Warp wrote:
>   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?

	Eh? Not over here. I occasionally hear someone claiming someone else is
an African American, when he's purely African. I correct, and no one
thinks my correction to be strange.

>   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 personally have never heard someone from South Asia be called
African, unless it is purely by mistake. Nor have the complained to me
about it. Officially, people from South Asia are classified as Asians in
this country, regardless of skin color.

>   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?

	The usual classification is regarding race - not ethnicity. He's not
racially African. I'll agree that the word can be confusing, but I can
understand that if the white people are considered Caucasian (which I
believe is the official designation in the US) - named after the
Caucasus, I can understand black people wanted to be categorized as
African (I wouldn't add the American to the end, but it's a minor
difference). Don't know the history, but perhaps they wanted not to be
called Negro, and it wasn't about not being called black. Dunno, really.

	I can see both points of view. However, both "sides" seem to be
inconsistent. If using African for race is bad, drop Asian, Caucasian,
etc. After all, there are people who lived for generations in the
Caucasus but wouldn't be considered Caucasian, and similar confusion
would ensue.

-- 
Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming
only things that are good for you.


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