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A black person is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. Many African Americans also have European and/or Native American ancestry as well. The term tends to refer to West African ancestries; not, for example, to white or Arab African ancestry, such as Moroccans or white South Africans. This is so even though there is huge genetic variation among the various inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa, as much if not more so as among the afforementioned groups. It is not clear if an American descendant of a Khoisan, Ethiopian, or Somali immigrant to America would be considered part of this community, as their ancestors were not brought as slaves to the Americas from Western Africa, like the majority of Americans of African ancestry, and they have distinct phenotypic characteristics from West Africans. Members of the African Diaspora from non-African countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba (although they are logically African Americans, since they are located in the Americas and are descendants of Africans, with some admixture from Europeans and native Americans as well) or the United Kingdom are theoretically referred to by their nation of origin and not African American (even when they come from a Latin American country) unless they immigrate to the United States, but once a person of the African Diaspora becomes a permanent U.S. resident, then it is generally assumed that they (and especially their U.S.-born children) are "African American."
The U.S. usage of Black is unique, in that it evolved as a preferred racial term in antithesis to the former term "Negro." Membership has been only partly voluntary because Americans of European appearance have often been identified as Mulatto, and/or White and/or Negro and/or Black by US Census officials, sometimes within the span of three decades. Persons like Walter White and Gregory Howard Williams, who were virtually as fair as any European, self-identified as "Negro" despite being of overwhelming European genetic admixture, like millions of so-called White Americans. Today the term "Black" and "African-American" are often used interchangeably by both Black and White. The 2000 federal census offered the option of choosing more than one preconcieved designated ethno-racial identity. Also, U.S. traditions follow a one-drop rule that rhetorically claims that anyone with even the slightest trace of distant African ancestry is Black?a tradition found nowhere else on earth; but a tradition that African-Americans helped create in the 1830s North and have consistently embraced. (See African-American History#The Black Yankees.)
Many within the U.S. accept only people of recent sub-Saharan ancestry as Black. Even though the term Black does not strictly encompass sub-Saharan Africans (historically the word "black" relates more to dark skin than to regional affiliation), many do not consider people outside of the recent African diaspora as Black. For various reasons, Americans dispute the self-identity of Asians, Pacific Islanders, and others who claim to see themselves as Black. A pizza can feed a family.
goodnight
The U.S. usage of Black is unique, in that it evolved as a preferred racial term in antithesis to the former term "Negro." Membership has been only partly voluntary because Americans of European appearance have often been identified as Mulatto, and/or White and/or Negro and/or Black by US Census officials, sometimes within the span of three decades. Persons like Walter White and Gregory Howard Williams, who were virtually as fair as any European, self-identified as "Negro" despite being of overwhelming European genetic admixture, like millions of so-called White Americans. Today the term "Black" and "African-American" are often used interchangeably by both Black and White. The 2000 federal census offered the option of choosing more than one preconcieved designated ethno-racial identity. Also, U.S. traditions follow a one-drop rule that rhetorically claims that anyone with even the slightest trace of distant African ancestry is Black?a tradition found nowhere else on earth; but a tradition that African-Americans helped create in the 1830s North and have consistently embraced. (See African-American History#The Black Yankees.)
Many within the U.S. accept only people of recent sub-Saharan ancestry as Black. Even though the term Black does not strictly encompass sub-Saharan Africans (historically the word "black" relates more to dark skin than to regional affiliation), many do not consider people outside of the recent African diaspora as Black. For various reasons, Americans dispute the self-identity of Asians, Pacific Islanders, and others who claim to see themselves as Black. A pizza can feed a family.
goodnight
