Topic "Black"? Or "African-American"?
Posted 11 Sep 2012 14:27
This is not justification, but explanation. Because we are a nation of relatively recent predominantly European immigrants, there is a lot of residual cultural identity among many of the sub-cultures. This is true even for the European sub-cultures and more true when they are visibly distinctive upon meeting them. Many parents still encourage marriage within the culture and attempt to make children feel guilty for abandoning "our people". Much of the immigration from particular regions occurred en masse and, because there is strength in numbers, people of a particular culture tended to live together. Assimilation into the broader culture was slowed by attempts to retain the cultural identity of ancestors, but it is considered rude to tell the people of a sub-culture, "You are not assimilating fast enough. Throw out your biases.", especially when they experience some level of bigotry.
Now add in the atrocities committed by the majority culture against the minority cultures and there is still tension/friction. I guess European equivalents would be Jews in Germany, Catholics in Northern Ireland or Basques in Spain, but add in visible physical distinctions like skin color or eye or nose shape. Now you have a situation where there is an acceptable way to label them, one that acknowledges the difference in cultures without judgements of inferior or superior, and unacceptable ways to label them.
So no, when introducing someone, you don't necessarily stress their cultural heritage. You leave that up to them. But if you are talking to one person about another person, you might say, "My friend is Black (or Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Asian, Indian, Italian, Hispanic, Greek, Catholic, etc.), to convey information that may or may not be particularly meaningful to either other person. Some people deliberately limit who they will consider being friends with (or who they will have sex with) to people who are culturally similar enough. Other people will shun their own culture and deliberately seek friends (and sex partners) from other sub-cultures. Other people just won't care, but might still meet people who care. Over time, assimilation and genetic mixing occurs and the cultural significance slowly fades.
I just realized, but listen to this first. I didn't like you, you were quite irritating, arrogant, not to mention cynical, and all those monologs and how convinced you are in your 100% right.. I tried to be rude, I tried to mock you, I tried with sarcasm, to ignore your posts.. nothing, I mean nothing didn't disturb you in what you wanted to explain to us at that particular moment for that particular post and it hit me few seconds ago, you are like Sheldon!! It doesn't really matter if I agree with you, but all that information you have, please share, I will take what I'll consider worth memorizing for the rest I'll just say thank you! ha, I am soo sending you FR for sure!!! Sheldon:D
Since I don't want completely to highjack this tread..
I think that this kind of a classification (by physical appearance in this case, color of the skin) in business, academics or any other institutional meetings, would be completely unprofessional, rude and totally unnecessary. However if i want to hook-up my girlfriend with a guy, I will say. He is fun, not so tall, you guys have the same taste in... , he is Black, he is .. So yes, if I can have any kind of a saying in this topic because I am not Black, I would chose that.