"BLACK or AFRICAN AMERICAN" mainly a question...

too be be honest I don't care if I'm called black or African American; I don't even get upset by the phase "people of color", as a matter of fact I believe that phrase is still used to today mainly by african american especially when referring to women about such things as hair, skin etc... I remember once in college people used an entire class debating about which one to use when referring to students---finally after fifty minutes someone asked (as if I represent the entire population), I just called the student by their name and that will solve all problems. ----side note I truly am African American because my dad is from Egypt, mom is from Alabama ----i technically consider myself black--my father on the other hand does not although I see him as black.

:flowerforyou: Hello, Moderator here.

I just wanted to say I am very proud of everyone for having a decent conversation about a very touchy subject. Normally these are shut down by page 2, but I decided to moderate as it was going well.

Very few posts were deleted and that was only because they were not on topic.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/welcome/guidelines

Thanks,

Arewethereyet
MFP Moderator

Dear Moderator,

I think I can speak for all of us who have been following this through the day by saying thank you for letting us chat on this topic. And I do appreciate the level of sincere discussion along with the right amount of humor (some of it really funny). If we could just have more of this type of honest and open exchang of ideas, maybe we could finally heal as a nation of people regardless of background.

And a special thanks to the OP. (Edit was to include this here rather than a separate post.)

I have always believed that if you were born in America then you are a black american. If you were born in Africa and then moved to the US and became an american citizen then you are an african american. Just my thoughts. Im a white american My great great great great great great grandfather came from ireland that doesn't make me irish american. Just my thoughts for what its worth.

I agree, being called African American is not offensive for me. It is not accurate. I feel that everyone should be proud of their history and learn as much as he/she can. Black Americans and African Americans are very different culturally. I am a Black American who envy's the culture of African people, but the relation is very slim. I think the same is true for any American who has generations and generations of their people born in US.

<----I'm brown......

I'm not black, but have worked with a lot of black colleagues, and they all use the term 'black'. I'm in the UK, and 'black' is actually the politically correct term here at the moment. It didn't use to be, which is why some older people can look shocked when people say it - mostly older white people, I find, who generally don't actually know any black people. The term used to be 'coloured' here, but that was deemed offensive because it suggests that white is the default and everything else has a colour. A lot of white people also say 'dark', which to me is a bit of a meaningless word - a white person can be referred to as dark if they get a sun tan!

On equal opportunities forms, people can specify whether they are 'Black English', 'Black Irish', 'Black British', etc. A colleague once refused to fill it in because there was no option for simply 'Black' or 'Black African'.

Yep good ol' UK...btw you missed the other classic UK form option of 'Black Other'!! lol

I think instead of white I want to be called German-American. I'm pretty proud of my pinkish color, huge bone structure, high tolereance for alcohol, and love of bratwurst! :drinker:

^^ me too :drinker:

To me the whole idea of absolute race in the US is a little nutz. Aren't most of us racially mixed to some degree? What you are, "white" or "black", "Causasian" or African-American", is about a societal designation, more than your actual heritage, which is none of anyone's business unless you're into that kind of thing. Personally, as you can see from my profile picture, I am Pantone 11-1306 TPX in color, but what's unclear from that picture is that I have heritage from Northern Europe, Africa, North America, and I think the Middle East -- I just happened to end up super pale.

That said, I think when people are constantly giving you *kitten* about your apparent heritage or making a huge deal out of it, then you start to have to identify with it whether you want to or not, because you are forced by society to live in a fortress. And from that fortress, in addition to all the other crap of life you have to deal with, you must expend energy trying to educate people when they act like there's no actual brains in their head. I don't think anyone should have to do any of that, but it happens lots to all kinds of people. Or, if you have had to struggle to feel like it was okay to be some particular aspect of who you are, finding a way to be proud of that aspect of your identity can be super important if you want to find inner peace. I have total respect for people in both of those situations designating themselves however they so chose, but it feels to me like the most productive thing that I can do from my end is try to see individuals for who they are without seeing their "voting bloc" in front of the human they're showing themselves to be. Different if you're talking about an actual voting bloc or sociological stuff, but even then I think it's a good thing to have in your head somewhere.

If I'm picking someone out of a crowd, I try to use two descriptors (style, hair, personality, whatever) before resorting to skin color, and when I refer to skin color, I try not to do it in a way that assigns the person's social group. Someone might be super pale or super dark or kinda medium skin tone. If they then chose to tell me they identify as a member of some group, that's fine, but I'm leaving the identification to them as much as I possibly can. A little neurotic, maybe, but it's my exercise in mindful behavior and it feels fair to me. I'm a mom and before I was a mom I worked with kids. My time with kids has led me to believe that it matters a lot what kind of behavior and thinking we all model, and that is the best I could come up with for me.

I have several black friends and every single one of them hate the term "African American". They prefer the term "black" or even better just "American".

From my perspective "black" is a more accurate descriptor simply because that person may well be from Haiti, Jamaica, or any other place and not actually be "African American" and to refer to them as such would be very inaccurate as well as insulting to them.

As one of my close friends put it one night "I've never set foot in &$%#*&^ Africa! I'm an American!" His parents came here from Jamaica long before he was born.

if i had to label myself it would be german/irish/danish/cherokee american... I much prefer the Heinz 57 label... takes all the guess work out. Great Topic and good posts!!