this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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[–] imsufferableninja@sh.itjust.works 97 points 3 months ago (4 children)
[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 62 points 3 months ago (2 children)

... I guess as opposed to the Elon kind of African American?

[–] Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

… or perhaps like Egyptian immigrants

… or black English immigrants

[–] BussyGyatt@feddit.org 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

"African American" is such a weird subset of people. Like, aren't all humans from Africa? Then why is this term used only for black people?

Or do they mean to specify the African diaspora caused by the slave trade? But then aren't we wrongfully including people who moved freely on their own to the US, and those that may even come from other regions?

I get that the word is basically a synonym for black people but with less attached prejudice. I'm just sad that we live in a world where that prejudice still exists.

[–] NotSteve_@piefed.ca 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The term and all the other -american prefixes has always weirded me out. It feels othering with a veil of progressiveness. I often find US progressives almost loop back around to enacting segregation again

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[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 13 points 3 months ago

I mean, elmo is technically (South) African American and white as snow

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Covering all the bases 😀

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm gonna start bringing a portable clothes iron around to get out the creases from activist flags, it's not a huge deal but it just always irks me a little. Their image would be even more impressive with a nice creaseless flag.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The cheap, thin nylon is incredibly easy to melt. I buy a new, thick Pride flag every June for my house as the old one is tattered and faded by then. Usually run it through the steam dryer 2-3 times and then hang it out on a nice hot day, and the wrinkles relax. An iron is easy to overdo it with as I learned with a cheap Trans Pride flag one year.

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[–] deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip 19 points 3 months ago (4 children)

A black African American, as opposed to white African American

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 months ago (4 children)

That's technically true but I think if you called him African American he'd go apeshit

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago

I can't imagine a conversation where he wouldn't sound apeshit.

[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

YES!

Let’s all refer to him as an African immigrant every time he’s mentioned, cause all immigrants are bad right? What’s good for the goose..

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[–] modus@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sorry someone beat you to it

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[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 10 points 3 months ago

I'll never forget when a American tourist told my friend that he's glad to meet another African American, and my friend said: mate, i'm swiss

[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 3 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Have you ever seen an algerian

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[–] SirMaple__@lemmy.ca 19 points 3 months ago
[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 months ago
[–] gjoel@programming.dev 12 points 3 months ago (6 children)
[–] FundMECFS@quokk.au 12 points 3 months ago

Whether or not the grammar is technically correct he makes a good point.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah I thought it was just "evil".

[–] thymos@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 months ago

That word struck me too, but it's in the dictionary and apparently it's from Old English "yfelnes".

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[–] svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 3 months ago

A black African-American person of colour, no less!

[–] mohammed_alibi@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I just wanna know what company is making all these flags...

[–] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The same ones that sell the "back the blue" flags.

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I saw a flag seller in 2020 with a pole flying Trump, Biden, Jolly Roger, USSR, Bass Pro Shop, Weimar Germany, My Little Pony, ACAB, they are the true centrists of our time.

[–] nomy@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago

Can't really blame the guy. Being a flag seller was his lifelong dream and nobody buys flags like ideologies.

[–] FatTony@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Props to him, but the text on the shirt is a little forced.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"evil" would had sufficed.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I thought exactly that. Opened the post, upvoted this thread.

However couldn't not Google it, and it may be on purpose.

evilness

noun

evil·​ness

: the quality of being evil : badness

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evilness

While it does sound better with just "evil", I wonder if they wished to exactly convey that what is being created is the quality of being evil in some people. All in all, that goes under the umbrella of evil, sure. But if we replace "evilness" with "badness", it no longer sounds worse than the alternative, just "inequality creates bad". Ofc you can't compare directly like that, I'm just trying to make the point that black civil activist haven't historically been that bad at language use, so perhaps we're just feeling the more colloquial version but that this may be prescriptively better, idk.

I'm no languinolologist.

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[–] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago
[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

African American? Did they or their parents recently immigrate from Africa? Are they invested in African politics? Do they at least adopt some form of African cultural identity? Otherwise, they are just Americans.

Elon Musk is more of an African American than people judged by the color of their skin given how much he has tried to push his own agendas regarding South Africa onto this administration.

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

you know what "African-American" means, stop being obtuse, you just sound ridiculous

[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

We all know what people mean by it; they mean "black" but are scared to say it for whatever reason.

I think criticism of the term "African-American" is valid. Most black people in America today have never been to Africa.

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[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

My beef is with Americans saying "I am an X American" when what they really mean is "I try to LARP as X at times in whatever my American bubble says they do". But specially with African American. It's black. Black. Black. Say it with me. Black. No negative connotation (except people's own insecurities), just a simple oversimplified label like any other of its sort.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Elon Musk is more of an African American than people judged by the color of their skin

If Musk was truly a first generation African American, he'd have been deported already.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 months ago

He has the White-Pass

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Love the pearl clutching from the "let's go Brandon" crowd.

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