The "politically correct" term for someone with dark skin. Never mind that not all black people are African, and that not all Africans are black.
by Tipper36 September 10, 2007
Of or relating to Africa. A ethnic group of people who originated from africa. People preceived as slaves or lowerclassman.
by Carrie Morris September 26, 2007
What people say when they dont want to say Black person. A dumb term, referring to a black person. I have no idea why we are called that. I mean...Im not African! I was born in New York, I have never been to Africa in my life! Why am I called African-American? They dont have a name like that for white people. But then again no body really knows where white ancestors came from...where do they come from? Did every white person always live in the US???
An African-American is a "person of color". Who's ancestors are probably from Africa. But just because they are called that does NOT make them African!
by muzichick May 06, 2006
The politically correct way how to describe a black person.
I don't really mind but why should I be called an African American when I wasn't born in Africa, never been to Africa, and am not a legal citizen of any countries in Africa? Because if thats true, then white people should be called European Americans and asian people should be called Asian Americans.
I don't really mind but why should I be called an African American when I wasn't born in Africa, never been to Africa, and am not a legal citizen of any countries in Africa? Because if thats true, then white people should be called European Americans and asian people should be called Asian Americans.
On an Internet Forum:
Me: Im black.
P.C. Person: You mean African-American.
Me: No, I may be of African decent but I dont have any connections with Africa otherwise, cause in that case i should call you a European American.
P.C. Person: You mean white person right?
Me: No you dumb asshole! *loads gun*
Me: Im black.
P.C. Person: You mean African-American.
Me: No, I may be of African decent but I dont have any connections with Africa otherwise, cause in that case i should call you a European American.
P.C. Person: You mean white person right?
Me: No you dumb asshole! *loads gun*
by Ezgamer January 16, 2006
A term that I will start using at the exact moment that I start using "European American", which will hopefully be never.
What's wrong with the word "black"? Why do we need to say "African American"? It's six syllables longer. Why is "white" perfectly acceptable, but "black" all of a sudden isn't? People are too afraid of offending others. You do not have the right to not be offended in the United States. Stop giving voice and standing to the chronically and professionally offended, who are constantly on the look-out for reasons to be offended. If we continue as we are, in 10 to 20 years, "African American" will be considered offensive, and will be replaced with something else that will be considered offensive in 10 to 20 more years, and so on and so on. Stop this nonsense.
by Monty Cobra May 06, 2014
The current politically correct term to describe black people.The term for black people has evolved from "nigger" to "negro" to "colored" to "black" to "african-american",and as offensive as some of these terms are today,they were once widely used and accepted.
Thomas is an English guy,Marcy is an Irish chick,Manuel is a mexican dude,and Tyrone is an african-american dude.
by jaypers April 30, 2005
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.
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.
by Docta Peppa Gangsta Chimp4Life December 27, 2004