The labels used to describe Americans of African descent mark the movement of a
people from the slave house to the White House. Today, many are resisting this
progression by holding on to a name from the past: "black."
For this group — some descended from U.S. slaves, some immigrants with a separate
history — "African-American" is not the sign of progress hailed when the term was
popularized in the late 1980s. Instead, it's a misleading connection to a distant culture.
The debate has waxed and waned since African-American went mainstream, and gained
new significance after the son of a black Kenyan and a white American moved into the White
House. President Barack Obama's identity has been contested from all sides, renewing
questions that have followed millions of darker Americans:
What are you? Where are you from? And how do you fit into this country?
"I prefer to be called black," said Shawn Smith, an accountant from Houston. "How I really
feel is, I'm American."
"I don't like African-American. It denotes something else to me than who I am," said
Smith, whose parents are from Mississippi and North Carolina. "I can't recall any of them
telling me anything about Africa. They told me a whole lot about where they grew up in
Macomb County and Shelby, N.C."
Gibre George, an entrepreneur from Miami, started a Facebook page called "Don't Call
Me African-American" on a whim. It now has about 300 "likes."
"We respect our African heritage, but that term is not really us," George said. "We're
several generations down the line. If anyone were to ship us back to Africa, we'd be like
fish out of water."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson is widely credited with taking African-American mainstream in
1988, before his second presidential run.
Blacks do not like to be called "African-Americans" - alt.activism.death-penalty | Google Groups
Like I said about Jesse, it was a political move on his part.