What are "African-Americans" called in your country?

fwlzdxil

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Негры. Same for real africans. There are too few of them here, so there's usually no one in the hearing range to get offended when you say it.
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Never liked the term "African American" its retarded. If your black and born in America, then your American. If you were born in Africa and moved to America, then you are an African that lives in America.

Why don't Americans call themselves English - Americans? Half these so called "African Americans" wouldn't even know where Africa is on the map let alone ever visit there or have any knowledge of the culture. Its just there way of separating themselves from the rest of the people. If you want to get technical, only the Indians can be called Americans.

Sorry about that.....always annoyed me. :)

We call them black or coloured or half-cast (not sure if that term is used anymore, as a kid it was used to describe a mixed race person)
 

Xenowolf

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Lat time I checked, Black people in Britain weren't generally considered African-Americans. Anyway, we just call them black, hence why I just refered to black people in Britain as well, that.
 

orangeban

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British people. From what I've seen, Britain doesn't have a massive trouble with racism against African people (though it is still there, trust me), it seems our racism is focused against Eastern Europeans and Asians (particularly Indians, Bangladeshis and people from around that area). Maybe that's just my part of Scotland though.
 

theriddlen

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Well, in my country, I think the most PC phrase is, after being translated into English, "black-skinned".
 

dex-dex

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I am going with black. (Canadian here)
I even have a friend who everyone calls Black Dave. I live in a very Caucasian neighbourhood and there are very few blacks. even though no one else knew a person named David that went by Dave, he was still black Dave. oddly enough it was a term he coined not everyone else.
 

schubi

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I'm from a small eastern European country.

Our classic term is "zamorci" which means "people from beyond the sea" which also includes Arabs, Indians, Australian Aboriginals and strangely Polinesians. It does not however include Asians, Inuits or Native Americans.

In recent decades we tend to use "črnci" which just means "black people".

The only insult that is very rarely used is "zumba".
 

Saladfork

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Just 'Black people', really.

I realized while reading this thread that I have never actually known a black person beyond just their name. I'm actually far more familiar with several people of various Asian descent (one of whom I number among my best friends, even).

Out of curiosity I decided to check the Canadian census to see if this was statistically likely, and lo and behold, according to the newest data available to Wikipedia (2006) only about 2.5% of the population is black, compared to 11.92% asian.

So... yeah. I don't have much need to call black people anything most of the time.
 

Captain Pirate

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UK.
I refer to them as people.
To identify someone as black though, like if you're describing someone, then it's just 'black', simply enough.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

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There are, by definition, no african-americans in my country because those would actually be "afro-germans" or at least "afro-american-germans". But if you mean black people we call them... just black people, pretty much. Sometimes "coloured people" too.
 

RuralGamer

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In my country (the UK/Scotland), we call African-Americans... African-Americans... har har har that really wasn't funny -_- Sorry, that was actually a really bad joke.

On a more serious note... I genuinely don't know; there are only something like 10 non-white, non-Asian people in the region I live in (out of about 110,000 people), so they don't exactly make a notable group. I hear "Afro-British" and "Afro-Caribbean" used a bit, but really, most people I know call people of African descent black.
 

Frizzle

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Tuesday Night Fever said:
Frizzle said:
Now I'm curious. If you see a group of 10 dogs, and you're trying to point one out, what's the first attribute you go to when trying to describe it?
Dogs, as far as I'm aware, don't have a long history of race-related discrimination, hatred, and violence tied very closely to the idea of making it socially acceptable to single them out and make them 'different' by using words in this way.
They actually do have a history of that, hence why a lot of people with bigger dogs like German Shepherds have trouble finding apartments and communities that will accept their animal. Also, once domesticated, dogs were bread for the very specific purpose of violence, fear mongering, and hatred, among other more useful jobs like herding animals.

But my point is that when you call someone black, or brown, or white, you're just making it easier for the person you're describing them to, to understand. Describing someone by their skin tone is in no way racist. If you are making sweeping generalizations about that person because of the color of their skin, then yeah that's racist.

We live in a world of vivid and varying color. When someone asks you which car is yours in the parking lot, you don't say "that automobile over there," you say "the black Maserati."
Same idea with people or anything else you're describing: "do you see that human being over there?" is not nearly as helpful as "You see that white/black/brown guy over there?"

Trying to be politically correct only attempts to make people special and different. We are all the same in one giant sweeping generalized group of destructive and apathetic human beings :)
 

agge.se

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Apr 21, 2010
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Sweden.

immigrant(ivandrare) (mostly used for Muslim and eastern European because they are the majority of the obvious immigrants to Sweden). And could actual be seen as offensive by some people.

people also use coloured(färgad) or dark skinned(mörkhyad) or black(svart) but that is also used mostly when describing someone.

****** (Neger) is generally considered offensive when used by someone white but not when used by someone black or some other immigrant. I have heard two muslim kids calling each other ******.

And the PK Police have also given us gems like "second generation immigrant"(andra generationens invandrare) and "person of immigrant ancestry"(person med invandrarbakgrund). Both of this is true of all of the Swedish royal house except the crown princess?s husband and their daughter.


"person of immigrant background"(person med invandrarbakgrund) is probably the phrase you will find in newspapers and official documents. It is considered the least offensive and the most ridiculous.
 

Tuesday Night Fever

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Frizzle said:
They actually do have a history of that, hence why a lot of people with bigger dogs like German Shepherds have trouble finding apartments and communities that will accept their animal. Also, once domesticated, dogs were bread for the very specific purpose of violence, fear mongering, and hatred, among other more useful jobs like herding animals.

But my point is that when you call someone black, or brown, or white, you're just making it easier for the person you're describing them to, to understand. Describing someone by their skin tone is in no way racist. If you are making sweeping generalizations about that person because of the color of their skin, then yeah that's racist.

We live in a world of vivid and varying color. When someone asks you which car is yours in the parking lot, you don't say "that automobile over there," you say "the black Maserati."
Same idea with people or anything else you're describing: "do you see that human being over there?" is not nearly as helpful as "You see that white/black/brown guy over there?"

Trying to be politically correct only attempts to make people special and different. We are all the same in one giant sweeping generalized group of destructive and apathetic human beings :)
You completely missed my point. If I tell you to look at that, say, German Shepherd to continue your own example - is that German Shepherd going to care that I'm calling it a German Shepherd? Is it going to care that I call it a dog? Is it going to care if I call it a poodle, or any other type of dog? No. It's not going to care. Because the dog itself has no true understanding of English beyond getting the gist of what I'm feeling from the way I put inflection on my words... but also because there was never a time when German Shepherds were discriminated against by other dogs for no reason other than them being German Shepherds.

It's very, very easy to project human feelings and emotions and history onto things that aren't humans, but that doesn't mean that the analogy always holds up. In fact it typically doesn't.

As for ease of understanding, if I'm looking at a group of people and I'm trying to point one out to you, and I tell you that it's 'the guy with the hat' when he's the only guy in the group with a hat, are you honestly going to tell me you have no idea who I'm talking about? Or if he's not the only one in the group with a hat, if I point out something else distinctive like his blue jacket, or his gloves, or whatever... are you honestly going to tell me that you still have no idea what I'm talking about? Are you telling me that I have to point out race or else you have no idea who I'm referring to? Because I very much doubt it.

Like it or not, your black Maserati isn't going to feel bad or be offended if it's made to look different than everyone else for something it has no control over. Because it's not a human, or even alive at all... it's a thing. It doesn't have thoughts or feelings. Once again, very easy to project human emotion onto objects that aren't human, and once again, it doesn't translate at all.