana are doomed to repeat him")
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To: Owl558
...when such labelings are required, I have never met a black that didn’t simply prefer “black”; at least among regular folk.

That's very true for those of us in the baby boomer generation, but there's a great amount of confusion with the whole racial labeling thing among younger blacks. They've been subjected to pc brain washing about this their whole lives.

57 posted on 02/05/2012 11:31:42 AM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Libloather

“How I really feel is, I’m American.”

Great!


58 posted on 02/05/2012 11:33:21 AM PST by thecodont
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To: ronnie raygun
Identity crisis! They went fron negro to black to egyptian to african American. HOW ABOUT AMERICAN FIRST AND FORMOST

You missed one - prior to being negro, they were "colored people" (Ref: NAACP). Also, if I'm not mistaken, the term "Afro-American" was in there somewhere.

59 posted on 02/05/2012 11:57:15 AM PST by Bob
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To: Windflier
Yeah.... I hear you. But I also remember that "Malcolm X" movie where Denzel Washington is in prison and he sees the dictionary and the difference in connotation between the words black and white.

We are not in Spain and one doesn't hear of the negro death or the negro plague in the 14th century. Nor do we hear phrases such as his icy negro heart; etc.

Incidentally, I attended out of curiosity a John Birch meeting once and I met a cop there. He was a JBS member (such incidents make me doubt these guys are racists) and he described himself as a negro because he thought the term black for those with rough, bumpy melanin (as opposed to the smoother melanin of white people) was too associated with Communists for him to ever use the term to describe himself.

I guess he was talking about the late Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichal).

However my friends and acqaintances do not like the term negro, so I use black most of the time in public anyway.

60 posted on 02/05/2012 12:30:20 PM PST by Stepan12
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