Black or African-American?
I'm not sure if this belongs here, or where it will go. I figure that we're a respectful group of people who can discuss this calmly, and I really just need an opinion generated by tonight, so I can change the wording on a paper I'm writing (if necessary.)
I'm writing about Toronto, Ontario, for a business project. For our research section we needed to include information on race, percentages, etc... and as the Canadian statistical website put it, "Black - 8.3%." Clearly, there is no option to call them African-American, but should we refer to them as African-Canadian?
In some instances, I've known people to want to be referred to as African-American, while others have met the description with disdain. As one friend put it, "I'm not from Africa, I was born in Georgia, and that makes it sound like I'm less American." Of course, that was only one friend. To that extent, we have an organization on campus called the Black Business Students Association. It's not African-American Business Students Association. Since neither is difficult to say, I'm assuming there was a preference made, but.. I'm just not sure.
What would you guys do?
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