September 27, 2004, 8:38 a.m.
Not Black and White Debating who qualifies as an “African American” misses the deeper point.
National Review
By J. A. Foster-Bey
It appears that all the major debates within the black community have been resolved. Education, economic development, jobs, civil rights, and war and peace are no longer pressing concerns for blacks — at least that’s the impression one might get from reading the headline and the opening paragraphs of a recent New York Times story “‘African-American’ Becomes a Term for Debate” by Rachel Swarns.
Many black immigrants who are currently U.S. citizens but who emigrated here from countries in Africa, such as Kenya or Ethiopia, are also calling themselves African Americans — that is, someone born in Africa but now a citizen of America. According to native-born blacks, however — blacks who are descendants of enslaved Africans — the term “African American” should not be applied to black immigrants. The debate becomes even more complicated when whites born in African countries, such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe, or South Africa, become naturalized U.S. citizens. They too can claim that they are African Americans.