Anyone who’s read my blog for a while (or the About page) knows I loathe the term “African American.” It’s not a proper way to describe black Americans. I think it’s inaccurate, insulting, and a poor attempt to connect with a lost past. (Also see a post titled, “African-American Canadians.”)
Let me tell you how much I dislike the term. I’m so pleased when white people call me black (when the racial reference fits the context) instead of African American, I have to suppress the urge to give them a big old fat kiss on the cheek.
A Facebooker sent me a link to a post at The Root titled, “Hold the Hyphen: Why African-American does not apply to me.”
Somehow I doubt Jennifer Mabry and I see eye-to-eye on much else, but we are one when it comes to the hyphen:
“I’m brown, thank you. But I’ll settle for black. It’s more than semantics. It’s semasiology. Once upon a time, we were niggers, coloreds, Negroes and then Afro-Americans. And so I understand the need for some blacks to refer to themselves as African-American, sort of. They want to feel connected to a population reflected in their own faces.
…
“I am constantly searching for answers as to how my café-au-lait self fits into an overwhelmingly white world. But the use of the word African conjoined with American leaves me empty. There are 54 countries in Africa. Which one would be mine?
“I have a friend whose father is Nigerian and mother is black American, which makes her literally African-American. But she refers to herself as black.
“I’m American. Period. I’ve never been to Africa. I hope to visit one day, but I also want to visit Europe. Not because I have the blood of English, Irish and Scots running through my veins, but because I’m interested in traveling to new places, seeing and experiencing new cultures and people.”
Some black Americans have a ridiculously romanticized view of the African continent. (Blame it on the movies.) Mabry addresses that, too. Check it out.
It’s so darn refreshing to know other black people agree with me on this African American nonsense. Few and far between, though…
