From: htoaster@yabbs
To: rick@yabbs
Subject: re: question?
Date: Thu Feb 24 09:39:22 1994

In message question?, rick said:
> I would like to pose a question to the masses... If a white south african 
> moves to the u.s. and becomes a citizen of the U.S. does that make him a 
> African American. Think about it...does this mean a total change in the 
> tittle that the black americans have placed on them selves. and why must 
> balck americans have a different labels for them selves. Is the tittle of 
> American not sufficient for all..

no, not really (my father has done the above, he was born in s. africa, and
became a US citizen in the '70s).  If you look at the white culture there it
is really about the farthest thing from African, and really much more English
(at least this is what I have seen in my multiple trips to Zimbabwe).  You 
could argue that the culture is somewhat of a mixture of the two, but it
still isn't the much different culture of the native Africans that were
there originally.  

The problem with the title of American is that it doesn't take into account
the previous history of ones culture.  American culture is still largely
based on the white anglo-saxan culture of western europe, even though a 
large percentage of our citizens come from other lands.  African American
is a just a term that tries to accept this, and show that yes, while they
are Americans, they also realize that they orginally came from a much
different culture and would still like to understand that.

alex