American

[aps45819]

This actually gave me some thought. When they are filling out forms that make you choose your ethnicity...there is one for "White" and one for "African American".

Which do they choose?

No telling with him He once enrolled his kids in school as being black so they could go to the neighborhood grade school instead of being bussed across town.

 

[ImnoMensa]

I dont believe Negroes are so much into being called African-Americans , but it is a PC term they have decided they can live with.

They dont want to be called "Colored" any more even though their premier civil right organisations is an association for Colored People by its own name. They dont want to be called Negroes as that word is too often slurred to sound like ---well you know--.
Darkies certainly wouldnt go over too big. There are a lot of other terms that arent very endearing either so they have settled for their origin, and call themselves African-American more for the PC than anything else.

Most are American as their ancestors have been here for hundreds of years, but if they just call themselves just Americans ,they lose their bargaining rights as minorities,and become just like the rest of us, struggling to make ends meet without special entitlements ,and affirmative action jobs, and lowered standards. Can't have that.

 

[remaxrealtor]

I suppose it could be a lot of things, but the largest is merely an avoidance of using "black". It's unlikely that anyone descended from slaves has a clear genealogical record tracing back to a nation of origin.

Another is the colonial nature of Africa in the modern era. Aside from the nations of northern Africa, virtually the rest of the continent was or has been sliced and cut up from colonies of Europe and as such do not have the nationalism or culture associated with nations or kingdoms. These kinds of entities DID exist in the past, but not any longer. So if in some far future, your descendants become subjects of foreign powers and the nation known as the United States gets chopped up into several pieces, are you likely to form an allegiance or attachment to your new nation - or the one your parents knew?

Because of this, many nations in Africa cross the boundaries of the nations that exist in the hearts and minds of its citizens. Only the notion of Africa or in some cases, West Africa, have any significance.

This is largely my opinion from my reading. If anyone cares to enlighten me further, I'm all ears.

It's something I've always wondered, excellents points, thank you!

 

[Gwydion]

@ Samspade's comment.

Funny side note about the lack of traceability of black's slave ancestory. Hrmph...that doesn't sounds quite right...oh well.

There was a special on A&E while back during Black History Month. A bunch of genealogists got together with Chris Rock to attempt to find his ancestory. They got back far enough to the slave owner that bought his..great-great-etc. Grandfather. Long story short, they found out that Chris Rock is like...an eigth white. His comment:

"I always wondered why I sucked at basketball. I guess that is where my white ancestors shined through."



Anyways, it just goes to show, even with some of the top genealogists searching for your ancestory, as a black man with ancestors coming to America with the slave trade it is nigh near impossible to go any further back than a ship's name.