Quote:
Originally Posted by Autumn
I don't think that's true. dark-skinnned Caribbean people who are not of African descent don't use the term African-American. Dark-skinned people of New Zealander origin don't use the term. But people who are African-American but have fairly light skin do use the term.
I agree that people often misuse it. They might call someone African-American without any idea what their real ancestry is. Hell, I've seen morons in my classes call people in Africa African-American. But I'm not interested in Language for Dummies. I'm interested in whether a term is more accurate, less discriminatory and more meaningful. In some senses using the term "black" makes sense since it's what people are actually responding to, someone's skin color. But using a more accurate and meaningful term might help to remind those people that trying to lump people together because of pigmentation doesn't make sense, and in fact has been and is hugely damaging. I think this is the meaning of PC, in essence, is that by using better terms we can remind ourselves to think in a better way.
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Hehe!
I don't disagree with you 100%. I think we (the generic 'we') put too much weight into what someone looks like to begin with and a need to group them together. I just don't like it when people who use the term African American who think that it's a ubiquitous term for black people here in the US. I hate the hyphenated labels. Which are worse in my opinion, because it makes an even bigger assumption that that person is from that part of the world.
My best friend since we were 13 is black, he says, "Don't call me African American, I'm American, period. My ancestors might be from Africa, but, I'm not". The way he explains it, makes the most sense to me. So that's what I tend to go with.