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Originally Posted by nfotiu
Ellen Degeneres just got in a bunch of trouble for saying People of Color as it relates to the ongoing protests. The controversy there is that these protests are specifically about how Black people are treated.
Living in Virginia, I find that the people most likely to use African American are the ones trying hard not to seem racist, but have zero significant interactions with Black people and are the ones to slowly walk inside their house and lock the door if a Black teenager is walking down the street.
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I was watching some old civil rights activist videos on Youtube, and something that was mentioned a few times is how the word "black" was often used as a negative in Christianity and Western lore. I think it was James Baldwin that felt the Puritan God was a big reason for white supremacy ideology. This was was one of the reasons some black people started emphasizing "African" as an adjective.
"African" does sound very dignified to me, but considering how big and diverse Africa is, it is very broad. It also does create the notion that one group of people is exotic or foreign when that isn't the case.