3 ms·
> They also distinguish brown from black, What, I thought that was just South Africa (under Apartheid)? > African-American from black I thought those were sy
by CRConrad 5y ago
> They also distinguish brown from black,
What, I thought that was just South Africa (under Apartheid)?
> African-American from black
I thought those were synonyms?
> and god knows what else.
Yeah, for a country ostensibly attempting to get away from its old racist ways, the USA seems remarkably fixated on the minutiae of distinguishing and registering "race".
- dragonwriter 5y ago> > African-American from black > I thought those were synonyms? No, despite what the staff of my then-college’s newspaper apparently were thinking when writing about a visit by Winnie Mandela to the US, “African-American” and “black” are not synonyms.
- CRConrad 5y agoDuh, true, of course. I've seen (and laughed at) the same thing, "African-American" being used about immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Sweden, people who had never been near America. But what I (must have) meant to write was, "African-American" is pretty much the mandatory term to use for American Blacks, right? (<-- And should "Blacks" really be capitalised there?)