I Take Issue With Being Called An African American…

By Joyce Davis

I was watching TMZ one day as they were interviewing Jay Caspian Kang on a book, he had just written called The Loneliest Americans. He explained how the term Asian American can make people feel displaced as there are a lot of nationalities from Asia and instead of taking time to learn people, we clump them into one big pile.

I have never liked the term African American. I did not come from Africa. Is Africa the only place Black people could have come from? Not every Black person came to America by way of Africa. It is not that I want to deny my roots but I want to understand why do they separate us in that way? Why can’t we just be Americans like White people? Not one White person came from this land. Yet for some reason if you are White, you are just an American. Not British American or Irish American, just American. Why do you think that is?

Mitch McConnell said “African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” Maybe this Freudian slip highlighted the fact that Republicans do not see Black voters as American. They put Americans behind the word African to make us think we are one of them but the truth of it all is they see us as a subculture. One more way to ‘other’ us.

There was an episode of the West Wing and President Bartlet said “those people don’t vote do they?” My sister and I watching the episode got a feel of how people view ‘others’. On so many levels we are considered other, those people. We really don’t talk about this on a regular basis. For instance, when Biden was running for President, he interviewed with Cardi B. People said they did not want her or people that talked like her to vote.

I don’t like being considered an ‘other’. I am an American. I have just as much value as a White American and I should just be able to go by the one name. American. Sadly, it will never be.

Hi my name is Joyce Davis and I am an American that happens to be Black. You can not define who I am from my color.

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