Black vs. African-American

So if a black Brazilian comes to the U.S., is it proper to call him African-American? Does that really make sense? Isn’t Brazilian-American more accurate? I dunno, the “African-American” thing is confusing to me because it’s about color, not about culture. I’m going to say the term is more demeaning to culture because it says all there is to identity is the color of your skin. Is that not demeaning? So even if your cultural history is say Brazilian, how you look makes you an African-American? I dunno, I would think so.

So I’m in favor of just “black”, just like there’s “white”. Whites can be Italian-American, Polish-American, whatever. Or some have been here so long and are so mixed they’re just white Americans. Similarly, Blacks can be Brazilian-Americans, Dominican-Americans, Nigerian-Americans and whatever. Or just black Americans. I dunno, that to me just seems more respectful of the many cultures that black people come from than just using African-American for anyone who looks black.

Not sure what the implications are for Asians then though. Hmm.