So to get this topic back on course.

I've already answered the topic but to be more detailed, I'm still not picky on black versus African American or even African diasporic if we're going beyond "race."

On a different note that relates more directly to what macallan, DSTRen and I were typing about in the last few pages (and to what folks said before that):

Instead of just focusing on the terms (black versus African American, etc.), people should examine what being of a particular group implies or entails.

These are the negatives of the title "black" because they have been used to caricature and minimize a culture and contribution of a group of people.

Not as ridiculous as you as you insult, for no reason so ever but to insult.


I only posted to this topic because I just joined yesterday and I have not time to move around and check out other topics.

Why am I hear?
Answer: because I chose to be :p

.................

Why, because you said so?


You just told me that their is a before and after, if that really applies, that means it would be legitimate to conclude that the terms black versus African American etc. should also apply.

If not, your beginning and between rant was just rubbish, something for you to use in an effort to save face.

As well as where those implications come from - who creates and maintains them in our culture - and how to begin to dismantle them.

I agree because focusing just on the labels ignores the social dynamics behind them. Of course, "blacks" view being called "colored" as more derogatory than "black" but it isn't just about the way it sounds, it's about the treatment of "coloreds."

This reminds me of the film "Black Is/Black Ain't." http://www.itvs.org/external/BIBA/index.html

Reading through this thread actually got me thinking about a conversation I had with a friend a couple of weeks ago. He had asked me if I preferred being called black, African American, or African, since I was born in Nigeria and both of my parents are Nigerian. He stated that he wanted to know my opinion because his girlfriend is Ghanian and she got very upset when someone had called her African American and she demanded to be called African instead because that's where she came from.

Now I personally don't care what I am referred to as simply because I know who I am inside and where I came from. Because I have grown up in the US and do not have an accent, many people assume that I was born here so it would not cross their mind that I would be African. When it comes up in conversation, I will tell people about my background, but I don't feel it necessary to explain it to everyone all the time.

Basically to sum it up, what are your thoughts on this?

I found the Blackness Auction text I mentioned earlier, if anyone is interested who hasn't seen it before: http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=1821&page=1#2739

Given this day and age, you are so fortunate to decide your sense of self and define your own self identifying parameters/boundaries.

But remember the many who died that allowed "soceity" to choose to call you as what YOU define yourself as.

Moreover, you all are from COUNTRIES that have some level of "freedom" and "governments" for their people. Essentially, out the guises (and disguises) of utter enslavement from foreigners.

Although, if you ask me, folks from those countries have yet to atone for the millions they allowed to be sent to the bellies of slave ships. Let's be honest. A lot of us who actually choose to African in Amerikkklan, hurt deeply because of this fact. That's why some never participate with various festivals for Africans.

But those are my thoughts and opinions and folks can choose to disagree with me.

You have issues.

Please, don't be vague, tell me what my issues are? :rolleyes:

I think it does matter in the grand scheme of things what people of African descent in the USA define themselves as. I think alot of the social problems facing our people today comes from this perpetual identity crisis... we can still feel the affects of slavery today, in our everyday lives, because we can not define who WE are!

You can't have a future with out a past...and so much of OUR history is unknown to us, so where do we go from here?

You as a black person of African decent, how do you define yourself?

Or shall I ask, with all that you know about who you are and where your roots mostly stem from, how do you define yourself?


Or, are you, or are you not a mjority of African blood? Or do you not really know?

I define my self as African, but I will accept African American as a defintion to describe who I am. I know for sure that the majority of my blood work is a drect Kin to Africa and Africans but I was born and raised in America.

I disagree with your tactics, but you are asking some poignant questions, something I had neglected to think about and I had forgotten.

In my opinion, for us, we are defined by our actions and educational accomplishments. With good works and higher advanced degrees sometimes those things will yield a small and minor self-definition. It is constant work because it is self-evolving.

Now, that won't stop ignant blonded weave wearing fat "gwirlfriend" up in the broke down with Black biracial badass "Bebe's Kids" working temporarily at Walmart who will still ask a "powerhouse sista" for her i-d-e-n-t-i-f-c-a-t-i-o-n on her $50,000 credit limited debit VISA card...

So, you have to take those things in stride, keep breathing...

Since you apparently know that the majority of your "blood" is predominantly African, I ask HOW do you know that. I ask this because A LOT of African-Americans seem to "know" that they are predominantly of African descent, and in fact that may not be the case. I think back to the PBS special that ran February 2006 where Henry Louis Gates Jr. did a DNA/bloodline trace of some African-American celebrities (Oprah, Chris Tucker, Quincy Jones, Whoopi Goldberg, and so forth) and while some of them did have a DNA connection to some peoples of Africa, others like Quincy Jones and Whoopi Goldberg (YES Whoopi!) did not have a predominant "African" Heritage as read through their DNA.