noun : an American of African and especially of black African descent;
A Black American of African ancestry;
an American whose ancestors were born in Africa

adjective :used to describe African-Americans; pertaining to or characteristic of Americans of African ancestry



Usage Note: The Oxford English Dictionary contains evidence of the use of black with reference to African peoples as early as 1400, and certainly the word has been in wide use in racial and ethnic contexts ever since. However, it was not until the late 1960s that black (or Black) gained its present status as a self-chosen ethnonym with strong connotations of racial pride, replacing the then-current Negro among Blacks and non-Blacks alike with remarkable speed. Equally significant is the degree to which Negro became discredited in the process, reflecting the profound changes taking place in the Black community during the tumultuous years of the civil rights and Black Power movements. The recent success of African American offers an interesting contrast in this regard. Though by no means a modern coinage, African American achieved sudden prominence at the end of the 1980s when several Black leaders, including Jesse Jackson, championed it as an alternative ethnonym for Americans of African descent. The appeal of this term is obvious, alluding as it does not to skin color but to an ethnicity constructed of geography, history, and culture, and it won rapid acceptance in the media alongside similar forms such as Asian American, Hispanic American, and Italian American. But unlike what happened a generation earlier, African American has shown little sign of displacing or discrediting black, which remains both popular and positive. The difference may well lie in the fact that the campaign for African American came at a time of relative social and political stability, when Americans in general and Black Americans in particular were less caught up in issues involving radical change than they were in the 1960s. ·Black is sometimes capitalized in its racial sense, especially in the African-American press, though the lowercase form is still widely used by authors of all races. The capitalization of Black does raise ancillary problems for the treatment of the term white. Orthographic evenhandedness would seem to require the use of uppercase White, but this form might be taken to imply that whites constitute a single ethnic group, an issue that is certainly debatable. Uppercase White is also sometimes associated with the writings of white supremacist groups, a sufficient reason of itself for many to dismiss it. On the other hand, the use of lowercase white in the same context as uppercase Black will obviously raise questions as to how and why the writer has distinguished between the two groups. There is no entirely happy solution to this problem. In all likelihood, uncertainty as to the mode of styling of white has dissuaded many publications from adopting the capitalized form Black.

The current, acceptable, feminist-certified, polically correct way to refer to anyone of african descent. Designed to eliminate any unintended racial tension in this hypersensitive, perpetually offended society we've become where people just can't lighten the fuck up anymore.

A word mistakingly used everyday. Im a white guy, and I could technically be a african american if I was born in Africa, and thus, immigrate to America.

Though black peoples roots are in Africa, they themselves were not born there. So that just makes them American, like everyone else born here.

Politically correct term for black people.

A term commonly used to refer to American blacks, who by now are no more african than any other american.

1. A person, born on the continent of Africa, who becomes a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.
2. The most commonly misused word, (albeit one deemed politically correct by people afraid to use the words "black" or "colored") describing the black population of the United States of America.

A euphemism for "black" when referring to people. Used by politically correct morons who are afraid to use proper language in fear of offending someone.

A person who was originally from Africa who has been made a citizen of the United States.

Note: Just because your great-great-great-grandpa was from Africa doesnt make you an African-American