"African-American" vs. "black" at the Olympics

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

The same thing happened when Nelson Mandela was being released from prison, and someone on TV or in the press (I forget which) referred to him as an "African-American."

Gerlad Cohen
> ----------
> From:         American Dialect Society on behalf of David Bergdahl
> Sent:         Tuesday, March 7, 2006 8:41 PM
>
> Last fall some of my students referred to the blacks in Conrad's "Heart of Darkenss" as African-Americans--I think they assumed that Af-Am is the
> polite form of "black" and the nationality issue never occured to them--these same students constantly referred to "British imperialism" despite the fact that the novella is set in the Congo--ruled by Belgium at the time.  I think something similar is going on with the sports-writer.
>
<snip>

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