Many people have a question, how to say it correctly - "Negro" or "African American." A person wants to be correct and in no case hurt the feelings of belonging to another race, because the word "Negro" for some reason is considered offensive.
Representatives of the Negroid race, who live in the United States, but have full or partial descent from Africa, are commonly called African Americans.
Fight for rights
The word "Negro" itself has gone down in history since the time of the slavery of people, it was widely used in relation to black workers who worked on plantations all day. Slavers Spaniards and Portuguese for the first time introduced this designation, which meant "black", that is, the color of the skin of slaves.
Colloquial English word "nigger" often use themselves African American, podkalyvaya and joking over each other, but on the lips of the white man's word is considered offensive.
It is worth noting that even after the abolition of slavery, the Negroes fought for their rights equal to those of white-skinned people for a long time. And there was something to fight for, because colonial America considered Negroids to be third-class people. For example, a test was widespread in which an African American was forced to read the US Constitution and the entire declaration of independence. Many illiterate former slaves could not cope with this task, and therefore - the white colonialists considered - they could not participate in the elections and state their demands, in fact, thereby depriving blacks of the right to vote.
Terminology
With the adoption of the pact on the independence of blacks and their freedom, with the recognition of the right to citizenship, it became necessary to get rid of the word, which at that moment became a stigma and reminded of the slavish past of all black people.
A little later, at the official level, it was accepted that the concept of "Negro" is offensive. And so in the future they began to use the word "African American", i.e. American, but with African roots.
Currently, over 42 million African Americans live in the United States, part of this figure also belongs to mulattos, people with impurities of other cultures: Native American, Asian, and Latin American.
By the way, blacks were not called blacks everywhere, black men in Brazil 5 years ago were called "preto", and it was not offensive. Today, Brazil comes to a common term.
The natural growth of this race is about 13% of the total population of America annually. It is worth noting that during the years of slavery, there was practically no growth, this was due to difficult working conditions, high mortality from diseases. Thus, blacks must be called African-Americans in order to show respect for their history and for the fact that they had to fight for many years in order to have rights, like other citizens of the country.
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