2 ms·

I doubt that African-Americans are culturally "african".

metamemetics 17y ago
The term "African-American" clearly implies "African": it's one of only two words in the phrase! You just demonstrated that you are using it to refer to the concept of "black". This is a very poor choice as not everyone from Africa is black, and not everyone black is from or has parents from Africa. And if you are using the logic "well he obviously has SOME ancestor originally from Africa", technically EVERYONE does.
- maxklein 17y ago
  Black-Americans do not have any cultural link to Africa, so I was pointing out that saying Carribean-American is not the same thing as saying African-American. Carribean-American implies a direct cultural link to the carribean islands, much like Arab-American would imply some type of cultural link to Arab culture. African-American is special in that it does not imply any link to Africa at all. African-American is a known term used to refer to people of a particular population group within the United States, and as such, it is much more accurate for the purposes of the article than the very broad term "Black". Black is not the same as African-American. Black is a broad group, and African-American is a subgroup of black that lives within the United States. You can also refer to this group as Black-American or so on, but it remains that this particular article was not speaking of the broader "black" group, it was speaking of the more specific American-Born Blacks, which are also commonly refered to as African-Americans, irrespective of any cultural ties to Africa.
  - metamemetics 17y ago
    'American' is understood from the context of national incarceration rates which are by definition nation specific. So you're choosing between 'black' or 'african' and black is the more appropriate term and what the incarceration statistics refer to. >"African-American is special in that it does not imply any link to Africa at all." It does and\or should. Continuing to propagate unclear vocabulary does a disservice to language.
    - maxklein 17y ago
      The phrase I would have liked to see there is Black-American. Language by definition is unclear. For example, "Caucasian" originally means people from the Caucasus region, but it has been adapted to refer to the american racial construct of "white". If you look at the biological definition of Caucasian, it's very different from the general used U.S meaning, in that it includes indians and somalians etc. So you can't attack "african-american" as a word but find all the other vague and misappropriated words like "caucasian" okay. And if it actually happens that all basterdized words are removed from language, we would be left with only grunts.

The term "African-American" clearly implies "African": it's one of only two words in the phrase! You just demonstrated that you are using it to refer to the concept of "black". This is a very poor choice as not everyone from Africa is black, and not everyone black is from or has parents from Africa. And if you are using the logic "well he obviously has SOME ancestor originally from Africa", technically EVERYONE does.

maxklein 17y ago
Black-Americans do not have any cultural link to Africa, so I was pointing out that saying Carribean-American is not the same thing as saying African-American. Carribean-American implies a direct cultural link to the carribean islands, much like Arab-American would imply some type of cultural link to Arab culture. African-American is special in that it does not imply any link to Africa at all. African-American is a known term used to refer to people of a particular population group within the United States, and as such, it is much more accurate for the purposes of the article than the very broad term "Black". Black is not the same as African-American. Black is a broad group, and African-American is a subgroup of black that lives within the United States. You can also refer to this group as Black-American or so on, but it remains that this particular article was not speaking of the broader "black" group, it was speaking of the more specific American-Born Blacks, which are also commonly refered to as African-Americans, irrespective of any cultural ties to Africa.
- metamemetics 17y ago
  'American' is understood from the context of national incarceration rates which are by definition nation specific. So you're choosing between 'black' or 'african' and black is the more appropriate term and what the incarceration statistics refer to. >"African-American is special in that it does not imply any link to Africa at all." It does and\or should. Continuing to propagate unclear vocabulary does a disservice to language.
  - maxklein 17y ago
    The phrase I would have liked to see there is Black-American. Language by definition is unclear. For example, "Caucasian" originally means people from the Caucasus region, but it has been adapted to refer to the american racial construct of "white". If you look at the biological definition of Caucasian, it's very different from the general used U.S meaning, in that it includes indians and somalians etc. So you can't attack "african-american" as a word but find all the other vague and misappropriated words like "caucasian" okay. And if it actually happens that all basterdized words are removed from language, we would be left with only grunts.