Plenty of other everyday words and phrases have had their racist origins obscured by time. These terms may upset some readers. The good news? The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police has raised our national consciousness about the racist systems that our country was built upon. As people march and protest across the country, including in Philadelphia, racism in all forms, including language, is the subject of a long-overdue conversation.
This list is far from comprehensive, but will hopefully serve as a starting point for you to examine your own language. Seems like no term or terms will be agreeable to everybody. ALL of these terms are! Anyone born in the United States is an American, regardless of where their parents or ancestors came from.
It should be a personal choice as much as your gender specific nouns and pronouns. There are black people in other countries who have African origins and whose families have never been anywhere near the Americas. If the listener is offended by words spoken with no intent to offend — who is in the wrong? Could the listener ever get over their feelings of being offended by a word and try to hear the overall message being put forward?
Go have a listen. Feel offended maybe even on behalf of someone not you , or hear the overall message and love the song, the message, and the great positive effect it had on racial viewpoints of millions of people. First off, we are not African American. How can we be called two different continents. The Most High chosen Nation. So, if you wanna keep calling yourself two different continents, have at it!!
Black is the color in a crayon box. Not our identity. Speaking as an Australian, I am still confused. Unless I know a black citizen of the US has ancestry other than African, I am afraid I am going to offend, one way or another.
Any feedback would be appreciated. Feel free to contact me. Shoranda Odette Thank you for your honest input to what would be deemed as an awkward subject in these current times. Its refreshing to read what you have posted and what pretty much backs up what most civilised people feel on the subject about people who have dark skin colour. However Its an absolute crying shame that there are groups i. It was in the past, its history, it was deplorable and must never happen ever again. So what the hell is preventing us to put everything behind and come together as one race to live alongside each other in harmony?
Here in the UK its gone absolutely nuts! The knock on effect is that it is actually increasing racial tension! I am now 65 I have friends like me who have a similar mentality and share the same outlook as you Shoranda, pity we live so far apart! This has been an issue for me since I was a teenager.
My skin color is brown. All people are earth tone in color. Some colors are simply lighter than others. But they are all some form of Brown. I was born here in the USA, so were my parents, grandparents and great grandparents. My children and grandchildren were born here in the USA. We are simply Americans. My two daughters do not have the same skin tone. One is much lighter than the other. They have the same mother and father. My daughters each have two children.
Both of their first born is much darker than their younger sibling. My husband and I are not the same skin color. He is much lighter than I am. But we see each other as just brown skinned people who were born in America. It is my hope that my grandchildren and great grandchildren generations will see only brown skinned Americans, whether dark brown or light brown. What a great America that will be! There is no such being born on the face of this earth as ever having black skin, so therefore it is incorrect that people from African descent should be able to hijack this word and use it for an identity.
Afro-American, Afro-British, Afro-German and so on should be used for coloured people that want a true positive identity. African people had traveled the entire globe. Please note, all life began in Africa, over time people migrated to different locations and settled. I could go through the whole text and highlight more discrepancies but that would be unproductive. Or, are you intentionally misleading people? The very fact that the majority of the individuals commenting on this post are taking about colors as if so the people of the Earth are muppets is belittling.
As far as large amounts of people being brought here from so called Africa those human beings that are claiming to have pulled off such a arduous task did not have the vessels or knowledge to do so. Just an idea.
How long will this continue I wonder. Not until Humans realize we are Humans and stop categorizing each other. Not until all Humans begin to live their lives and work toward the common good of all Humans. Africa is a continent…not a country. When Black people in America recently called Africans, they totally lost their nationality.
Most Black Americans did not arrive in America on slave ships. Its funny that nearly 97 percent of Black Americans know which Indian tribe they are from, but have little knowledge of which country they from in Africa. I, too, hate the title African American…. Black people are indigenous to the globe not just Africa. Blacks were already in this country before Columbus.
We are trying to end racism against people according to the color of their skin, yet we continue to describe ourselves solely by the color of our skin?? This article is taking on even more significance in Though racism exists against many different groups of people around the world, the kind of racism that we are seeking to extinguish here in America is racism against people based solely on the COLOR of their dark skin.
The change which we are seeking is going to require a change in vocabulary. The quote from Melody Mcloud basically said it. An American with darker skin. We are trying to conquer this ill treatment of people based on the color of their skin yet we still continue to use the color of our skin as way to describe ourselves.
Therefore, I suggest we put our money where our mouth is and stop using color to describe ourselves. I am a male. I am an American who has fair skin. Pushing this even further, what if we created two completely different names in order to differentiate ourselves.
If we look to the Native Americans we could borrow their words Emo for dark skinned people and Evo for light skinned people. Looking forward to even more meaningful conversations….. John A. What do recent non citizen arrivals to America from Africa call themselves when they arrive and what do they call themselves after they become U. It is crazy, we are today in the same situation decades later. Having to say you are a black American or African is already segregate yourself from other people and distinct yourself from other group and certainly, you must be prepared to receive a different treatment.
It kills me when people say that ALL people are from Africa. How do you know that? No one truly knows how long people have been on earth. According to some scientists, all the continents where connected at one point in time.
If this is true, then we are all from the same place, lineage wise. This is how governments control people. Divide and conquer. Wake up and love everybody. Bless you all. By Our Own Hands Inc. The concepts of race and culture have become so distorted it is difficult to have a meaningful discussion where both parties agree. I had been doing race relations seminars as an additional duty and this really irritated me so I went to the post EEOC office, told the person I wanted to leave the military with some kind of racial or ethnic appreciation of who I really was, and we sat down with another book.
Those high cheekbones? Share Tweet Email. Americans may unwittingly evoke racism when they use phrases like "sold down the river" for exaggeration, a UC Santa Barbara linguistics expert said.
Share: Share Tweet Email. The words and phrases permeate nearly every aspect of our society. The idiom "sold down the river" in our everyday speech. Asia is not a nation. If we were born in America, call us all American. If we were born abroad and nationalized here call us the fusion of both i. Cuban-American or Nigerian-American. People are afraid of black, black offends them. Deal with me being accepted as a black and strong as I stand infront of you.
How much easier would the world be is we simply called each other by the names given to us by our parents? Call me Curt.
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