I’m from Home
In African- Americans the concept of group identity is more related to family origin than to the place of birth and the contribution of the African- American group to American history. The United States was build by immigrants; therefore, according to Aisha Harris in her article “Where I’m From,” is usual to find kids saying that their grandparents “had come to America at some point from Ireland, or Italy, or Greece.” Nevertheless, we do not label those kids as Ireland-Americans, Italian- Americans or Grecian- Americans, but as White. Unlike White kids with foreign descents, Black kids are labeled with their ancestral origin by calling the Black kids African- Americans.
A lot of African-Americans cannot related to their ancestry from Africa because, as stated by Harris, their ancestral “were brought here against their will and any records of their origins had long since been lost.”As a result, the majority of African-Americans are not able to relate to the ancestry they represent as African-Americans. Therefore, most African-Americans are just Americans or Blacks. According to Harris, she is African, genetically speaking because her father took an ancestry DNA test that traced his roots to Nigeria. Nevertheless, Harris does not consider herself “Nigerian-American, or even African-American. Where I’m from is America—who I am is a black American.”
African-Americans should not be identified with their ancestral origins because the culture of blacks from Africa is different from the culture of Blacks from America. Some Black-Americans do not speak the same language as Africans from the same place of their ancestral. Examples to follow are the Caribbean islands, which mostly are composed of people of ancestry from Europe and Africa; however, after mixing and lost of the track of the origin of their ancestral, everyone is called the same. for instance, Cubans are not Cubans of African decent or Cubans of European decent, but Cubans.
Nicholas Payton in his article called “I Ain’t African-American, I’m Black: Nicholas Payton,” provides his definition of an African-American. According to Payton, “Anyone who moves to America from Africa and receives U.S. citizenship is African-American.” He is Black because “Black, like White, is not a skin color, it’s a term of cultural identification. It [identity] has to do with how you are perceived in this world and where you fit in. Being African-American is a label, being Black has to do with acceptance.” Additionally, Payton implies that is not necessary to be a descendant of slaves in the United States to be African-American that indeed is possible to be White and be an African-American. People who come from Africa and become citizens of The United States are the real African-Americans. Payton explains that, the actress Charlize Theron is an African-American, who is white, but comes from Africa, Moreover, Payton makes the comparison among Charlize Theron and the black actress Viola Davis, where Charlize is more African-American than Viola Davis because Davis is only related to the American culture.
What differentiates an African-American from a Black-American is that Black-Americans are part of the construction of the United States and have “cultural ties to slavery and the racial oppression of pre-civil rights America” (Payton). Therefore, Payton along with Morgan Freeman find the Black History Month “ridiculous” because there is not a White History Month, which by its absence implies that Black History is not “American History,” but African-“American History.”
Works Cited
Bhopal, Raj S. “3.5 Collecting Migration Status, Race, and Ethnicity Data in Health Contexts.” Migration, Ethnicity, Race, and Health in Multicultural Societies. 2nd ed. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford UP, 2014. 75-76. Print.
Harris, Aisha. “Why I’d Rather Be Called a Black American Than an African-American.” Slate.com. Slate, 29 July 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2015. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/07/black_american_versus_african_american_why_i_prefer_to_be_called_a_black.html
Payton, Nicholas. “I Ain’t African-American, I’m Black : Nicholas Payton.” Nicholas Payton. WordPress.com, 26 Feb. 2012. Web. 01 Mar. 2015. https://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/i-aint-african-american-im-black-nicholas-payton
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P1. Albert, what is the value of the first three sentences?
1.1 You name several ways to determine identity.
1.2 You name several categories: One a country, one a continent, one indeterminate, one a multinational family descent, another continent. If you connected the first two to offer illustrations of the ways to identify, that might make some sense, but you don’t connect them.
1.3 You offer a quote that restates the first sentence more or less but leaves out skin color.
After that confusing collection of observations, you get to the important stuff. How African-Americans derive their “brand.” Then you immediately contrast it with the rest of America.
The paragraph lacks focus. If the thesis of your paragraph is that African-Americans identify themselves (or are identified) by the continent from which their ancestors originated, whereas other Americans have long ago abandoned that method, your sentences should all contribute something to that thesis.
P2. You’re misusing the word “ancestral,” Albert. You want the noun “ancestry” wherever a noun is called for here: “cannot relate to their African ancestry because their ancestors were brought here . . . .”
Your illustration is a good example of one person who considers herself an American—not an African-American—but since we don’t know who she is, the evidence is only illustrative, not persuasive.
P3. I don’t quite understand the argument here. The cultural differences between Africa and America I get, but the “different identity groups were formed” claim is very mysterious. Are you saying that after a generation or two, the different countries of origin for ancestral Africans are irrelevant?
P4. I completely understand the Theron/Davis comparison, Albert, but you don’t make exactly clear what Payton considers himself to be, or why. His title says he’s black. But your sentence says “he is not black.” The quote you offer suggests that Payton rejects the term “African-American” for himself because (we guess) he wasn’t born in Africa. The quote suggests again that he elects the term Black instead because it provides him an identify of his own choosing and avoids the label of African-American. Am I reading that correctly?
P5. Payton’s observation is subtle, and will be difficult to convey accurately. You suggest that the term “Black-American” connects this generation to the history of blacks in America. That would mean that the term “African-American” attempts to negate the experience of slaves in America and the oppression of pre-civil rights America by jumping over that tragic history and landing safely in Africa. That might be my idea, not Payton’s, but if it’s his, you should make his point very clearly.
Your language use is improving very quickly, Albert. There’s much less to correct here than there has been on earlier posts. I won’t make and specific corrections until you’ve done a Rewrite.
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