Black History : Should we continue identifying as African-American and Black?

[KPITRL]

I understand how the thought of a name change can make a lot of us see it as another way of possibly dividing the race. But I think we need to give ourselves a little more credit as far as our emotional control as a people. Changing our name in the pass never divided us. It was always a gradual process. For example we didn't just go from Colored to Black over night. Although I was a kid, I remember well when we were Colored, and I felt very proud. In a sense, I was more proud of the race back then, because of the unity. Then we began calling ourselves Black too. I think the murder of Dr. King may have pushed more of us into calling ourselves Black, especially when James Brown came out with, "I'm Black and I'm Proud" later that summer. But Colored still hung around a little while.

Today, we call ourselves both Black and African-American. I believe this false sense of integration caused us to adapt the American part of African-American. I don't know about you all, but it feels like we been Black alright, blacked-out that is, as a result of this fake integration, and it's becoming more evident. However we can still call ourselves Black and adopt a new name at the same time, just like we did when we went from Colored. I say this new name should be African, the name they stole from us in the first place. That or African Ancient Egyptian as suggested by Dr. Williams. As I indicated in a previous thread, if India can have descendants in the America's and Australia and still identify as Indians, then there should be no problem with Africa having descendants here in America still identifying as Africans, especially when the people who run America refuse to recognize us and when they have more respect for Africans then they do for us here.

I don't think there was ever a time when we just overnightly dropped a name that we accepted for years, so it may not be wise, especially at this time, to try to convince everybody to suddenly drop Black or African-American, however that should not prevent us from gradually changing back to African, like some already did anyway, or African Ancient Egyptian as Dr. Williams suggested. If there's an economic strategy in it this time, instead of only feeling proud of ourselves (Black) or feeling accepted by them (African-American), then this change may be worth considering in my opinion. If we start working a strategy, perhaps many will see the necessity of a name change over time.

 

[Aluku]

The bottom line is that our ancestors came from Africa. If you can not embrace, respect or celebrate your heritage you can not expect others to respect you.

So yeah I like the term African American.

I never heard anyone complaining about the terms, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Mexican Americans btw

 

[KPITRL]

The bottom line is that our ancestors came from Africa. If you can not embrace, respect or celebrate your heritage you can not expect others to respect you.

I don't know if you're saying African is also our heritage or not, but it sounds like you're saying it's not if you prefer the term African-American. If that's the case, good look in expecting others to respect you, or not continue to kill you, on camera at that.

I never heard anyone complaining about the terms, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Mexican Americans btw

And they all benefited from the African Slave Trade and they all prefer White over you, and Whites prefer them over you. They'll complain even less when America finishes replacing us with them, and giving them tax breaks and benefits, while they continue putting proud African-Americans in the prisons. Sounds like they're trying to replace our names for us regardless, because you won't be a citizens anymore once they get you in the prison system.

I don't know how well you've been following this thread, but read my question I asked in post #7. I know it was in response to identifying as Americans. But if it was in response to us identifying as African-American, how would you answer that same question? At the same time, do you feel the race is united?

 

[KPITRL]

I don't know how well you've been following this thread, but read my question I asked in post #7.

Correction: post #9

 

[Aluku]

I don't know if you're saying African is also our heritage or not, but it sounds like you're saying it's not if you prefer the term African-American. If that's the case, good look in expecting others to respect you, or not continue to kill you, on camera at that.


And they all benefited from the African Slave Trade and they all prefer White over you, and Whites prefer them over you. They'll complain even less when America finishes replacing us with them, and giving them tax breaks and benefits, while they continue putting proud African-Americans in the prisons. Sounds like they're trying to replace our names for us regardless, because you won't be a citizens anymore once they get you in the prison system.

I don't know how well you've been following this thread, but read my question I asked in post #7. I know it was in response to identifying as Americans. But if it was in response to us identifying as African-American, how would you answer that same question? At the same time, do you feel the race is united?

It seems that there is Babylonian confurion of tongues. I'm sure we are in fact saying the same thing.