That is what is offensive. Not one of these ladies were from Africa. How about 3 American women.
shareI agree with you. If you are a born in America, you can't be called African because you are not. This expression African - American is really offensive to people who were born in the USA.
shareOffensive? Surely you jest.
share[deleted]
It depends on how you think about it. The convention was an attempt to suppress pejorative terms. It was expanded to cover almost every ethnic ancestry. But it doesn't always work.
It has, in my view, led to more divisions among people than not.
My grandparents were from Italy. They worked hard to become American citizens. If you had called them Italian-Americans you would have gotten a fist in your nose. They were Americans. They came from Italy. They practiced many Italian customs. They were proud of their heritage, but they were Americans first.
There is no good answer to the problem of people using words to hurt other people. Any term developed to get away from a pejorative term often becomes pejorative in time.
My grandparents were from Italy. They worked hard to become American citizens. If you had called them Italian-Americans you would have gotten a fist in your nose.
I feel like African-American doesn't really mean its literal meaning, and people just use it as a synonym for "black person".
Would you call Charlize Theron African-American?
By rights she is more African than most African Americans who have never even been to Africa let alone born there. Not to mention AA's are so far removed from African culture now that if they were to go there they would be looked upon as outsiders by actual Africans.
shareI am sick of how everyone seems to have to have a prefix now in front of where they are actually living and in many cases were born. It seems to be about divisiveness as per usual.
And you can bet your life if a White South African moved to the USA and called themselves African American there would be hell to pay. Never mind that they were actually born in Africa.