Who is the true African American?

My take has always been that if you are a citizen of this country, you are an American. Period. You can be proud of your heritage…by all means! But you are an American. All the labels we put on things does nothing but splinter our ability to get together. It’s the Star Bellied Sneeches all over again. So with your friend, if she is a naturalized citizen, then she is an American. If she never legally immigrated fully (and is only here on a school visa for example), then she is still an Egyptian. The gentleman to whom she was talking is an American. I guess the only time a label like “African American” would apply would if dual citizenship was in play. But then it wouldn’t be African American since Africa is a continent and not a country.

@seawulf575
She is a naturalized citizen of the US.
Or, as she will occasionally assert “I am legal. Are you?”

@josie You were wise to stay out of it.

@Rarebear

I agree. On the other hand, me being me, I like to imagine he was lucky I stayed out of it :).

There is no such thing as “true African American” because that’s a combination of words which each have several meanings and connotations together and separately, and which also involve charged and taboo issues such as race, nationality, slavery, discrimination, racism, equality, education, intelligence, language, political correctness, etc.

@Zaku
Then why is the term so broadly, and singularly, used without challenge?

@josie Word. I would have loved to have been a fly on that wall.

I can only conjecture, but what comes to my mind are:

* Because of the desire for a non-charged term for “descendants of the 10+ million people who survived of the 12+ million people shipped from Africa to the Americas as slaves, who ended up in the USA (which we simply call America even though it’s equally apathetically sloppy as the word African in the term), and who we treated as sub-humans until fairly recently, and in some cases still, and also all other people of even partial visible African decent who now call the USA home, because we want a way to refer to them that won’t get people upset even though we all know we mostly can’t stop lumping all people who look a certain way into one category even though that’s not really accurate.”

* Because most people mostly don’t want to be trying to dissect and deconstruct those topics, but we do want to be able to talk about people who look like they are probably at least partly of African descent (without calling them Black or terms with even more negative connotations or meanings).

* Because most people in the USA have heard the term “African American” before and will tend to hear the intent to refer to that term rather than the also-valid generic meaning of the two words together, which has almost no context for being used generally that way. Modern language use in the USA is also heavily oriented to the use of familiar phrases rather than building new sentences from particular words.

* With all the charge around the subjects in the first point, as well as the tension around political correctness, racial issues, and identity terms, people would tend to avoid making that technically valid distinction unless they didn’t understand the context, or they wanted to provoke a charged response.

Terms derive their meanings from common usage. Your black guest there is African-American. Your girlfriend is Egyptian-American (or Arab-American if she prefers). Sorry if that upsets her, but that’s what it is, no matter how she, a newcomer to this land, attempts to invalidate the identity of those who have been here for generations.

Doesn’t African American refer to Americans from sub-Saharran Africa? If this is true she as an Arab wouldn’t be considered African American (even though Egypt is in Africa).
Y’know, blacks vs Arabs?

@Darth_Algar
The guy she was talking to was born in LA. She was born in Africa.
@Sneki2
That may be true. Where is that distinction officially made? She would probably benefit from knowing.

Dunno, I just always had that feel that African-Americans was a name for blacks. I never heard anyone including Arabs under that term.
Try googling the phrase, some dictionaries will offer you info on origin and the first use of it.

@josie

Yes, I am aware of what continent Egypt is located on.

@Darth_Algar The other person started it by saying that condescending mansplaining remark to Josie’s girlfriend. I am willing to bet that if she were a man, there is no way that guy would have said that to her.

In his eyes Josie’s girlfriend had the unmitigated gall to defend herself with a condescension of her own. GASP!

Good for her.

Hey @josie Did she finish med school? If so, what is she doing now? Just professional interest.

@Rarebear

I had not realized that you were privy to the actual conversation.

Africa is a continent. America isn’t really a country. The “United States of America,” are a country. But it’s a large part of the continent of North America… (As we all know.)

So it’s all semantics.

My recollection of the term was that it came about as a PC accepted/preferred term for black people in America.

I like the way @seawulf575 articulated it. She is “American.”

I have a white friend who grew up in South Africa. No one would call him “African American” even though he is an American citizen who is from Africa. That’s because the term’s purpose is to be an alternate (read: PC) term specifically for black Americans. But I’ve noticed that “black” is being used more, and even “people of color” more generally. I hear “African American” less. Perhaps because people want to be referred to simply as “American” or perhaps because we don’t use this dual-demonym to refer to Americans of other descents as often (but terms like Asian American and Mexican American are still used).

I don’t care for these terms personally because they still support the idea that white people are the “default” and everyone else is different. An “African American” might be descended from 7 generations of Americans, so why should we refer to a place of origin that many generations removed when a white American from, say, Finland who just became a citizen will not be called a “Finnish American”? Even worse is when a black British person is embarrassingly called an “African American”...

The fat woman who owned Tom & was scared of Jerry

This is exactly why African American is not a good substitute for black, negro, and then we can quickly descend into derogatory words if I keep going with synonyms.

I can guess what was probably the logic behind deciding African American should be the new term for black people. We usually refer to people by their country of origin in America, but actually, that’s not wholly true. I do find among many black people who have been in America for generations that they want to know more about where their families came from and have some resentment that they don’t know the history, traditions, even language in some cases. I always point out a lot of Americans, white Americans, don’t know those things.

I might have told you about my neighbor who applied for a new public magnet school in our county for her son. The school set aside space for minorities—a quota. She checked the box African American. She was white, blonde, basically looked like a Barbie doll. Her son was just as white, and fair haired. She came to America at 16 from her South Africa. In the end she put her son in a private school, so who knows what would have happened if the school would have selected him and saw how white he was.

In America we say Asian, and only mean people from east Asia. Why is that ok? I think we basically went backwards on that. Asian is being used as a race basically, the Asian race, but now we can’t use black or negro for black race. Oh, ok, that makes sense. Years ago I always used Asian to mean from the continent of Asia.

The black personal being incensed shows a lack of a sense of humor. I mean really come on. All of these descriptors are imperfect and getting ridiculous at this point. The only latitude I give is black people who have families that have been here for generations have a different history than other immigrants, and so the psychology is different for many of them. They are more defensive, but it’s understandable to some extent. I know a lot of African Americans who were very pissed when people would call the gay marriage fight a civil rights fight. Black people felt civil rights was a term for them. Some of them anyway. I was fairly annoyed they were pissed off.

My final answer is your girlfriend is African American regarding the continent she is from, but not by the definition of race. Is she white? Then I’d say she is white. On our census African American is listed under race. For instance my husband is Hispanic on the census, which is not listed as a race. He is white race and Hispanic. His “white” comes from the Middle East and othe meditarranean countries.

In my book, if someone or their heritage leads back to the continent, they can claim to be African American. It can get as specific as they like after that.

This was an attempt at making someone their bitch. It was an attempt at exclusivity. Fuck him. She had every right to tear that jerk a new asshole—not because of his claim, but because he was trying the bitch test on her.

Let’s reverse the roles.

Imagine he had said he was the only true American of the two of them. It’s a pretty lame card to pull out. She did the same and basically questioned his heritage and identity.

More specifically he was probably arguing that she had no idea what it’s like living as a black person in the US. She probably has a pretty good idea, it’s not like most of the US is throwing parades for people from the middle east.

He was inexact and she used that. She’s obviously quick, but at that point you’re essentially two kids arguing whose daddy could beat up the other. Each missing the point the other is trying to make.

So they found something to divide people who probably do share a lot of experience even further. Great.

@Darth_Algar No, I just know how to read.

@Rarebear

And nothing in the original post gave any indication of what you claimed (indeed it gave no indication of anything substantial about the conversation). That’s you injecting your own assumptions.

I just reread the details and I think your girlfriend was wrong to say she is the only true African American present. Why does she say that?! Because she is an immigrant? Sorry no. Fifth generation Italian Americans still get to say they are Italian American. Maybe she doesn’t understand that about America?

I didn’t absorb in my first read that she is a dark skinned Arab. I don’t know what that means exactly. Dark like my husband? Or, dark like how I think of Ethiopians? I’m assuming like my husband, with olive skin and black wavy hair/curly hair. If it’s like my husband, then regarding her not knowing what it’s like being an African America, probably she doesn’t know exactly, but she certainly is a minority, and there is enough anti-Muslim anti-Arab talk and violence in the US that she certainly knows a little about what it is like to be a minority, even if she is a Christian it wouldn’t matter.

Some black people tell me I don’t know what it’s like to be black, and I remind them my people went to the ovens. I know what it’s like to have a history of people hating, enslaving, and killing my people. To feel vulnerable in our places of worship, and to have negative stereotypes about my people. Still, I realize I am white in America, and that makes it different, but I think my empathy level is pretty good.

Thanks all
These are good answers

I think it’s a ridiculous argument What she is really arguing is that the other guy can’t claim to be African any more since he is several generations in. She is recently African born, and recently American, so she sees herself as both.
The other person knows his ancestors were from Africa, so he considers himself African from African descent but American born. In my opinion both are right and both are wrong.
For race. Both are African. For nationality, both are American. He is born in America, and she has changed her nationality to American. So there is no, I’m more African American than you are . Though if I had to chose. I would choose him. Why? Because he will always be the descendant of Africans as is she, and he was always American at the same time. She’s a newly minted American. He started as both.
Now, she could argue that she is more African because she grew up in that culture as well. Where his culture is probably grounded a great deal in American culture.

@Pandora “Now, she could argue that she is more African because she grew up in that culture as well.”

Eh, Egypt may be on the African continent, but it’s culture is hardly similar to most of Africa.

True, but most culture in Africa is quite different from each other. They do have a lot of similar dishes In my husbands family they are from several different countries in Africa but they all eat just about the same thing in Northern Africa. Of course religion can also differ. Like there are some that won’t eat pork. But who are very familiar with a lot of their fish meals.
We also had a friend who was from the Southern End of Africa who didn’t bury his mom for a couple of weeks until the whole family could be united. He said that is a tradition in his country for people of noble descent. My point is Africa is a continent. Not a country. So she does have more similarities with other African nations than someone born here and couldn’t tell you what Yassa, orTabbouleh was to save their life. Bet she would know that much. Both are very yummy by the way.

By that logic someone from Reykjavik has a lot in common with someone from Baltimore.

Just using food as an example. Very few African Americans bother to learn anything about where they came from. Though to be honest. Most won’t know what country they actually came from to begin with unless their ancestors didn’t come on a slave ship. They are more American in culture than anything. She is recently here. So it’s not like she has forgotten her culture completely and adopted the American culture completely.
Even studying about a culture can be incorrect. When I went to Japan, the military had a class about the do’s and don’ts. As I got to know the people in Japan, I found that have of the do’s and don’ts were incorrect. Some, mainly because they were outdated. My sister-in-law who is Japanese, never laughed so hard when I told her about some of them.

But Egypt is more of an Arabic culture. Not really all that like most of the rest of the African continent.

But anyway, as I said earlier: terms derive their meaning from common usage. Pretty much no one would an Egyptian woman “African-American”. And pretty much everyone understands what “African-American” refers to, regardless of whether the person is many generations removed from Africa.

Sorta like how technically I could, I suppose, call myself “Hispanic”. I do, afterall, have Spanish ancestry, and “Hispanic” does, pedantically, refer to the people of Hispania (modern day Spain and Portugal). But in modern common usage few Hispanics are as pasty, light-haired, blue-eyed or culturally Anglo as my lily-white ass.