The labels used to describe Americans of African descent mark the movement of a people from the slave house to the White House. Today, many are resisting this progression by holding on to a name from the past: "black."
For this group — some descended from U.S. slaves, some immigrants with a separate history — "African-American" is not the sign of progress hailed when the term was popularized in the late 1980s. Instead, it's a misleading connection to a distant culture
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6 comments:
i kind of agree. it would be like saying someone saying "i'm european american" or "i'm austrailian american"
I've been saying this since the '80s
Anon 11:37, AMEN!! I too have argued that point since the term was originated. A majority of black people (and their past relatives) have not even left the state they live in, let alone have been to Africa. My descendents are from Czechoslovakia (on my mother's side) and Scotland and Ireland (on my father's side), but I don't go around telling people that I am Czechoslovakian, Scottish, Irish-American. Come on. Lets use a little common sense here.
We were assigned that label by the good white people.
Many of the lighter skinned black people of America are the sons and daughters of White American Slave Owners.
Their Ancestor had 1/2 black blood and 1/2 white blood.
2;40PM,
You are so right. A good read is J. Edgar Hoover Passing For White. Millie McGhee, a black educator, researched her roots in Mississippi with the help of a geneaologist(sp) she had hired in Utah. It had long been rumored in the early years of the FBI that there were strong suspicions that Hoover had blacks in his bloodline. If you have the time, read his Psychological profile. He detested black men so strongly because of his heritage, due to his self-loathing of his heritage. Wicomico Library obtained the book for me from Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore.
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