Africa is not a Country or Race--its a Continent
The Media seems to take delight in the fact that black people are not overly enthusiastic about Barack Obama becoming the possible first black president. I suppose it would make sense that we would be overjoyed since he is the first "articulate and clean" black candidate, but we have our own opinions on subjects and our own reasons for those opinions. What I found most interesting is that fact that we are called African Americans when it is Obama who is the real African American.
His father is from Africa so that makes him an African American.
If your great great grandma was born in Russia and you don't speak Russian neither do your parents or grand parents and you know nothing of Russian history it would be ridiculous to call yourself a Russian American, it would be more appropriate to call yourself just an American or white American of Russian ancestry. That doesn't diminish your grandmother or your heritage it just makes more sense.
Why doesn't this logic apply to black Americans. We know that up until a hundred and thirty years ago our ancestors were brought here from Africa. That doesn't make their descendants African. We have had very little, practically no contact with Africa. We don't speak any African languages, we don't share the same culture of people from Africa in general except for being the victims of global racism.
When the term African American was first used it was fine because there weren't that many Africans in America. We, black Americans, accepted it proudly as it also gave us an opportunity to get in touch with our African heritage and identify ourselves with more than just a color.
Now there are many African immigrants coming to this country every day, people from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, The Gambia, Nigeria etc etc with their unique culture and languages. When they emigrate here shouldn't they be the ones called African Americans.
And while we are on the subject, what about people who are from Egypt? Egypt is in Africa but we don't call people from Egypt, African Americans. When we use the term African we are specifically speaking about a race of people, specifically blacks from Africa. If a white South African came to live in America we would not call him an African American either. But Africa or African is not a racial term, its a geographic term and there are many ethnicities and races who live in Africa.
That's why it seems ridiculous to say that someone whose father is from Africa is not to be considered black enough for people who call themselves African American.
But that's assessment is coming from the Main Stream Media in an attempt to define black people within their own narrow guidelines.
I think we should go back to just calling ourselves black. Just like white people who have lived here for generations call themselves white. It would include all black people, and it would include black African Americans too.
It is also way easier to say and doesn't require any capitalization either.
As far as Obama is concerned we should evaluate him along with the other candidates and come to our own opinions about who we think is best for us in other words continue to do what we have been doing all along.
