Welcome back to the world, USA

[VonDondu]

Descent=lineage; ancestry

Is the child born in America? If so, he is American, wheter his parents were Italian or not.
Is he born in Italy? Then he is Italian American.

Can an Italian child be accepted as adoptive child if it doesn't have the american nationality?

A clarification is in order. Here in America, children and grandchildren of immigrants often retain their identity as Italian Americans, Irish Americans, etc. You might see references to "third generation Italian Americans". An Italian American is someone who says, "My ancestors came to America from Italy, and I am proud to remember their culture and their language and the 'old ways', and my children will also be Italian Americans." It's not about national citizenship.

Personally, I don't think it's about race, either. Just because someone's ancestors were Italian, that doesn't make him an Italian American. He is an Italian American if he retains his cultural identity as an Italian while being an American citizen.

I apologize for the confusion. I was just trying to use a hypothetical example to prove a point. In reality, I don't think an Italian American woman would give up her child for adoption to a non-Italian American family. To make a small joke, "At least not unless the new family promised to raise the child as a Catholic." My point is that once the cultural connection is severed, whether by time, separation, or by choice, a person is no longer an "Italian American".

[SupaCat]

Do black people in America take offense of the word African-American? I mean, African isn't as specific as Italian or Irish, when I hear African-American it sounds like it doesn't matter which country you came from, you just have to be from Africa.

[VonDondu]

Do black people in America take offense of the word African-American? I mean, African isn't as specific as Italian or Irish, when I hear African-American it sounds like it doesn't matter which country you came from, you just have to be from Africa.

I've tried to address issues like that in my previous messages. Personally, I prefer the term "black person" because it is analogous to "white person" without any cultural implications. But unfortunately, ANY term for black people is a "loaded" word because black people have always been treated as second class citizens by the mainstream (or even worse, as non-humans even until recently). It's a very hurtful stigma, and black people have tried to reject the negative identity other people have given them, and they have tried to develop their own positive cultural identity. As a term for racial background, "black" is a lot better than the old terms such as "Negro" or "colored" because of their negative historical connotations. But the term "black" only describes the color of their skin, and it does not give them an identity they can be proud of. Therefore, many black people in America choose to call themselves African Americans to give themselves a cultural identity on a par with other cultural groups who are respected, such as Italian Americans or Irish Americans. Personally, I don't know anyone who objects to being called an African American, but that's not definitive. To most black people, being called African American is better than being called black.

Being African American does not mean that your immediate family immigrated from Africa; it means you're a black person who is proud to part of the black community in America. That's the simplest explanation I can think of.

As I said earlier, I have some trouble understanding when the African American community claims a person as one of their own just because his skin is black. I think they want "African American" to be synonymous with "black American". I think it's important to ask, how does that individual feel about being given such a label? But like I said, I personally don't know anyone who objects to being called an African American.

There's one thing that white people in America take for granted: we can call ourselves whatever we want. We can be "German American" or we can be "white". We can even refuse to be designated by any racial term; we have the legal right not to answer when someone asks for our race. But unfortunately, anyone with dark skin is at a disadvantage. Most people don't pay any attention to the fact that I'm white, but a black person is always identified as a black person. Every day, it's a struggle for them to elevate their status. "Your ancestors were from Europe, and my ancestors were from Africa. We are equals, and we can both be proud." That's all they want.

[Lady Dragonfly]

Just to add something. To be fair and balanced, you know.

Firstly, the black community did not accept Obama as African American right away. I remember some black journalists debated this 'issue' on TV. Obama was not black enough for them at the time. If memory serves, one lady even wrote a book on the topic.

Secondly, it is unfair to claim that racism is unilateral. Unfortunately, hatred towards 'whities' is a well-known fact. The whole Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy was about his hateful speeches.
Also, there are neighbourhoods a white person cannot enter without running a serious risk of being beaten or killed.
There is no justification for any kind of racism, no matter who is spewing hatred.

[Nightmare]

People are so very quick to point their fingers at the US with the label of "racist," and yes... it is racist in many areas... The KKK still exist, the country's history bears a horrifying similarity to that in South Africa. All of this is true...

However, can we imagine a person of First Nations descent becoming Prime Minister in Canada? Can we imagine a Muslim from Algeria or Tunisia becoming the President of France? Can we imagine a Turkish leader in Germany? Can we imagine somebody of Korean or Ainu descent becoming Prime Minister in Japan? I could go on... but I don't think I really need to

Rick Mercer (an excellent Canadian political comedian for you non-Canadians) had a great rant on his show earlier in the year during the US primaries, and when Canada looked like it may be heading towards an election. He pretty much said that, despite the fact that Canadians love to see Americans as backwards, they had a black man, a woman, a Mormon with funny hair, and a guy who spent five years in a bamboo cage all seriously running for President.

Conversely, Canadians had a pudgy white guy, a skinny white guy, and some other white guy.

[url="http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/video.html"]Here's his video archive.[/url] It's "Rick's Rant", one of the videos in the January 29th episode from Season Five.

Which, well, sort of illustrates your point.

[Maharlika]

Proud to say that [url="http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/news/view/20081107-170697/2-RP-studes-invited-to-Obama-oath-taking"]two of my former students have been invited to attend Obama's oath-taking[/url].

[dragon wench]

Proud to say that [url="http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/news/view/20081107-170697/2-RP-studes-invited-to-Obama-oath-taking"]two of my former students have been invited to attend Obama's oath-taking[/url].

When I told my 13-yr-old son this he practically swooned with envy

The lad has developed a certain amount of hero worship, lol! I have told him that he has to realise Obama is only human, that he can't possibly fulfill all the expectations upon him (especially given the grave economic situation), and that he will inevitably make mistakes. Still though, there are worse role models out there, that's for sure.

[fable]

Without wanting to dampen anybody's enthusiasm for Obama, I would like to point back to his record. It's something I did regularly when King George was running in 1999, pointing out that far from being a compassionate man who seeks consensus, as his image handlers were making out, he was a social arch-conservative and an inflexible, dictatorial manager as Texas governor. Of course nobody cared, but I'm used to having a Cassandra complex, by now.

Anyway.

Obama's voting record is interesting. In the most conservative Congress in the modern history of the US, he ranked 33 from the "progressive end" of the spectrum, according to a Congressional Office statistical analysis. Since the parties were split pretty evenly in the Senate, this means Obama was not even in the more progressive-to-moderate half of his own politically disparate party. On many votes, he has sided with what are known as the Blue Dogs--the Democratic senators like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu who stayed with Bush more often than against him.

This isn't to say that Obama is Bush, Jr. He doesn't want a unitary presidency, and does want the US to move back to the international role it previously had before Cheney and his PNAC allies in the White House dramatically shifted its course. But there's no major evidence for Obama thinking outside the box. I don't expect there will be major efforts made to extend feelers towards Iran, Syria, or Palestine. His pragmatism will probably make dealing with Russia a lot easier, but he's far from being the revolutionary agent of change that he's depicted as. I would expect, on the basis of his previous votes and expressed opinions, for Obama to be a cautious moderate, which for the US at this time, may mean someone quite radical after 8 years of Bush--and which probably means something along the lines of Angela Merkel, politically speaking. We may get universal health care, but I don't think we'll see any prosecutions for the numerous, well-documented crimes committed under the Bush administration.

[Kaer]

I always found it interesting how we define things by race rather than by cultural differences. I may go to school in a place where there are about equal Asian and White students attending, but that does not mean that there are equal "cultural groups". I'd say that while Canadians and British people are predominant, German, Russian and other European peoples quickly appear. In my first year, I met more people from other countries than from my own, but I am defined in the same group as a women who grew up learning communist tennants and with a man who spent the first nine years of his life scrounging food in East Europe.

I think Canadians like to feel better because we had a women in the top spot... for however long that was, long before the Americans had begun showing more than white men in the running. We might have had a bunch of pasty whities running this year but they all managed to piss us off in entirely different ways, which I think matters more for diversity than actual race. =P Plus, many people look to our House of Commons and compare it to pictures of the American senate, and feel more secure in saying "Hey, I see more international backgrounds in there than the senate".

We've had less than 40 parliaments and the native population is at about 1.3 million out of... whatever Canada is at now, 33.5 million? We aren't too far past a native's turn in office! =P I think the major driving factor that there hasn't been a native in office has been a lack of native votes and the controversial issues of native rights which come to the table -- specifically, the economical bonuses that native Americans get and some of the more militant activities which have been witnessed just over the past 50 years which is likely still in the forefront of a few people's minds. Plus, getting into politics is easier when you have someone giving you a helping hand, and the majority of helping hands are going to be white if they come from a previous government, going out to friends or family or the like who are interesting in trying their hands at politics. Either way, a person representing me correctly is by far much more important to me than race.

I'm actually happy that the election is over because this means the endless advertisements on TV (as little as I watch it), the computer and even in my reading material is done with. =D I have to admit, though, I'm at more unease with this election, not so much the results but how the results were obtained. This is not the only site I am a member of, I actually came here from a much larger one since the RPG stuff sort of gets drowned out with Gears of War and Halo discussion. I came back again to get some peace and quiet from the release of Mirror's Edge and one or two other names which are hitting the market.

There was a lot of discussion with Obama, but there was a very serious undercurrent I noticed. There was a lot of people who were mentioning that race played a very large contributing factors, both ways. Affirmative action played a big part as people wanted to "play a part in history" or vote for the black guy to prove that they weren't racist. Others said that some were voting for McCain purely to keep the black folks out of office. One kid even said there had been a group of gentlemen chanting KKK -- gentlemen as in well into retirement. In fact, the amount of times race was brought up, rather than actual platforms and directions things are going, was apalling, not only on that site but on many other sites around the 'net. It was getting to be a little depressing, and it was a topic of a lot of debate. When Obama and Clinton were running for the seat for the Democrats, I said in a thread that I expected them to win the seat because people were going to react negatively in general to the Republicans with Bush and they were going to vote for either Clinton or Hillary because they weren't white men (Affirmative action and so forth). I did not expect to really see my sentiment so clearly in view a few times over the course of the past few months.

So rather than saying that this is a step forth for America I'm leaning a bit more to wondering if this has more unfolding the depth of the reactions to race in America rather than showing it's something on the mend. What I do find interesting, though, is how it's the younger generation who tend to be lauding the new president's heritage and it's the older ones who are looking past race more to say "Yeah, we'll wait and see how he does in office before we really begin to applaud."

The above thinking of "Hey, maybe the whole black president thing isn't such a good thing" also derives from this election forcing segregation by making gay marriage illegal, but that's being downplayed in the light of many people celebrating the election of a Black president. It's very hard to look at an election as a positive event when a very large community is basically told that they don't get the same rights as the rest of the people in their country, especially in a place like California, which is supposedly very forward thinking, and a few other states as well. 8 states in total ran some form of proposition 8, I believe -- and several states passed that. I find it very hard to agree that this is a wonderful situation where there is underlying waves of discrimination occuring. The redefinition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman was on the election sheet, by the way. Don't forget that things like this are occuring during such a momentus occassion.

Ooh, that left a sour taste in my mouth. Just my thoughts.