[LaMar]

There is a very long history behind the reason why people of Afican decent and other minorities in this country choose to identify themselves using hyphens in their cultural titles. But I’m just going to explain the African-American reason. Sometime during the 16th and 17th centuries Europeans began to call themselves White to differentiate themselves from Africans whom they referred to as Negros, which was Spanish for ‘black’ because the complexion of Africans is very dark. A more appropriate term would have been ‘brown’ because no Africans skin color is completely black. Over time, Negro became the word used to describe people of Afircan descent from the period of American slavery until the 1960’s and the Civil Rights Movement. The word negro is also where slaveholders derived the derougatory word ‘nigger.’ Because of the orgin of the word Negro, African-American leaders during the 1960’s decided they wanted to change the name in which they were referred to and thus came the names Afo-American and Black American, because of the slogan ‘Black is Beautiful.’ During the mid 1970’s through the late 1980’s, our politically correct name became Black Amercians. And now from the 1990’s through the present, its African-Americans. Many white people often wonder why we distiguish ourselves like that. It is because many Africans-Americans feel they have never been totally asymilated into American culture because of the injustices that we are faced with in this country, unlike people of Afican descent in other countries.

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Name : LaMar, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 22, City : Charlotte, State : NC, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

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