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Aged Shapeshifter

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So tell me, if a white skinned African relocated to America... would they too be "African Americans" or is that reserved for black Americans only?

Honest question!!

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stormylane
So tell me, if a white skinned African relocated to America... would they too be "African Americans" or is that reserved for black Americans only?

Honest question!!

So if a south african person came here or an albino?

Liberal Ladykiller

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This is one of my main reasons for hating the political correctness we've sunken into.
If we follow the logic of labeling people "African Americans" or "Latino Americans" then I should be called a "European American."

So long as you live in this country you're just a goddamned American.
[/rant]

Anywho, on topic, they'd still be white on those ethnicity questions, but nationality speaking, yeah, I'd say they'd be African Americans. That would actually be a correct statement.

Witty Tycoon

Individual With white skin, born in Africa then comes to live in America.

Nationality (country): African-American
Ethnicity: Depends on the ancestry of that person in particular.

It's easier if you try to understand the differences between Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality.
I am to lazy to explain it all myself, so I turned to google, and searched you a good summary because it's night time and I'm sleepy. But it is pretty dead on.

"Race refers to people grouped together rather arbitrarily based on skin-color by most colloquial American/English standards. Frankly, it has very little solid basis on anything other than historical sociopolitical biases and agenda, but sadly it still has very large clout in politics and society. Examples would include black, white, asian, etc...

Nationality generally refers to what country you are a citizen of (Canadian, German, American, Japanese).

Ethnicity vaguely refers to what "original" socially and linguistically-coherent group of people one is descended from. This is different from nationality since while most people living in Germany and Austria are citizens of their respective countries claiming their respective nationalities, for the most part, they all belong to one German ethnic group sharing a pretty common culture and language (while many immigrant groups live in these countries and can claim German or Austrian nationality, they aren't ethnically German).

So, I am a Caucasian/Asian mix so I am an ethnic cross of Vietnamese, French, etc., a racial mix of white and asian, but holding American citizenship.

It's kinda confusing because many countries and nationalities unlike the US or Canada base their state's existence on one supposedly-united and coherent ethnic group. Thus Finland is for the Finns, Koreans for the ethnically Korean, and so on. So even if someone naturalizes and becomes a Korean or Finnish citizen, certain native Koreans or Finns would have difficulty accepting their nationality since in their eyes ethnicity and nationality are so closely tied in their countries.

Not to further confuse/add exceptions, but very occasionally, "race" can refer to a certain ethnicity--such as "The Japanese race" although you don't hear this use much more nowadays, and in Canada, the French speaking province of Quebec was called a "nation within Canada" by the prime minister."
They would be called African Americans. I watched this video when our class was reading Huck Finn and there was this white boy who was saying that he would call himself part African- American since his dad is South African. In this other video as well for example there was person that was from Africa applying for college in the U.S. He got in and there was this class that he signed up. He checked African for that box. So when he came to the college and to that classroom with all the African-Americans. Everyone there was black except for him. And I think the teacher sent him to the guidance counselors even though he had his birth certificate and some other proof that he was African. I really think that African-American term is so broad. There's also black African-Americans who look white as well. This one lady at my apartment building before everyone had to move she was very light skinned. And she looked white and her kids looked white.And her husband was white. Her was was African-American but I didn't know she was till she came. I didn't realize till her mom came that she was black. But her dad was a lighter shade. Then my mom talked about how when I was little and she and my dad went into the doctor's office and the doctor didn't believe that it was her baby since I was really light skinned.My dad is part Native American and when he rolls up the sides of his shirt he is so light.My mom is blasian. I eally hope a new term for African-Americans will come out.

Hilarious Bear

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catsen
stormylane
So tell me, if a white skinned African relocated to America... would they too be "African Americans" or is that reserved for black Americans only?

Honest question!!

So if a south african person came here or an albino?


BOTH! 3nodding
They would be African American. But everyone would say their white. sweatdrop

Sparkly Fatcat

My best friend's father is Algerian (which is white african) I just call her algerian, if they are in America they are called Americans <3

Lonely Citizen

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OK razz
An African is any person born in African.
An African-American is someone who was born in america, but is a desendent of someone in africa, or someone that moves to america.

Shy Seraph

they would just be an african, because they wasn't born in the US

nuGen Staff Smoker

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Also, keep in mind that not all black people are of African descent. Native Fijians as well as people from the island of Hispaniola (Haiti, Dominican Republic) also have very dark skin. They are considered black, but generally have no African ancestory.

Ferocious Browser

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Also, keep in mind that not all black people are of African descent. Native Fijians as well as people from the island of Hispaniola (Haiti, Dominican Republic) also have very dark skin. They are considered black, but generally have no African ancestory.


Haiti and DR definitely have African heritage. Haiti was the first country in this hemisphere to win independence from Europe and it was because of a giant slave revolt; it was also the reason it has pretty much failed as a nation is because no one else wanted to trade with 'those people'. Both islands were basically huge factory farms with tons of slaves.

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Eveille
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Also, keep in mind that not all black people are of African descent. Native Fijians as well as people from the island of Hispaniola (Haiti, Dominican Republic) also have very dark skin. They are considered black, but generally have no African ancestory.


Haiti and DR definitely have African heritage. Haiti was the first country in this hemisphere to win independence from Europe and it was because of a giant slave revolt; it was also the reason it has pretty much failed as a nation is because no one else wanted to trade with 'those people'. Both islands were basically huge factory farms with tons of slaves.


The Haitian Revolution was in 1797 (the American Revolution ending in 1783). Haiti and the DR are also two countries on the same island. I was wrong on ancestory, at least as far as Haiti and the DR go. The native people of the island were very dark skinned, but they were largely wiped out, their blood carried on through intermarrying with African slaves and Spanish men. That being said, Haitian and Dominican immigrants and their children generally identify as Haitian/Dominican and not African American.

Aged Shapeshifter

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Ok..... so if your skin is black but you have absolutely no idea who your ancestors were or where they came from... are you still african american?

At any point does watering down your african blood make you less african? (again an honest question)
Many Americans have a great deal of Native American blood in their pedigree ... but if your pedigree is not pure enough you cannot claim to be Native American.

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stormylane
Ok..... so if your skin is black but you have absolutely no idea who your ancestors were or where they came from... are you still african american?

At any point does watering down your african blood make you less african? (again an honest question)
Many Americans have a great deal of Native American blood in their pedigree ... but if your pedigree is not pure enough you cannot claim to be Native American.

Wow... thats hard to say...

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