Wikipedia Unsure Whether African-American Should Be A A, A-A, A-a

[Benjamin Barrett]

Through linguistic classes, I came under the impression that Afro- and
African-American came from the need to create a socially and
linguistically neutral term that eliminates reference to skin color.
With the strong ethnic and religious divisions in the United States,
there is surely a need for everyone to own such a term of
identification.

In some cases, such terms may be truly descriptive such as in
neighborhoods where immigration is recent (not the case Doug
discusses). In cases where the ties are weak, they may be more
symbolic, a source of pride or means of accessing group affiliation.

My own mother is a case that has somewhat puzzled me. Her seventh or
eighth grandparent immigrated from eastern France to Canada, a refugee
from religious persecution, and there is no cultural identification
with France (or the more recent Canada) in my family. In her forties
and fifties, she gradually began identifying strongly with the French
such as by taking language classes, adopting her grandmother's last
name and then pronouncing it in a French style, and visiting the
ancient family graveyard (now plowed under). I'm not sure if she uses
the word French-American, but her behavior was certainly consistent
with group affiliation.

AFAIK it was a way for her to have and express pride in her cultural
heritage. To us kids, it seemed strange to incorporate something so
distant at such a strong level of identification, and also to single
out the French connection when our other lines such as Dutch and
German are just as strong. BB

On Oct 20, 2008, at 9:55 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> Doug Harris writes:
>
> "... I am somewhat disturbed by the need of some people to identify
> themselves as, say, Irish-American, or Polish-American, when neither
> they
> nor their parents came from Ireland, or Poland ..."
>
> An excellent point, particularly in view of the fact that the average,
> so-called "_African_-American" has no need to identify himself in any
> way, given that the merest of glances is usually sufficient to
> identify such a person.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 9:42 PM, Doug_Harris <cats22 at stny.rr.com>
> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Doug_Harris <cats22 at STNY.RR.COM>
>> Subject:      Wikipedia Unsure Whether African-American Should Be A
>> A, A-A, A-a
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> In attempting to learn what the oft used but seldom explained term
>> 'robocall' means, I checked Wikipedia. In the article re robocalls,
>> my eye caught the term African-american. Thinking that odd, I Wiki'd
>> African-american, and was pointed to the article headed African-
>> American,
>> with both A's upper-cased.
>> Then I noticed something else curious: Throughout that article, there
>> was apparently indiscriminate switching back and forth from the
>> hyphenated
>> to the unhyphenated version.
>> But African-american, in the form, didn't appear in that article even
>> once -- unless I missed it.
>> Though it has nothing to do with me, and no one particularly cares
>> how I
>> feel about it, I've always found that term somewhat disturbing, in
>> the
>> same way I am somewhat disturbed by the need of some people to
>> identify
>> themselves as, say, Irish-American, or Polish-American, when
>> neither they
>> nor their parents came from Ireland, or Poland, or whatever.
>> Colin Powell, in his endorsement of BO today, made a similar point,
>> about
>> how certain Americans are vilified because they have Arab-sounding
>> names,
>> or happen to be Moslem, or Sikh, or whatever.
>> As Rodney King said (as quoted by Wikipedia): "Please, we can get
>> along
>> here."
>> Without hyphens, preferably.
>> dh
>>
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>>
>

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