What is the difference bewteen a black american and a african american?

Question

what does it mean to be one and not the other?

Answer 1

i believe they are the same term. i think they only difference that their could possibly be is someone coming straight from africa to america vs. a black family that has been in america and established roots.  

Answer 2

I thought maybe because Black Americans have never been to Africa. I could be wrong.

Answer 3

Black Americans are from the US Africans are from africa

Answer 4

The name.

Answer 5

African-Americans can also be from Israel, Egypt,Libya ,Morocco ,Tunisia .... while Black Americans are usually not from those places

Answer 6

A black American is an American who is black.

An African/American is a black person who was born in Africa but now lives in America.  It is also something which most black Americans pretend to be but are not.  No matter how much they want to be, in most cases they are not African.

Answer 7

African American refers to someone who came from or descended from Africa who is an American Citizen.  Black American can refer to someone who is dark skinned but is not always descended from Africa but maybe an island like Jamaica or Haiti.  

Answer 8

Nothing it's the same thing. African American is just a politically correct term.

edit: Fly girl  & Guitar Virgin are wrong, African American has always been a PC term for Black Americans. It does not mean a African now living in America (although it should be). Trust me, if you talk to an African living here they will not consider themselves African American...they consider

themselves African.

edit: Fly girl, I consider myself Black American, too, but she asked what does the word mean (not what I preferred to be called) and that's what it means, whether it is PC or not.

Answer 9

Nothing. They're both exactly the same, except one term is more politically correct than the other.

Answer 10

Same thing. Black is African and African is Black (in some cases)

Answer 11

I don't use the terms interchangeably.

A black American is an American who is descended from African slaves in the United States. These are the black people who have a long history in this country. They are not African in their culture, language, or customs even though there are still traces of Africanisms in the group.

An African American technically is someone who has a direct link to the continent of Africa- of any race. For example, a person or his parents who immigrated here from a country in Africa. These are the true African Americans.

**African American is the latest politically correct term for blacks in America yet it is very inaccurate and divisive in suggesting that black people are not true Americans.

EDIT-

Choc: You are giving the PC/white society's definition of the term. The word African American has not always been employed. Before that it was black. "African American" is maybe 20 some years old. It came about as a sort of PC way to describe black folks and it is not accurate at all.

Many black Americans do not consider themselves African American and I am one of them. We are not African. Who is Jesse Jackson/mainstream to tell me that I am African American? I know I am of African descent at some level but I cannot trace my African ancestry all the way to Africa. I wouldn't know which African ethnicity they belong to. I don't know what their cultures and traditions are. I don't know their languages. When Africans stepped off the boats into the Americas, they were at the forefront of developing a new culture in the new world which has retained African mannerisms at some levels but also forged with European and Native American customs as well. They became what is today the "Black American." Far removed from Africa but still with some traces of the continent. We are members of the diaspora and many of us have pride to have African ancestry yet we are also Americans who are black.

EDIT- Choc, It's not the same thing. It goes beyond preference. The truth must start somewhere. If we continue to give this definition, we are merely recycling inaccuracies. Yes, some people use the terms to mean one and the same but a lot of people don't agree with it. African American does not mean Black American to many black folks. That must be validated at some level. Why should other people be able to define what American blacks are and that be the say all-end all?