I don't think you understand where the term African American comes from or why it was coined.
There are many reasons why the term was coined, but one of the reasons is, a lot of people don't know their roots, as their ancestors were brought from Africa as slaves, and they have no idea where exactly their ancestors came from, they just know they came from somewhere in Africa. Any other ethnic group, they know their roots, they know where they came from: Italians, Irish, etc etc etc etc.

If I'm describing a random asiain on the street : I say: that asian guy.

But I say white and black because Caucasian, and African are a mouthful.

I don't take offense to people calling me white and call me a shameless person, but I feel no white guilt for any slavery and bigotry in the past that my ancestors may have or not been apart of.

If its someone i know...I use their name.

Hehe, I remember when I was in my school some Indian guy start calling me all sorts of names because I was white.
So obviously I start calling him all sorts of names because he was black.

I had to write out 2 pages of my English book....

All skin tones are a shade of yellow. Everyone is yellow. Black (Brown) being near the end of the spectrum, with reduced green and redness. White (Peach?) being near the beginning of the spectrum with fair amounts of every RGB shading. Everything else is fluctuations of RGB and monochromatic shading.

Well EVERYTHING is fluctuations of RGB and monochromatic shading but White/Black being the predominance of racial profiling, I said as stated. :3

Blacks used to be African and Australian aborigine exclusives. Dark skin provides better protection against ultraviolet radiation (while reducing D-vitamin production, making large size necessary, which makes them perfect for physical labor and thus their use as slaves). No other place on Earth have truly "black" people as other equatorial territories are occupied by immigrants or are water, though many Asian peoples on the equator could be count as "dark skinned" as well as some "native" Mediterraeans.


Though I'm baffled why would anyone be offended by calling Asians "yellow" if they look like it or "Africans" black, while nobody has problem with "white".

West Indians?

Dang, but ain't the sheriff quick on th' draw..


Don't call a marine 'yellow', cuz we ain't.

Thick, maybe.. prone to getting into extremely dangerous situations.. yup.. jarheads


Now, if someone called someone else he was purple.. or ocker.., mauve... passion fruit.. -it's a color!

That would irritate me.

But...you are yellow.

Just look at your avatar.

You're soooo lucky I don't feel like crossing two islands and a continent to give you the wedgy of a lifetime, boy-o



Anyway, don't listen to Fanner, he's Maltese, and clearly insane.

I get really tired of all this "what about my free speech?" and "if they can say it, why can't I?" type of attitudes. It just seems really insensitive to me to go around forcing "racial" labels on people as if they are a primary indicator of who those people are. Sure, if you're in a crowd of white people and you for some reason you need to point out someone that's not white, it makes sense to say "the black dude over there", but in personal conversations with people to just say something like "you're black, that's what you are" and/or possibly using terms which have volatile historical connotations completely smacks of a sense of cultural privilege in which one thinks that they can say whatever they please and other people just have to deal with it, because hey, they're "just words" and "words don't hurt me." What a load of crap.

http://209.85.48.9/10648/138/emo/pjr-moony.png.gif

It depends on the situation, if someone has been a victim of racism obviously it is innapropriate, however just kidding around with a friend isn't hurting anyone.

Generally people can read a situation with friends and know what is and isn't appropriate.

Sure, that depends on your personal relationship with that other person, though I generally think it's ground I wouldn't want to break in the first place to even find out if the other person is okay with it. I can also see someone in that situation thinking "oh hey cool, I can say racist crap to my friend of color, how edgy!" and just driving it into the ground until the other person gets annoyed.

Agreed, racism and racist names is still such a social taboo that it should really be avoided in any relationship, be it between you and that guy on the street or you and your mum

"Ya, so my friend, he's yellow, and well, you know, he ate some beans yesterday....
"My yellow aisan friend ate some beans yesterday...
"My asian friend ate some beans yesterday...
"My friend ate some beans yesterday...
"My friend, who's not from around here, ate some beans yesterday...

I try to catch myself by asking myself "what does (adjective) have to do with anything that I'm saying?" or with person-first language.

Well, when it comes to certain terms, I can understand the frustration. As you said, there are some times when it really is important to be able to use racial labels, but the appropriateness of various labels is constantly changing. After several failed attempts to be polite, I can easily imagine why someone might just give up.

You should all stop being so purple

Reverse Racism.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/24/Prince_PurpleRain_single.jpg/220px-Prince_PurpleRain_single.jpg


I'm fairly certain I already responded to this post but the reason for this is (or was, it's largely irrelevant nowadays) is because black people didn't enslave white people or degrade them and deprive them of rights to vote and use public transport, up until recently this was a relatively recent time and many people remembered not having rights, so it hurts more to have someone debase you when you or your parents had to fight for equality as opposed to having already had it.

well i have an asian friend...i can't really type what the horrible things i say to him....he says equally horrible things to me, so its probably cool. Anyway i try not to push racial comments with friends of a different race...until they start in, makes things way less awkward.

Yes the color wheel is definitely throwing a wrench into our fun...and where's green during all of this? He's off having a grand old time in the Alps.

Asia has people of many different colours so calling someone from asia yellow doesn't make much sence to me but I don't see it as racist. If your friend thinks its racist then you should stop it. Calling someone Yellow to me means you are calling them a coward.

Honestly, it depends on the situation. i have a group of friends where we all make race jokes and stuff on each other. We never believe them, but damn they are funny. Heck, one of my buddies is Mexican and even he makes American stereotype jokes against Mexicans. Although, I would not do it to some other more sensitive people I know I know a bunch of redneck people (mainly wannabe rednecks), but I do not call them any type of bad name or anything because I know they will shove their boot so far up my (take a wild guess) that their knee sweat will quench my thirst.

People often seem to forget that India, the Middle East and Russia are all in Asia too.