Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote:
> If anybody should be considered African-American, it would be him. I 
> hate the term, because it makes no sense in it's current usage. It used 
> to be you could call people black, or white ...Now it's politcally 
> "incorrect" so, we come up with BS terms like this ... Africa is a huge 
> continent, some people are black, some white, some other skintones.

  The term has always bothered me as well. Especially since it's used
for *all* black people, even those who have never even been in the
American continent. How does that make any sense?

  Even more jarring is that it's also used for dark-skinned people who
are neither African nor American. (Many people in the Pacific islands or
south Asia, for example, could very well pass for Africans, even though
they aren't.)

  I agree with the student in the original story: If he was born in Africa
and is currently living in America, isn't he by definition an African-
American? Why would skin pigmentation have any effect on this?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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