# black or tan; black or fair [person]



## Sun14

Hello, my friends,

I was wondering how to address the people whose color is black or white. I am afraid calling them white person or black person would concern racial discrimination. I heard someone said calling them tan/dark or pale/fair would be a better choice:

"She is the black/tan one."

Context: Imagine they were wearing uniform and at same height. I want to tell my friend who is the one we are waiting for.


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## Glasguensis

You should use whatever word your friend will understand and not be offended by. We don't know your friend so we can't really help.

Note that such a word may not exist - your friend might be offended by any reference to skin colour.


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## suzi br

Quite a minefield I agree.

If you are really trying to avoid drawing attention to race, you can try simply not mentioning it!  Use some other descriptor like name / height / study.  It can usually be done.

Whatever you do, I would say that "tan" is going to sound daft as a descriptor of anyone of Afro-American / Jamaican colouring, for example. I would keep that word for someone who is naturally pale skinned but sat out in the sun and went a few shades darker.


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## Sun14

Glasguensis said:


> You should use whatever word your friend will understand and not be offended by. We don't know your friend so we can't really help.
> 
> Note that such a word may not exist - your friend might be offended by any reference to skin colour.



Do you mean any reference to skin colour would be considered offended?


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## Sun14

suzi br said:


> Quite a minefield I agree.
> 
> If you are really trying to avoid drawing attention to race, you can try simply not mentioning it!  Use some other descriptor like name / height / study.  It can usually be done.
> 
> Whatever you do, I would say that "tan" is going to sound daft as a descriptor of anyone of Afro-American / Jamaican colouring, for example. I would keep that word for someone who is naturally pale skinned but sat out in the sun and went a few shades darker.



Do you mean we'd better not mention the color of their skin, right?


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## natkretep

Yes, I would never use _tan_, though I might say _tanned_ for someone who would be pale (northern European, northern Asian - Japanese, Korean etc) if they hadn't been exposed to the sun.

I think black and white is very often more acceptable if you need to refer to skin colour than terms like _dark_ or _swarthy_.


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## Sun14

natkretep said:


> Yes, I would never use _tan_, though I might say _tanned_ for someone who would be pale (northern European, northern Asian - Japanese, Korean etc) if they hadn't been exposed to the sun.
> 
> I think black and white is very often more acceptable if you need to refer to skin colour than terms like _dark_ or _swarthy_.



Got it. I ask this question because I really don't want to offend someone.


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## Keith Bradford

Sun, I worked for fifteen years in race relations and I can assure you - whatever you say, you're bound to offend someone! 

But in Britain, the words _*black*, *white*_ and *Asian *are most broadly seen as acceptable; bear in mind that the black people here are typically from Africa or the West Indies, and Asians from India or Pakistan.

NOT referring to colour can be as ridiculous as the story about the two drunks who argued for an hour about how to distinguish between the two horses they'd just bought.  Finally, one of them says: "I've jusht realised - the black one'sh got a longer tail than the white one!"


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## Sun14

Keith Bradford said:


> Sun, I worked for fifteen years in race relations and I can assure you - whatever you say, you're bound to offend someone!
> 
> But in Britain, the words _*black*, *white*_ and *Asian *are most broadly seen as acceptable; bear in mind that the black people here are typically from Africa or the West Indies, and Asians from India or Pakistan.
> 
> NOT referring to colour can be as ridiculous as the story about the two drunks who argued for an hour about how to distinguish between the two horses they'd just bought.  Finally, one of them says: "I've jusht realised - the black one'sh got a longer tail than the white one!"



Do you mean it is fine to say the color but should bear in mind that be polite?


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## Glasguensis

What Keith means is that most people in Britain would not be offended by the use of black, white and Asian. However some people might be, and if your friend is not British he or she might have different standards anyway. So "fine" is really not the right word to use.


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## Copperknickers

Sun14 said:


> Hello, my friends,
> 
> I was wondering how to address the people whose color is black or white. I am afraid calling them white person or black person would concern racial discrimination. I heard someone said calling them tan/dark or pale/fair would be a better choice:
> 
> "She is the black/tan one."
> 
> Context: Imagine they were wearing uniform and at same height. I want to tell my friend who is the one we are waiting for.



Why can't you just say 'the one on the right/left'? 

Anyhow, the kind of person who is offended by references to skin colour will not care what word you use, they'll find a way to be offended whatever you say. My advice is to simply use 'black' and 'white' in situations where there is no other way of differentiating between two people, otherwise you run the risk of sounding very silly:


'She was going out with Michael'

'Who is Michael?'

'That's him over there'

'Which one?'

*both look at a group of white people with one black person, who is obviously Michael*

'The one with the T-Shirt'

'They're all wearing a T-Shirt'

'The one with the blue T-Shirt'

'Pale blue or dark blue?'

..... and so on


You just have to accept that some politically correct people will be offended by the fact you are mentioning race at all, but frankly those kind of people are getting less and less common, thankfully. In my experience most politically correct people are whites who have rarely met anyone from another race, and so they have a lot of preconceptions about 'offensiveness' which are not actually true for most black/Asian people themselves.


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## tonyspeed

If I wanted to avoid racial terminology, I might say "dark-skinned", "of darker complexion", "of darker hue", etc...


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

For a "Caucasian" who's spent time in the sun or a tanning salon/parlor, "The one with the tan." Some people do bend over backwards to avoid referring to people by their color or race even thought it's the simplest way to identify them. Political hyper-correctness is a recent bane of usage, but there are people who take advantage of it to seize upon a pretext for accusing others of rac[etc.]ism.


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## Packard

The single most distinguishing feature is the one that gets mentioned.  

My co-worker's husband is black, but everyone describes him as "that big guy" (he's bigger than he is black).

I doubt that I've ever seen a "tan" person where that was the most distinguishing characteristic.  

Referring to someone by their color is to put that person in a "category", and that is frequently offensive.

However "complexion" that does not indicate race is OK. So "He had a deep olive complexion" would not be offensive (in my opinion) as long as you are not referring to that person by his race.

That said, my black co-worker has been known to refer to dark blacks as "darkies" and light colored blacks as "lighties", but I think you can only get away with that if you are yourself a black person.


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## Sun14

I read this thread in #9 saying that it is better to refer to the people with the black skinned in America black rather than African American. I am kind of confused:

"He was wearing a red scarf, white shoes, and he was black."

Asian or Asiatic / Negro-nigger or black


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## tonyspeed

Sun14 said:


> I read this thread in #9 saying that it is better to refer to the people with the black skinned in America black rather than African American. I am kind of confused:
> 
> "He was wearing a red scarf, white shoes, and he was black."
> 
> Asian or Asiatic / Negro-nigger or black




The term African-American is not offensive. Very few people would even object to its use, and if they did they would do so not because they were offended but on ideological grounds. Of course, there are African-descent people in America that are NOT American; therefore, this term could not be used to describe them. Even some black citizens of the USA of non-American descent (Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, etc...) may find being called a Black American offensive, as they may feel that this term hides their real ancestry.


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## dojibear

Note you can talk about skin color, or about race. They are not the same.

For skin color of an individual, you can use dozens of color words. You can mention how dark or light their color is, without mentioning race.

For race "white" has been used to mean european ancestry for very long. The most acceptable and polite term for Americans of African ancestry was "African American" 20 years ago, "negro" 50 years ago. In recent years it is "black". "African American" is still okay. "negro" should be avoided, as it is too close to "n*gg*r" which is very strongly avoided.

In case I was unclear: "black" (heard 100 times a day on TV referring to someone's race) does not imply "dark-skinned"


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## Sun14

tonyspeed said:


> The term African-American is not offensive. Very few people would even object to its use, and if they did they would do so not because they were offended but on ideological grounds. Of course, there are African-descent people in America that are NOT American; therefore, this term could not be used to describe them. Even some black citizens of the USA of non-American descent (Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, etc...) may find being called a Black American offensive, as they may feel that this term hides their real ancestry.





dojibear said:


> Note you can talk about skin color, or about race. They are not the same.
> 
> For skin color of an individual, you can use dozens of color words. You can mention how dark or light their color is, without mentioning race.
> 
> For race "white" has been used to mean european ancestry for very long. The most acceptable and polite term for Americans of African ancestry was "African American" 20 years ago, "negro" 50 years ago. In recent years it is "black". "African American" is still okay. "negro" should be avoided, as it is too close to "n*gg*r" which is very strongly avoided.
> 
> In case I was unclear: "black" (heard 100 times a day on TV referring to someone's race) does not imply "dark-skinned"



Then shall we just refer to them as black?


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## MattiasNYC

Sun, I'm a person of ambiguous ethnicity, and I've lived in the US for quite some time now. So here are my thoughts on it:

- If you're going to talk about a person's skin color or race/ethnicity then as others pointed out choose the language that is appropriate. African-American doesn't apply to all black people (because some people of African ancestry aren't Americans), and "black" doesn't apply to all dark-skinned people (because some may be very dark due to tanning, not race, or might not be referred to as "black" despite being darker than "black" Africans (e.g. some Indians)).

- If you're talking _about_ someone, then the issue is whether or not the people you're talking _to_ are offended by your words referring to someone who isn't listening to what you're saying. Again, as someone pointed out, if you want to distinguish a person among other people and the person is really tall, and dark skinned, you can just say "the tall one", and your problem is solved. If the people all look the same except for one being clearly darker, then just say "the dark-skinned one" or "the darker one", and that's probably fine.

- If you're talking _to_ someone, and telling _that_ person what skin color he/she has, then the question is why you bother doing so. Why is it relevant? I don't personally get offended very easily, so if someone makes skin color seem important, or race, then while I don't get offended _I_ question their education and intellectual capacity. But not everyone is the same way. Some people think race and skin color both make an inherent difference so to them talking about it or just mentioning it isn't necessarily offensive. Then again, if a person identifies as for example Persian and thinks that's really really important, but is called Arab by someone, he/she might be offended. That, to me, is just ludicrous (though logical), but that's the world we live in.

So if I was going to give you any advice it's:

a) Don't use words that carry a history of being thought of as offensive (n-word etc).
b) Don't use talk about skin color or race if you don't have to, and if causing offensive is a concern for you.
c) Know the person/people you're talking to before you talk about it. Perhaps just make them talk about it first to see what they think.
d) Choose the correct 'group' of terms depending on if you want to talk about a race/heritage or skin color.

PS: Going back to the very first thing I said; I'm of ambiguous ethnicity, so if you call me either white or black I'll probably "raise an eyebrow", because I'm neither, or both. If you call me "brown" then that's closer to the truth. But I can qualify as Latin-American to some, African-American to some (or Mulatto), some think I look middle eastern etc.


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## Glasguensis

Who is "them"?


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## MattiasNYC

Probably depends on who you are addressing with your question....


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

tonyspeed said:


> Even some black citizens of the USA of non-American descent (Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, etc...) may find being called a Black American offensive, as they may feel that this term hides their real ancestry.



Did you mean "African-American", rather than "Black American"? [I don't think anyone says "Black American", just "Black", when speaking of (US) Americans  who are Black.]


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## dojibear

As ainttt says, "blacks" is the current term for referring to Americans of African descent.

Actually, it is even more specific. Americans of African ancestry have been over 10% of the population for 200+ years. That is the group of people being referred to as "blacks". Not recent immigrants. 

That isn't a restriction: most Americans have some ancestors who immigrated more recently, just as most Americans have some ancestors from more than one race.

Perhaps that is why the term "African-American" became less popular. It sounds just like "Italian-American, Polish-American, Irish-American" and so on. All of those mean "an American whose family moved here from X in the last few generations", and African American is used with that meaning too. A different word was needed to refer to "the descendants of the minority co-founders of the nation".


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## Sun14

MattiasNYC said:


> Sun, I'm a person of ambiguous ethnicity, and I've lived in the US for quite some time now. So here are my thoughts on it:
> 
> - If you're going to talk about a person's skin color or race/ethnicity then as others pointed out choose the language that is appropriate. African-American doesn't apply to all black people (because some people of African ancestry aren't Americans), and "black" doesn't apply to all dark-skinned people (because some may be very dark due to tanning, not race, or might not be referred to as "black" despite being darker than "black" Africans (e.g. some Indians)).
> 
> - If you're talking _about_ someone, then the issue is whether or not the people you're talking _to_ are offended by your words referring to someone who isn't listening to what you're saying. Again, as someone pointed out, if you want to distinguish a person among other people and the person is really tall, and dark skinned, you can just say "the tall one", and your problem is solved. If the people all look the same except for one being clearly darker, then just say "the dark-skinned one" or "the darker one", and that's probably fine.
> 
> - If you're talking _to_ someone, and telling _that_ person what skin color he/she has, then the question is why you bother doing so. Why is it relevant? I don't personally get offended very easily, so if someone makes skin color seem important, or race, then while I don't get offended _I_ question their education and intellectual capacity. But not everyone is the same way. Some people think race and skin color both make an inherent difference so to them talking about it or just mentioning it isn't necessarily offensive. Then again, if a person identifies as for example Persian and thinks that's really really important, but is called Arab by someone, he/she might be offended. That, to me, is just ludicrous (though logical), but that's the world we live in.
> 
> So if I was going to give you any advice it's:
> 
> a) Don't use words that carry a history of being thought of as offensive (n-word etc).
> b) Don't use talk about skin color or race if you don't have to, and if causing offensive is a concern for you.
> c) Know the person/people you're talking to before you talk about it. Perhaps just make them talk about it first to see what they think.
> d) Choose the correct 'group' of terms depending on if you want to talk about a race/heritage or skin color.
> 
> PS: Going back to the very first thing I said; I'm of ambiguous ethnicity, so if you call me either white or black I'll probably "raise an eyebrow", because I'm neither, or both. If you call me "brown" then that's closer to the truth. But I can qualify as Latin-American to some, African-American to some (or Mulatto), some think I look middle eastern etc.



How about using black without being considered uneducated or impolite? By asking this I mean I want to know whether it is fine and acceptable to refer to my colleague this way to my friend. My colleague is an American but she was born in Jamaica. She is dark-skinned. I can tell my friend that she is tall and elegant even meaning her nationality, but when I am going to describe her appearance like skin color, I am hesitate to use black, because I think my friend might consider I am not educated and racial discriminated to describe a person this way giving my friend  an impolite impression:

1) "She is an American and She is an black woman."

2) "She is an American and She is black."


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## Sun14

Glasguensis said:


> Who is "them"?



The people who are apparently dark-skinned.


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## dojibear

I would say she is an American from Jamaica, or an American from a Jamaican family.

If you want to describe her appearance, and if you need to include skin color, use a color word (beige, cream, coffee-color, olive, tan, ivory, fairly dark tan, 150 other words). When used for skin color "black" means "the color black", which matches only a few very-dark-skinned people from some parts of Africa and India.

The term "black" for african-americans is not a skin color.


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## Sun14

dojibear said:


> I would say she is an American from Jamaica, or an American from a Jamaican family.
> 
> If you want to describe her appearance, and if you need to include skin color, use a color word (beige, cream, coffee-color, olive, tan, ivory, fairly dark tan, 150 other words). When used for skin color "black" means "the color black", which matches only a few very-dark-skinned people from some parts of Africa and India.
> 
> The term "black" for african-americans is not a skin color.



May I speak like this:

"She is an American from Jamaica and she is dark-skinned."


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## dojibear

Yes, I would say that when describing a friend.


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## Sun14

dojibear said:


> Yes, I would say that when describing a friend.



Got it. Thank you very much.


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## Oddmania

dojibear said:


> Perhaps that is why the term "African-American" became less popular. It sounds just like "Italian-American, Polish-American, Irish-American" and so on. All of those mean "an American whose family moved here from X in the last few generations", and African American is used with that meaning too. A different word was needed to refer to "the descendants of the minority co-founders of the nation".



I'm glad you mentioned that. I've never really understood the trend to call Black American people "African-Americans". The way I see it, Charlize Theron is African-American. Barack Obama is only _American_. Maybe this topic is less of a concern on this of the pond. I wonder what British people are used to saying. I've never heard _African-Englishman_!


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## Copperknickers

Oddmania said:


> I'm glad you mentioned that. I've never really understood the trend to call Black American people "African-Americans". The way I see it, Charlize Theron is African-American. Barack Obama is only _American_. Maybe this topic is less of a concern on this of the pond. I wonder what British people are used to saying. I've never heard _African-Englishman_!



We usually say 'Afro-Caribbean' or 'African' in the UK, depending on the ancestry of the individual(s) in question (until recently, almost all black people in the UK were from Jamaica, Trinidad or other Caribbean islands, so you could be safe in calling a black person 'Afro-Caribbean' in the same way that you can generally call a South Asian person 'Bangladeshi' if you are in East London, or 'Pakistani' if you are in Bradford). 'Black' is more informal, but few people outside the ultra-PC brigade would find it offensive.


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## Oddmania

Good to know, thank you Copperknickers!


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## MirandaEscobedo

Where I used to work in East London (UK), anyone who said "Afro-Caribbean" was greeted with "an Afro is a hair style" and told to say "Afri-Caribbean".  But that was some time ago and the expression has probably lapsed altogether (whether with "o" or "i").


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## Glasguensis

I'm an Irish American.
I'm an American of Irish descent.

These are the two forms ain't' referred to.

Note that you will probably never use either form, since they are nearly always used in the first person and you are not American.


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## Sun14

Thanks for your patient explanation, Glasguensis and ain'ttranslationfun?


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## MattiasNYC

Sun14 said:


> How about using black without being considered uneducated or impolite? By asking this I mean I want to know whether it is fine and acceptable to refer to my colleague this way to my friend. My colleague is an American but she was born in Jamaica. She is dark-skinned. I can tell my friend that she is tall and elegant even meaning her nationality, but when I am going to describe her appearance like skin color, I am hesitate to use black, because I think my friend might consider I am not educated and racial discriminated to describe a person this way giving my friend  an impolite impression:
> 
> 1) "She is an American and She is an black woman."
> 
> 2) "She is an American and She is black."



You could probably use "black" or "dark-skinned" without any problems. I think in this case though that since the vast majority of Jamaicans, as far as I know, are black, it's almost unnecessary to point out her skin color.  It'd be more "important" to do it if she was a white Jamaican I'd say. And this of course also assumes that there's some value to knowing the color in the first place.


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## MattiasNYC

Oddmania said:


> I I've never really understood the trend to call Black American people "African-Americans". The way I see it, Charlize Theron is African-American. Barack Obama is only _American_. Maybe this topic is less of a concern on this of the pond. I wonder what British people are used to saying. I've never heard _African-Englishman_!



I think this _might_ have been a way to tie the lineage back to Africa for black Americans whose ancestors were brought here as slaves. It's not entirely uncommon to hear the opinion that their heritage was obliterated through slavery, and so there's been a struggle to reconnect with that origin.

Now,  I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense, since we're all actually from Africa, and after some time has passed we pretty much just adopt the customs whatever society we live in has. But then again, not all people came to the US (and other western nations) as slaves. A self-described "Irish-American", meaning Irish by lineage yet born and raised in the US, likely has family that came here by choice, not by force. So it's a curious situation where one has to have some understanding for the sentiments of this group of people.

With so many inconsistencies in language I don't really find this usage all that problematic to be honest.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Sun14 said:


> How about using black without being considered uneducated or impolite? By asking this I mean I want to know whether it is fine and acceptable to refer to my colleague this way to my friend. My colleague is an American but she was born in Jamaica. She is dark-skinned. I can tell my friend that she is tall and elegant even meaning her nationality, but when I am going to describe her appearance like skin color, I am hesitate to use black, because I think my friend might consider I am not educated and racial discriminated to describe a person this way giving my friend  an impolite impression:
> 
> 1) "She is an American and She is an black woman."
> 
> 2) "She is an American and She is black."



And, Sun14, I think you might, if you wished to describe your friend in non-offensive terms, say "She's a tall, elegant Black American of Jamaican ancestry (descent/origin)."


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## Sun14

Thank you very much, Mat and ain.


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## tonyspeed

On a related note, Jamaicans born in Jamaica will usually still consider themselves Jamaican, not American. Even some first-generation people born in America of Jamaican descent will not consider themselves American. But this will vary from person to person. Jamaicans are generally quite nationalistic. I can say so, because I am one.

And in this case saying of Jamaican descent or ancestry is 100% incorrect because as someone born there she is a legal citizen of Jamaica by birth. Saying descent or ancestry requires her to be born in another country.


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## Copperknickers

MattiasNYC said:


> I think this _might_ have been a way to tie the lineage back to Africa for black Americans whose ancestors were brought here as slaves. It's not entirely uncommon to hear the opinion that their heritage was obliterated through slavery, and so there's been a struggle to reconnect with that origin.
> 
> Now,  I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense, since we're all actually from Africa, and after some time has passed we pretty much just adopt the customs whatever society we live in has. But then again, not all people came to the US (and other western nations) as slaves. A self-described "Irish-American", meaning Irish by lineage yet born and raised in the US, likely has family that came here by choice, not by force. So it's a curious situation where one has to have some understanding for the sentiments of this group of people.
> 
> With so many inconsistencies in language I don't really find this usage all that problematic to be honest.



(Ireland is a bad example, since Irish immigrants hardly went to the USA by choice: many if not most of them left during the potato famine, when over a million of their countrymen died, not to mention the sporadic uprisings, which prompted the British soldiers to burn whole villages to the ground on several occasions and publically execute dozens of people. But anyway, that's stretching the topic a little.)

The issue is that African Americans were viciously persecuted by white Americans, so that they were made to feel that they were not a part of American society but were a kind of subjugated foreign community living on American terrritory. 'African-American' is a way of reclaiming that persecution, not by trying to say that their 'American' identity is somehow diluted by their African origin, but rather by making it clear that what is commonly viewed as 'American' culture is actually the culture of European Americans, but true American culture is the plurality of European, African, and native American traditions existing alongside each other.

Besides, we are not 'all from Africa' in any meaningful sense. White Europeans have no connection to Africans other than the fact we are part of the same species. Black Americans look like Africans, and share the genetic characteristics of their West African cousins, as well as some of the cultural characteristics (a lot of the cultural characteristics if we go back 100 years or so). So 'African-American' is certainly an acceptable, indeed a laudable word to use to describe black people in America, unless you have reason to believe they are not of slave origin.


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