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

[Mark Mandel]

In response to BB & WG, a caveat:

I live in a neighborhood with a large population of immigrants and
non-immigrant temporary residents. Many come from Africa, especially East
Aftrica (many shops have signs in Amharic). When moving in I talked briefly
with a woman who was standing on the corner, waiting for a friend. Our
conversation was in French, since she was not American and spoke no English.
I would call her "black", but not "African-American". I have always
understood that word to refer to black Americans. I've grown more careful
about "African-American" since moving here.

Mark Mandel


On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

> 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
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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