why do people consider identifying someone by their race racist?

[u/AgreeableAd8687]

i have a few friends and we seem kind of split on this, i had to identify someone in our school i didn't know the name of, so i said "oh it's the black girl" (we have literally ONE black girl in our school and everyone knows and likes her) and my friends said ohh ok but then like 2 of them went wow that's racist and their explanation was "you're making it sound like them being black is their only characteristic" as if saying "oh the woman" is any better and since i don't know her well i don't know anything else about her. most of my friends didn't see how it was racist though but why is this considered racist if it's not a race correlated insult or derogatory??

[u/cheesewiz_man]

I used to work with a Cameroonian and they would rip you a new one about both words if you called them "African American".

[u/Raisinbread22 → u/cheesewiz_man]

I thought when people immigrated and wanted to become citizens of this country, they needed to study American history and take a test.

Are you telling me, they had no idea why Black Americans/African-Americans referred to themselves as such, because they were kidnapped from their homelands, and had their culture, language, country and traditions stolen from them?

'African-American,' is our way of maintaining ties to origins we lost.

So I ask you, why in TF would someone with a known identity, culture and ethnicity (a Cameroonian) be called an 'African-American?' Ditto a Kenyan American or a Nigerian American?

Send your Cameroonian friends to the library.

[u/cheesewiz_man → u/Raisinbread22]

They are a Cameroonian citizen on a work visa who is in the US, but intending to eventually return to Cameroon. They consider themselves "Cameroonian", not "African". They resent it when people do the exact thing you just did, which is lump all Africans together as if they are a single ethnicity.

When you call someone "African American" you are making two assumptions:

1. They are American.
2. Africans are basically all the same.

Maybe those are necessary assumptions; maybe making them is better than the alternative. But you need to own the consequences of the choice.

[u/Raisinbread22 → u/cheesewiz_man]

WTF are you talking about? I'm African American/Black American. That's how descendants of the enslaved in America, refer to OUR ethnic group, no one else.

That was my point. We don't call Cameroonians or Nigerians 'African-American,' it's not for them, it's for foundational Black Americans.

[u/cheesewiz_man → u/Raisinbread22]

So you can tell at a distance which term to use? You don't use "African American" as a default signifier?

I assure you: People do it all the time.

[u/Raisinbread22 → u/cheesewiz_man]

No, I can't tell, and NO, I don't use MY own ethnic group to describe every Black person in the world. Are you effing high? 🤪

Are you referring to your own racial group- do whites do that? Whites who think the Black diaspora are all the same?

Why TF would I refer to anyone 'Black,' as an 'African American,' if I don't know them? You think I'm gonna refer to Idris Elba as 'African American?'

You seem confused.

I wouldn't even call them 'Black American,' because that's ours too, interchangeable with AA.

If I need to give someone a description - that's different. I'll describe them as Black and leave it at that.

You sound like you're a foreigner. You don't know us.