MEANING OF AFRICAN AMERICAN
MR MR CRAIG
United States what would I be classified there?
Would I be classed as an Afican American according to the "African American"
community, or will I have to renounce my African cultural identity and
simply accept being a White American?
Any opinion on the subject would be most welcome.
Mike
The Wise Man from the East
I dunno `bout ya, but most white South Afrikans I know who came to stay here
would appropriately be described as AfriKKKan ASSmeriKKKan....
kauta.
--
God made *me* in his image...(Gen. 1:26)
Leon Myburgh
g88c...@giraffe.ru.ac.za (MR MR CRAIG) writes:
>I am a 5th generation White South African. What if I were to emigrate to the
>United States what would I be classified there?
>Would I be classed as an Afican American according to the "African American"
>community, or will I have to renounce my African cultural identity and
>simply accept being a White American?
Please tell me what African identity you have. Being African has little to do
with
where you live or grew up. It's how you lived when you were in Africa. Do you
do like the Africans, Mike? Not saying that 'cos you white you're not African.
>Any opinion on the subject would be most welcome.
Well that's mine.
BTW, I'm an Xth generation Black almost South African.
Leon Myburgh
Unknown
What difference does it make?
Classifications are used to divide people. If you are an American citizen,
you should simply be an AMERICAN. I, still, fail to understand why most of
the minority groups in this country must be labeled under the >country of
ethnic origin-American< format, while whites are rarely (if ever) refered
to as Euro-Americans.
Comments??
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Disclaimer: I speak for Ambrose _NOT_ Apple !!!!
James Martin
>>I am a 5th generation White South African. What if I were to emigrate to the
>>United States what would I be classified there?
>>Would I be classed as an Afican American according to the "African American"
>>community, or will I have to renounce my African cultural identity and
>>simply accept being a White American?
(Leon Myburgh) writes:
>
>Please tell me what African identity you have. Being African has little to do
>with
>where you live or grew up. It's how you lived when you were in Africa. Do you
>do like the Africans, Mike?
..this is a misleading question. How do Africans live? You might as well ask,
"how do humans live?" To which the response would be, "which humans?"
So I ask you, which Africans? For example, are the Massai people the
only legitimate Africans, and not the people living in Freetown? Their life-
styles are vastly different. Freetown is a major port city in Sierra Leone,
with skyscrapers and cars and all manner of things not seen in the plains.
Are you prepared to say that Africans not living the traditional lifestyle
in Africa are not legitimate Africans? What is this mysterious "African way?"
-jm
Arthur R. McGee
question:
Of which culture/nationality are white or caucasian South Africans originally
descended from?
If you said Dutch, then you win a prize. :-)
By the way, this little exercise was not meant to offend, only to reveal the
truth. You see, it is not so much a matter of what you would "officially" be
classified as, but what you would legitimately be considered to be.
Peace.
Art
MR MR CRAIG (g88c...@giraffe.ru.ac.za) wrote:
: I am a 5th generation White South African. What if I were to emigrate to the
:
Leisa Diel
Africa because the country has hideous policies is wrong. It's
prejudice. You don't know whether this fellow is one of the MANY
white South Africans who are working with the black South Africans to
affect social change. It was seen that the question came from a South
African and conclusions were drawn based on that fact.
If you don't know a man, don't judge him by the color of his skin or
the country he came from. Isn't that what we're trying for?
I think someone owes this fellow an apology. The KKK references were
outta line.
Peace, love and the ultimate goal of understanding....
L
--
I believe every human being is born with a certain number of
heartbeats, and I don't intend to waste any of mine running around
doing exercises. -Niel Armstrong
ld...@dante.nmsu.edu
wan...@ngari.mfg.sgi.com
(Andrew Fano) writes:
-stuff cut-
|>
|> OK, consider then, a Black African family with an adopted white son
|> who is
|> raised in a black african culture. This family then emigrates to the
|> U.S.
|> Note that this white son will have a much stronger grounding in
|> african
|> culture than most African Americans. Now, is this white person an
|> African-American?
I neither have answers to the questions you raise nor do I find them
that compelling. But let's see whether this will astound you!! I don't
consider the Arabs in the Northern parts of Africa as Africans in the
sense I consider, say, a Nigerian, to be an African. Indeed, in more
than one way, I consider African-Americans (at least those who have no
problem identifying with Africa) to be more Africans than the Arabs. The
Arabs have their hearts in middle east!!
Waiting to catch some flame from circles I won't name!!
Wanjohi Kahenya
Aaron C Laramore
From my perspective as an African American, you would be a white american.
You are not descended of people native to Africa, in my way of thinking, so I
would not consider you a native african, your 5 generations notwithstanding. I
would consider you to be a citizen of a nation on the African continent.
Furthermore, being of African descent is not only just a matter of the color of
our skin and the cultural heritage we evidence in our lives, but it is also an
experience of oppression and conflict with white people that is global in scope
and has been with us for literally hundreds of years. Your ancestors have
experienced none of that. You cannot take part in any of that legacy or what it
means, nor do you bear any of its burden as those of us of African descent do.
You would come to America and be treated like a white american. No one would
ever call you nigger, or deny you a mortgage loan because you live in a black
neighborhood, or classify you as angry and paranoid. You would be a white
american, originally from South Africa(I'm assuming you are talking about being
an immigrant). At any rate, why ask a such a question. You know that its
really bit more complicated than an issue of nomenclature, this race thing.
Come on, you live in South Africa. Its about power, oppression,
self-determination and many other things, not about nomenclature.
Peace -Aaron
Ed Krauss
: From my perspective as an African American, you would be a white american.
: would not consider you a native african, your 5 generations notwithstanding. I
: would consider you to be a citizen of a nation on the African continent.
: Furthermore, being of African descent is not only just a matter of the color of
: our skin and the cultural heritage we evidence in our lives, but it is also an
: experience of oppression and conflict with white people that is global in scope
: and has been with us for literally hundreds of years. Your ancestors have
: experienced none of that. You cannot take part in any of that legacy or what it
: means, nor do you bear any of its burden as those of us of African descent do.
: You would come to America and be treated like a white american. No one would
: ever call you nigger, or deny you a mortgage loan because you live in a black
: neighborhood, or classify you as angry and paranoid. You would be a white
: american, originally from South Africa(I'm assuming you are talking about being
: an immigrant). At any rate, why ask a such a question. You know that its
: really bit more complicated than an issue of nomenclature, this race thing.
How does the classification system work for immigrants from some of the
North African countries like Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt?
May any of them be called African American? If not, is there a list
available of acceptable African countries and/or racial requirements?
--
Ed Krauss e...@netcom.com Berkeley, California
Aaron C Laramore
Ed, I think you are being purposefully obtuse here. As I just got finished
remarking to our South African poster, its much more complex than an issue of
nomenclature. Its about power, oppression, self-determination, heritage and
other issues a lot deeper than what we are called based on our location at some
given point in history. Its a serious topic, and triviliazing it by pressing an
illusory contradiction you think you see in the nomenclature game is a waste of
bandwidth. Being of African descent is as much an experience as it is about
genetic racial characteristics, in the same way one might think of the Jewish
heritage. I'm sure you understand its more complex than name games, so lets not
play those. Okay? Peace - Aaron
Ed Krauss
: Ed, I think you are being purposefully obtuse here. As I just got finished
I'm really not trying to trivialize, play games or point out a contradiction.
I am actually *sincerely* interested in the appropriateness or 'validity' of
a North African (e.g. Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Libyan, or Egyptian)
immigrant calling himself an African American. I don't see it as any less
serious a question as that of the original poster and hardly a waste of
bandwidth.
Aaron C Laramore
African American refers to an experience as much as it does to a the
phylogenetic representation of the people in question. To the extent that these
people share that experience and identify with that particular heritage and
legacy, then they could be African American. But as I said its very complex.
You want to reduce it to "well if I come from such and such, can't I call
myself so and so". Thats a semantic game, and yes, you can play that game and
get absurd results, and you would be quite right to question the validity of
the nomenclature if that was all that was involved. You are not looking behind
the terminology at all. You are approaching it as if all the term AFrican
American is about is a geophraphic point of origin. Thats not all there is to
it. And yes, I do think it is trivializing the issue if you insist on reducing
it to that and nothing more, when I think you are quite capable of
understanding that its not even close to being that simple. If it were, this
newsgroup would not even exist. Again, I say, lets not play name games. My
heritage as an AFrican American is a lot more complex than what I choose to
call myself, and if you want to examine that, you have to look behind the nomen
clature.
Peace - Aaron
Ed Krauss
There's nothing wrong with you attaching a personal meaning to the term,
and, entirely in your own opinion, have feelings about how others use it.
But is your meaning so much the accepted definition that a more literal
useage by someone else can be considered co-opting, i.e. is there more
than one acceptable definition or is that fraud?
Aaron C Laramore
AFrican American as a term indicates more than just geopraphic point of origin.
It means more than that to African Americans, it is composed of more than that.
We use the term to define ourselves, and we do precisely to prevent what you
appear to be trying to do: that is, control our definition of ourselves by
trying to add to it or take away from it. Hence this questioning and playing
with the nomenclature to see what else you can fit into the definition. To be
really frank, since its a term we use to describe ourselves, and was not
created for anyone's convenience but ours, it basically means whatever we say
it means. And the fact that we don't all agree about what it does mean is not
really relvant since the vast majority are fairly clear about what it does
mean, and most of us are really clear about what it does not mean and who it is
not even if we can't articulate to your satisfaction or anyone else's.
Its complex, its many things, this being African American, and not all of it is
articulatable unless you go and read our great writers and poets, and watch our
plays and see our dance and look at our art work and hear our classical
music(jazz) or our island rythyms(reggae) or our music of hard life and urban
protest(rap). Its only in our art that you can get some articulation of what
being a black american/african american means. Its the sum total of our
experience and heritage and lives, and its not static. Its changing, growing,
evolving with us. The name changes to reflect our growth within our ourselves
and our understanding of our blackness and our experience. You can't pin it
down to some nice dictionary, cookie cutter, all purpose formulaic definition
that makes us understandable, predictable, controllable, whatever. We're a damn
sight more complex than that. Its us, and we don't understand our identity in
some simplistic fashion. You certainly should not expect to either.
Peace - Aaron