It's Time to Let Go of 'African American'
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The most formative years of my life were spent in the Caribbean. I was essentially raised and mentored by two different black men (I'm white trailer park trash originally from Alabama). And both of those men both took great offense to being called African American. The same went for many of the people I knew down there. However, I've rarely heard actual mainlanders take offense to the term.
I've always thought that a person born in the US was simply an American. Not an Irish American or an African American or Scottish American, etc. If you're born in the US, you're simply an American. I've never understood the desire to want to differentiate one's self like that.
Perhaps I feel that way because my own father left when I was a toddler and I never had any kind of strong family connection or culture taught to me by anyone else in my family. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had a strong family unit that shared a common culture or something like that. But I still think terms like that are divisive.
But I talk about it the same way any reasonably educated person talks about it.
I know racism and discrimination are alive and well here in the US and elsewhere. I have witnessed it myself many times. My mother was a career long LEO in the south. While I was growing up, I heard her and her fellow LEOs discussing how they would treat black people differently numerous times.
The first time I flew home to the states after six years, I brought my black girlfriend with me. Together, she and I saw/heard things that I still think about to this day.
I wore a tool belt and was a blue collar guy for the first ~20 years of my career. I heard racist stuff and saw discrimination pretty much every day of my career.
I'm not sure what part of my original comment would make you feel like making your comment, but I'm sorry I couldn't offend you further.
Wow, you really are trash.
I hope they aren't the uppity kind who won't listen to reason.
Despite all the secular garb and atheist aesthetic, religious proselytization and vicious inquisitions against heretics or non-believers are still very much alive and well today. There's a very long and unbroken history of it, and no - just like the creationists and their "proofs via banana," [0] they do not listen to reason.
Many words weren't popular until they were. So what?
I also don't get this: “Whenever I go to Africa, I feel like a person with a legitimate place to stand on this earth. This is the name for all the feelings I’ve had all these years.”
And the "return to africa" thingy (or the new return to europe thingy). Africa is a big ass continent and there is really no cultural homogeneity. They never ever stepped foot on african, italian or german soil before. You're all american, period. This feels like self-segregating. A culture isn't something you can just consume or put on yourself.
PS: I'm very understanding of the issue that you want to cling to some roots. But I don't like that it's becoming a "I vs them" thing and that it gets consumed and is used for projection.
When they get home they immediately resume their LARP and say they felt "right at home" lmao
My "greek" side of my (american) family goes to Greece 2x a year for weeks, speaks greek at home, primarily eat a mediteranean diet etc. When I think of them, I think of "my greek family", and it certainly isn't some vanity thing.
This only makes sense if you think heritage is like a dusting of snow that melts when one comes in from the cold, but these people carried their heritage with them. Maybe "Italian" isn't quite the right word, anymore, but that doesn't mean they've been planed flat by the Lathe of Heaven.
Consider that your POV might not be objective fact.
Edit: As one counterpoint fact, in my city there are 2nd-generation Italian-Americans who speak English with an accent. Born in American hospitals, raised in our public schools, and don't have the local American accent. "There's nothing Italian about them" is overreaching.
Were I white, the first question would be unlikely to be asked in the first place, its answer automatically accepted, and if the enquirer had poor language skills, it would immediately be qualified with "I meant, What's your heritage" or "Where is your family from."
There may be self segregation but some are doing the segregation for us.
I'll never understand why there's so much distinction between black and white (literally) culturally in the US. I always find it weird when people comment things like "white people do this" and "black people stuff". I get the overall differences in lifestyle and (sub-) culture, but that people feel like they need to differentiate is wild after all these years. I mean, sure, complex story and stuff, but still.
The US has a pretty unpleasant history of doing especially terrible things to minorities who start to succeed, and continues to do bad things to minorities in both subtle and unsubtle ways. The concept of Asians as the "model minority" is actually a way of pitting minorities against each other rather than being a compliment (e.g. your brother is such a good person, why aren't you?).
Italians from 2025 have as little to do with their Italian great grandparents from 1800 as Italians Americans with the same great grandparents. Clothes, habits, values, food, you name it.
>I'm very understanding of the issue that you want to cling to some roots.
Thank you for understanding but it is not clinging to roots, it is about recongizing existing roots. Humans do weird stuff all the time, many times that weird stuff can be understood by looking at who raise you, and who raised them, and so on.
>But this heritage is so far gone that it really doesn't matter anymore.
Kindly, that is not for you to say.
>But I don't like that it's becoming a "I vs them"
This saddens me too.
They are italians though because ... they live in italy and they are proper italians. Modern italian americans are american descendants of emigrants. It's pretty funny that I get pushback for the italian american part and none for the african american, which I'd expect tbh. You can't just say "oh italian culture changed as well".
Just because your grandparents came from italy doesn't make you italian. There's so much mixing going on and all, but you can't just claim a label like that. It's a new culture and I'm saying that by clinging to the root and trying to define yourself that way is not really accurate. I dislike the "my family has italian roots so I can claim that I'm italian" thing.
PS: the best meatballs and pasta I've ever had was in Phoenix. I don't think this is a dish you get in italy. Pretty funny how that works.
The unification of Italy happened in the 1860s, the concept of "proper italian" is quite new, as well the concept of a single language for the Italian land.
> Just because your grandparents came from italy doesn't make you italian.
Italian consitution says otherwise.
> the best meatballs and pasta I've ever had was in Phoenix
The inclusion of tomatoes in italian cuisine is quite recent, many italians emigrated to americas before mainland italians adopted tomatoes.
> I dislike the "my family has italian roots so I can claim that I'm italian" thing.
You dislike it, and you wish to spend your precious time focused on what you dislike and trying to convince other people to dislike it.
A word can have two components separated by a space. A camel spider is neither a spider nor a camel. Combined, those two words create a new word with its own particular meaning that is useful.
Much of that community uses "black" to refer to their culture; it seems to me to be more popular by far than AA. But if one doesn't have the freedom to even name one's people ("You folk are "Indians". Now gather up yer things; we're walking you down to Florida.")...
Radical proposal: If a person or group of people you call "X" say they prefer to be called "Y", why is your opinion even relevant?
Also, what about the black people who don't have an opinion of or attachment with Africa? This treats a group as unified hivemind bloc and assigns a label on them without asking for their individual consent.
> This treats a group as unified hivemind bloc and assigns a label on them without asking for their individual consent.
No more than saying black people.