Acceptable terms for describing black people in California
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 27 Jul, 2023
- |
‘African-American’ is the most appropriate especially in a formal setting.You would do better to use an ‘african american male’ than just a ‘black man’. Informally, You can use ‘Black’ as well there is no problem with that, just keep in mind there is a way of pronouncing the word ‘black'(sounds a bit like ‘bulllaackk’) that can sound quite antagonistic toward African-Americans just because of the fact when antagonizers refer to ‘black’ people they tend to pronounce it in that way.
I assume that African-American (or Afroamerican as you wrote) implies that the person is an American with African origin. Hence you could only use that term if you are sure about the person’s nationality.
Personally, I propose to avoid adding a nationality to the person’s appearance origin. E.g. a tourist, a business traveller or a colleague with a green card just joining your American company site could have African origin but isn’t American. He could be a Swede, French or German.
As already proposed, it is rather clever to mention the skin color only as last alternative if there is nothing else to distinguish a person from another. In that case, you should enunciate respectful and polite.
It is also noteworthy that an acceptable term changes over time as well as location. My mother once used the N-Word and I was shocked to hear that. It turned out that she learned it in her youth where it wasn’t a bad word and the affected people used the term for them self, too. Getting her rid of this habit is a really worrying for me! Who knows what your children will think about you if say ‘black’ in 20 years.
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Black vs African-American (and in written English, Black vs black) is a complicated language and cultural question without clear answers. Entire books can and have been written on the subject. This answer is one (not-black) person’s opinion, and really diving into it is probably more of a matter for a site like english.stackexchange.com.
But none of that particularly matters to a tourist. The short answer is that both terms are generally considered acceptable in common newspaper style and spoken English (though African-American is generally not used when describing people of Caribbean descent). “Black man” is a common descriptive term and is not inherently offensive.
As always, be respectful and avoid labeling people unnecessarily. Most other terms are outdated and/or offensive and should be avoided. “Afroamerican” isn’t in particularly common usage. Your original question, “how to handle black people in California,” caused me to jump a little bit, as people of any race aren’t generally “handled.” In general, avoid describing people by race unless it’s relevant (and it probably is relevant if you’re trying to describe a certain game’s protagonist or are giving a full description of the people who took off with your phone).
Especially as a tourist, it’s also ok to ask in situations like these. Instead of lowering your voice and trying to mumble through it, you can say something like, “I’m from X and not sure; did I use the correct term?” People are likely to be understanding and will appreciate that you don’t want to cause any offense.
Personally, I think “black man” generally sounds better than than “black guy,” especially in a formal setting, but it doesn’t sound like you caused any offense regardless.
Very glad you’re ok and hope you were still able to enjoy the falafel anyway (I’m a big fan of that place).
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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