I always thought the term African-American was really regressive. Why can you all be Americans? It seems needlessly divisive to me.

African-American doesn't make as much sense as it used to. As a black American, I prefer to be called black American. Especially since I have no connection to Africa.

I've never understood this...I'm from the UK and 'black' and 'white' are not offensive at all. I'd say the real minefield is trying to qualify the term "Asian," as we tend to use it to cover a whole variety of ethnicities and countries of origin. I don't get why you would say African-American though...the equivalent our politicians might use (not everyday people) is Afro-Caribbean, which at least recognises that not all black people have known/direct ancestors from Africa! If you're going to apply that logic, then you could call all Americans English (that idea should make you mad!), or everyone in the world African, since that was where the first human is believed to have lived. Back to Afro-Caribbean...if you know anything about British history, it's been invaded and colonised so many times, had all kinds of travellers and traders pass through: there have been black people native to England since the Roman times. Are you really going to label someone "Afro-Caribbean" whose family has lived in the country for longer than the family of their French/Saxon neighbour? It's so funny that people are telling you how to define your own ethnic identity. That's almost as bad as when white people complain about experiencing racism! You should remind them political correctness is not about policing each other's thoughts and speech needlessly. One of our comedians calls it 'institutionalised politeness' (yep, most British thing ever). If you're practising tolerance, acceptance and kindness to all people, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexuality or physical/mental capability (that list was exhausting), then you're golden. Have a great day, and I hope your friends are more understanding in future! Tl;dr - I agree.

Wow.. People dont say african american anymore. They just say black, nothing racist bout that. White ppl are white. Ur only racist if you dont agree with Obama.

not all black people are from africa anyway, I never understood why it became the PC word of choice

Oh

That's silly. Here in the Netherlands we just say black or white and most people don't make a problem out of it.

LMAO that's hilarious!

'Murica

If white people are called "racists" when they use the term "Black" instead of African American, black people should be called racists as well when calling each other "black" (same thing for the n-word). I personally agree with the comments that say that there are only Americans: otherwise we should say European-American, Asian-American, and so on... why does it only apply to "Africans"?