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It is in fact "Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month" in the US right now. So go ahead and celebrate with some dumplings and a side of poi?

African as a label becomes even stranger when mixed with American. African-American is usually used as a synonym for Black American, despite not all Africans being Black. An Egyptian-American likely would not be called African-American.

We use words weirdly!

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It’s worse than that. I’ve heard black Africans living in Africa, who have never been to any country in the Americas, referred to as “African American” by people who think—well, who knows what they think? Americans are insane when it comes to “race”.

At some point in time, some portion of popular culture deemed “black” as a descriptor of people with certain skin tones and cultural background in the US was derogative and pushed for switching to “African American”, even though it can cause confusion.

Weirdly for sure - referring to Charlize Theron as "African-American" always sound odd, even if it is technically correct

I’d love to annoy or perplex people by doing this. Unfortunately, her name never seems to come up in conversation.

There’s always Elon Musk, noted African-American businessman.

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