[Ads-l] terminology - Black American vs. African American

[Margaret Lee]

The term 'African American' was originally introduced and suggested to replace 'Black' in 1988 by Dr. Ramona Edelin, then president of the National Urban Coalition.  Jesse Jackson then popularized the term and incorrectly received credit for originally introducing it.
--Margaret Lee 
 
      From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Sunday, January 4, 2015 2:38 PM
 Subject: Re: terminology - Black American vs. African American
   
On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 12:24 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Whites think African American is a better term.


Do they really? Or have they been gorilla-ed into it by some loud-mouthed
"spokesman," such as, in the this case, the Revd. Jesse? Back in the day,
Jackson advocated so strongly for "A-A" that I thought that it was his
original idea. (As did others. A white woman from Jo-berg, in a letter to
the editor of The Boston Globe, rhetorically and sarcastically asked, given
that she was a native African now an American citizen, what Jackson would
call her. Well, as any fool can plainly see, he would, if the occasion
arose, call her "white." What could possibly matter beyond that? *Nothing*
else. How can that not be so totally obvious as to render such a question
utterly otiose?!)

The fact of the matter is that someone else suggested it. The Rev merely
"took the ball and ran with it," to coin a phrase. In other words, "he made
it his own," to coin another phrase.

-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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