Ok, this was a conversation I had with a close friend that ended up being quite heated. Why, I cannot understand...
It started like this -
Blahblahblah I'm African American blah blah (Black friend of mine)
No, you're American, you've never lived in Africa (me)
How dare you, that's racist, I'm proud of my heritage, etc (Black friend again)
I have a lot of European blood, does that make me European American? (me again)
No, you're white. Besides, you didn't immigrate from Europe (Black friend)
So why are "African Americans" special? He basically repeated my entire point back to me against my argument that I was European American, but somehow that doesn't apply to African American :f6:
I don't understand, maybe I'm missing something -
If I'm a white American, why isn't he a black American? Neither of us was born outside of the US, so neither of us is an immigrant - therefore, we are both simply Americans, nothing more, nothing less.
Any help or opinions on the matter?
As an experiment, I am going to walk around referring to myself as a "European American" to every person I meet, and see how many people believe that I immigrated from a foreign country. I'll have a black friend do the same thing, except as an "African American" and see if they get a different reaction...
It started like this -
Blahblahblah I'm African American blah blah (Black friend of mine)
No, you're American, you've never lived in Africa (me)
How dare you, that's racist, I'm proud of my heritage, etc (Black friend again)
I have a lot of European blood, does that make me European American? (me again)
No, you're white. Besides, you didn't immigrate from Europe (Black friend)
So why are "African Americans" special? He basically repeated my entire point back to me against my argument that I was European American, but somehow that doesn't apply to African American :f6:
I don't understand, maybe I'm missing something -
If I'm a white American, why isn't he a black American? Neither of us was born outside of the US, so neither of us is an immigrant - therefore, we are both simply Americans, nothing more, nothing less.
Any help or opinions on the matter?
As an experiment, I am going to walk around referring to myself as a "European American" to every person I meet, and see how many people believe that I immigrated from a foreign country. I'll have a black friend do the same thing, except as an "African American" and see if they get a different reaction...