well here's something that should piss you off, then (pisses me off too). At the school I teach at we have a very large Somali population, most of whom are directly from Somalia or from other Somali speaking countries, most notably Kenya. We also have a sizeable African American population. Clearly these two populations are COMPLETELY distict groups
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And it is!! Complete and utte bullshit!! I don't let anyone refer to me as african-american, becasue I am not. I am Keyan or an Israelite. I accept one of those. But bwing black is so diveres, around the wrold, that its bullshit to let everyone be lumped into the same category. Asian people can choose between being japenese, chinese, taiwanese, korean..etc... I just want the same ability.
Well at least I know now what ethnicities you link yourself to, as I know oh-so-very-little about your cultural past (or at least I did until very recently, thanks for all the posts, they've been illuminating). That's the other appalling thing about all of this; American culture doesn't just hand us well-minded white folks with the symantic variation required to know what to call who. I'm learning so much here about how to actually identify various African ethnicities by common facial characteristics and accents. It's really quite liberating to be able to say "I met this Kenyan guy yesterday" as opposed to "I met this black guy yesterday." The differences are earth shattering.
random little responseskatannutoDecember 6 2005, 01:13:40 UTC
I remember when a friend from Taiwasn was telling me that some Chinese people refer to European-white Americans as White ghosts because they didn't know their ancestry. I sometimes think that there is a grief, an unacknoledged sadness about not knowing where we come from. Jessie Jackson commented on the Black title over 20 years ago. When I lived in England Black was a title that referred to anyone who was brown brownish and dark brownish...
the naacp if after all talking about "colored people" when I asked the chairman of the naacp why they kept that name he told me that it was because it was like coca cola, a name that people recognize... go figure.
funny how we as a society get so cought up in lables of things. Colors, right , wrong, good , bad....they are all man made lables. it is amazing the amount of control that we have allowed these things to have over our lives. To get inraged because someone is not educated in what lable you would like to be called is giving them alot of power. It would be nice if more people took the time to actually educate people about their ancestory and such and actually have a conversation. That is what truely seem to be the problem in todays society, is that people dont take the time to really talk with each other. they are so hell bent on trying to make themselves right by making someone else feel wrong. Just my observations.
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Jessie Jackson commented on the Black title over 20 years ago. When I lived in England Black was a title that referred to anyone who was brown brownish and dark brownish...
the naacp if after all talking about "colored people" when I asked the chairman of the naacp why they kept that name he told me that it was because it was like coca cola, a name that people recognize... go figure.
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