Talk:African Americans

Have a question ....

Please help me . As far as I understand "African Americans(AA)" means those "Americans(Citizens of USA)" who had or whose parents had either African citizenship ,or ancestry . Then why make AA= Black Americans(BA)? The term AA is ethnic ?or based on skin?colour or based on ancestry ?

There are "black skin colour people" outside Africa too . So when we say AA why BA is automatically assumed. Example: "IF" a white south african citizen become usa citizen he will be AA but not BA . Similarly those from other continent who fortunately or unfortunately have black skin colour will be BA once become USA citizen even if they are not AA . Mike, the regular nose job (talk) 13:41, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Mike, the regular nose job. My understanding of the term African American, refers to decendants of enslaved people. Beyond that, I'm not sure. In UK it's generally Black British. This is because we have black people who originated from all over the world, especially the British colonies. I'm unsure what Americans use for white South Africans? Knitsey (talk) 14:34, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that's the problem.

No disrespect to history of USA or its people or their struggles but the term AA and BA being used as interchangeable, which "I" believe is kinda dumb , you can't equal racial and ethnic optics , those are separate things or so I believe . Mike, the regular nose job (talk) 21:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

that is not what african American means. If someone is from africa their specific country is mention , example nigerian American. African American is the name of a specific ethnic group whose legacy goes back 400 plus years in the states. Danfranc37 (talk) 05:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Name change possibility

Since the subject is African-Americans. shouldn't the description also include "formerly Negroes" too for historical accuracy? 47.146.38.207 (talk) 02:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

We could do a quick analysis of terms used throughout the censuses as seen at....Cohn, D’Vera (2010-01-21). "Race and the Census: The "Negro" Controversy". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 2025-01-08. Moxy🍁 04:06, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

The term "Negro" was used for Africans around the world, not just in America, and the term "American Negro" was never historically in use. Forgression.dylvnes (talk) 22:29, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Kamala Harris is Not African American!

Kamala Harris is the child of immigrants whose parents arrived in America in the early 60s. African Americans are the Descendants of Slavery who arrived in America in 1619 via the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Please remove Kamala Harris from this article. Stop intertwining the American Descendants of Slavery with immigrants! 2601:C4:4401:CC10:E9B3:1C5F:D1AF:1D3D (talk) 05:23, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

You are imposing an overly narrow definition of "African American". She has partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. Her father Donald J. Harris was born in Jamaica of African ancestry. You would need to show that most reliable sources do not call her African-American but they widely do, and Wikipedia summarizes what reliable sources say. Cullen328 (talk) 05:46, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

The very definition of African American used at the top of the article would exclude Harris and Obama from being considered African American. Cchiare (talk) 19:13, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

"Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa." No it doesn't. And if you read the WP:LEAD again, don't miss the qualifiers. Perhaps you'll also find the rest of the article interesting. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:22, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Interestingly, though, the article does go into the controversy about calling Obama and Harris "African Americans", since they both descend from Black immigrants. This info has been systematically excluded from the lede when I've tried to add it. Just FYI. natemup (talk) 22:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

That is ethnic erasure!!! The entire article specifically states that african americans is an ethnic group with a specific legacy. To then suggest that kamala or Obama is one when they have no ties to slavery in the states is ethnic erasure. Danfranc37 (talk) 05:51, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

And that specific legacy is "Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa." Read the article again. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:56, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

The black racial group part has to be that they have a legacy in America and are descendants of slavery. Stop the ethnic erasure Danfranc37 (talk) 01:54, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

"Has to be" is your ideology/preference. The aim of this website is to summarize the WP:RS on a subject. You may or may not find this 2020 article interesting:

"As of this writing, the Kamala Harris article on Wikipedia says, accurately: “She is the first African American and the first Asian American to be chosen as the running mate of a major party’s presidential candidate.” That’s after 295 edits and more than 19,000 words of debate in less than 24 hours. All that debate matters; Harris’s Wikipedia article was viewed nearly 8.6 million times on Tuesday and Wednesday alone. But attempts to de-Americanize her background seem likely to survive whatever consensus Wikipedians could reach." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 04:41, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the IP. Historically, Black Americans or African Americans are American Black citizens who trace descent to the Atlantic Slave Trade. Many Black immigrants do not tend to identify with the term as stated in the lead. To lump every Black person (or someone with alleged distant or minute Black/African ancestry, or possibly no verifiable Black African ancestry all all) is like errasure of Black American identity - who are already a minority in the US. The American definition of "Blackness" and the African definition of "Blackness" are totally different. In Africa, even if she had dominant and clearly visible Black African traits, she would still be regarded as mixed-race, not Black. Although Kamala is often reported as African American and Indian American, there is no credible evidence that she has any Black African ancestry in her. Her father being from Jamaica makes no difference, because Jamaican is a nationality, not an ethnicity/race. There are Black, White, and Asian Jamaicans, and everything in between. If she has any Black African ancestry in her, it might be so small and distant compared to her dominant racial makeup - which is Indian and White Irish. Kamala told us in her book (The Truths We Hold: An American Journey) that the two Black elderly women depicted are her grandmother and great grandmother, and the Black man her uncle. However, after thoroguh genealogical researcher by Candace Owens (regardless of what one thinks of her views), and narratives from family members and friend of the family streching decades, it all turned out to be a hoax, and Kamala in fact, has no blood ties to those Black people, and was forced to come out and clarify the claims she made in her book (as well as her father's claims in his essay regarding their origins). After her ousting, she came and admitted that at least the man has no blood relation to her, and that, he was a nice man and she used to call him uncle... There are so many contradictions in Kamala and her father's accounts regarding their race/ethnicity it beggars belief. Also, in the young readers' edition of that book, she removed those pictures, which was very strange. How could you keep innocent pictures in the adult version, yet remove them from the young version! Children like picture books. And would make sense that the pics are kept in the children's book. This of course happened after she was uncovered. I totally agree with the IP. On top of that, one must be weary of another Rachel Dolezal moment. What we know is that she is mostly Indian and Irish, and her Irish ancestry seems to have been omitted from this article altogher. There is no mention of her Irish ancestry - as admitted to by her paternal uncle. The claims she has made about her own racial/ethnic identity does not add up at all, and that makes me want to ask, why? I personally do not believe there is any Black blood in that woman, but that's neither here nor there. And even if she has, the correct term would be Mixed-race, not Black. Tamsier (talk) 23:33, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Exactly! Well said! Danfranc37 (talk) 01:59, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

• I'm pretty sure they had slavery in Jamaica as well as the United States, and that Kamala's father is descended from some of those African-American (American = anywhere on the American continents) slaves _pbp 02:43, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2025

The total population African American is correct because of other African immigrants or black immigrants and the other African immigrants or black immigrants do not have a slave history 159.100.88.106 (talk) 16:03, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. LizardJr8 (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 March 2025

Request to add

See also: African-American leftism, African-American socialism, Black anarchism, Black liberalism, and Black populism

under African Americans#Politics

116.14.127.63 (talk) 11:25, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 April 2025

Obama and kamala are not african Americans. They do not share the same lineage. The paragraph suggesting Obama and Kamala are african american after the entire page talks about african Americans being a specific ethnic group should be removed. They are black Americans, not african American Danfranc37 (talk) 05:48, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Day Creature (talk) 02:53, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

request a correction and clarification

Hello, I’d like to request a correction and clarification regarding the use of the term "African American" in this article.

The term “African American” specifically refers to Black Americans who are descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States—those whose lineage is directly tied to the legacy of chattel slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement. This ethnic group is distinct from Black immigrants and their children, whose cultural, historical, and social experiences are different.

Both Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are of Black heritage, but neither are descendants of American slavery. Obama’s father was Kenyan; Harris’s father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian. Labeling them as “African American” in the ethnic sense erases the specific history and legacy of U.S.-born Black Americans whose families were enslaved and systematically oppressed for centuries on U.S. soil.

This distinction is increasingly recognized in both academic and cultural conversations, and it is important for historical accuracy and respect for different Black identities.

Proposed edit: Replace “African American” with “Black” when describing their identity, or clarify that they are of Black immigrant descent and not African American in the ethnic or historical sense.

Supporting sources:

Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic

Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

NPR: “Why Some Black Americans Are Rejecting the Term ‘African American’” https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/887836148/why-some-black-americans-are-rejecting-the-term-african-american

This text was added on 11 April 2025 by user:Danfranc37 and given a section title and moved down by me. Lova Falk (talk) 16:49, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

As a response to user:Danfranc37, to replace “African American” with “Black” will not gain consensus because most black people (more than a billion) are not American. There has also been a recent discussion about changing the title “African American” into Black Americans (See Talk:African Americans/Archive 25#Requested move 27 March 2023) and the consensus was to not change it. Friendly, Lova Falk (talk) 07:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 20 April 2025

African Americans → African-Americans – Wiktionary has wikt:African American as the alternative form of wikt:African-American. I guess Afro-American took off first, but now an incorrect/racistly avoiding the w:Hyphenated American controversy retronym was made. Lumbering in thought (talk) 02:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). Lumbering in thought (talk) 03:58, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I've taken a gander at the history and come away with the impression that debates have been had just with no one willing to put it to a vote/RFC. In 2004 deeceevoice(talk) who was in favor of the move to hyphenated dismissed the actual popularizer Jesse Jackson, because they seemed, tragically, more focused on winning the argument. It seems long overdue to make this change because of pages like w:African-American culture and my first reason. Lumbering in thought (talk) 03:58, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Support moving page to African-Americans

• Support When quantifying quotation amount on Wiktionary, w:African-American culture, and w:Anglo-American (the one I checked before I did this), it should change. However I indeed now checked w:German Americans and can see all the related ethnic groups on that page were formatted this new way, which was surprising. However, this still seems parochial to Wikipedia, especially since w:Anglo-Saxons seems to be left out simply because it's not on the American groups page yet a massively influential group historically, and they used to be hyphenated so much that Woodrow and Roosevelt made a federal case out of it. Lumbering in thought (talk) 17:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  Note: Lumbering in thought is the nominator. Steel1943 (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  And refactored the ongoing discussion to highlight this addition. Dekimasuよ! 04:37, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose moving page to African-Americans

I have concerns about this proposal. I want to WP:BIKESHED the design before agreeing to anything. Lumbering in thought (talk) 17:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:DASH. I indeed support the page move, but NOT the proposed title. I prefer this page to moved as African–Americans (with en-dash), or if unnecessary, create that redlink as a redirect to proposed title. 103.111.102.118 (talk) 04:26, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. Normally the hyphenated form is an adjective, and the non-hyphenated form is a noun. The current title follows WP:NOUN and is WP:CONSISTENT with other articles in Category:Ethnic groups in the United States, such as Asian Americans, White Americans, and Hispanic and Latino Americans. The hyphenated form would be appropriate if the title were African-American people, which would be consistent with Category:African-American people, but I don't see a particular need to make that change. (For what it's worth, I closed what was probably the most recent move request at Talk:African Americans/Archive 25#Requested move 27 March 2023, where there was consensus against a move to Black Americans.) Dekimasuよ! 06:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  Like real-time and real time, interesting. However, I would argue it's possible to view it as African-American person, and it leaves room for that to work. Lumbering in thought (talk) 17:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. As Dekimasu says, it is consistent with other articles. Lova Falk (talk) 07:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dekimasu, somehow we don’t have an article on Compound adjectives but see this. Article titles are nouns (WP:NOUN) Kowal2701 (talk) 15:43, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dekimasu, Kowal2701. I agree the title is a noun; another way to look at this is African here is the adjective and it modifies American(s), much like it can modify other nouns, as in African diaspora or African studies. Compound modifiers are discussed at MOS:HYPHEN; any concerns regarding African-American culture and the like should be taken up separately. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 18:22, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  First, everything in the manual of style is geared towards language that hasn't evolved yet w:Manual_of_Style#Contested_vocabulary. This language has clearly evolved already, for the reason that American people exist. It should be dawning on everyone how messed up "American people" exist but "American person" doesn't in this rubric. Lumbering in thought (talk) 19:17, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think you meant to link WP:Manual_of_Style#Contested_vocabulary but I don't follow how this applies. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 14:12, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Discussion of moving page to African-Americans

Anglo-Saxon people = Anglo-Saxon people

Anglo-Saxons = Anglo-Saxon persons

Anglo-Saxon = Anglo-Saxon person Lumbering in thought (talk) 19:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

wikt:/wiki/alien#Noun As a noun, the use is sometimes derogatory? So wouldn't it be wiser to treat it less like a noun, say, by not having it be illegal alien, and instead illegal-alien? So I would argue it's better to treat it not as a substantive noun but as a noun adjunct. Admittedly it IS a noun in both cases. wikt:Appendix:Glossary#attributive Lumbering in thought (talk) 20:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Anglo-, Afro-, Franco-, Sino-, etc. are combining forms and always take a hyphen. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 14:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC)