Would a person who is from South African heritage and a citizen of the U.S. be considered African American?

Now would he be f he were white?

Dave

Good question, do we determine ethnicity by color or region? If by color only then that's a bit racist I guess. If they were a white person born in South Africa they would be a South African citizen, but if they then became a US citizen would we call them African American, which is what we would call a black person from the same scenario.

Sometimes you just sits and thinks, huh?

This just back to labels and definitions of such. I actually got my query from a comment following this article from CNN on Native American heritage. Different tribal nations define heritage, citizenry and such differently.

A person with South African heritage commented.

Then what about folks descended from Australian Aboriginies. Most would just look at their skin to call them African American.

Which has always been my point. Labels, until they actually mean something, don't mean anything.

Dave

White South Africans who are citizens of the US consider themselves African Afrikaans not African American or even Caucasian. Most if not all have dual citizenships. The differences is this:
African American = American slave blood running through their veins.
African Blacks = no slave blood running through their veins.
Afrikaans = Born in SA

Examples: POTUS is considered among African Americans as "Black." He has no American slave blood running through his veins. Technically he is NOT African American but, among the US Caucasians is considered one only because of the color of his skin.

The actress Charlize Theron was born & raised in SA. She considers herself as an Afrikaan African with an American citizenship. Her first language is Afrikaans. She has dual citizenship.

Black Africans who are citizens of the US do NOT consider themselves African American but "Black" Americans & will let you know in a minute too!

How interesting. Didn't know all ths. But it adds more to my premise. It's nothing but labels.

I've also heard that if a person has American slave ancestry, then it's pretty certain that he has white blood because of the attention given by the slave holders.

Also I find it interesting even though the U.S. gets a lt of bad press because of its save history, the largest percentage by a large margin went to South America, principally Brazil

But this is changing my original post.

Thanks for the info

Dave

Wow Nana! I love historical information such as that! But I could read it a hundred times and fail a test on it with a test of F-.

Trival note: I try to do a dialect and discover how difficult it really is. So I admire someone like Charlize or Liam Neeson who can completely fool me with their United States accents for an entire movie!

Dave: Your original question is quite intriguing too and I do not mean to diminish the meaning or intent of your thread. But you know that's jut the way it goes around here.

"Spelling, grammar, sentence structure, adverb usage, punctuation, not verified or checked. Ethel in the raw"

Talk about changing threads. I was mostly referring to people's spoken English. I was not rounaboutedly asking people here to clean up their posts or anything. I realize you are half-joking, but since you did make it your sig, I thought I'd mention it.

East Indians from the southern part of India who are very dark brown to black consider themselves Indians.

So if a white guy moves from Johannesburg to Rio... does he now become a S. African S. American ??

LOL

I would assume Afrikaans South American. Not sure what the South Americans would consider him. Gringo? Oh wait, in Rio they speak Portuguese not Spanish.