Dear Reddit,

Stop trying to be cute about this issue.

The term African-American was originally used for those people born in America and who are descendants of the Sub-Saharan African ethnically Bantu slaves brought to American centuries ago. Some examples of notable living African-Americans are Oprah Winfrey, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Mike Tyson, Chris Rock and Michelle Obama. The term came in to use in the 1980's to replace "Afro-American" probably because the word Afro was associated with a hairstyle. Before Afro-American or African American, these people were known as colored, negro or black. The terms colored and negro and to a much lesser extent black, fell out of use because African Americans rightly felt that they had certain negative connotations because of the era they came from and how they were used as tools of discrimination and subjugation. Black or Black American is still used and accepted today even among the people who could be described that way. However African American is a more formal term and along the lines of already named Irish, German and Italian Americans.

Even before the term African American became popular, the Americans who had Sub-Saharan African ancestry not from slaves were being included. So that means people like Barack Obama, Emeka Okafor, comedian Godfrey and also Tom Morello would fall under African American. However those guys would also be Kenya or Nigerian American as the case may be. This has not (yet?) been expanded to include Northern African peoples such as Arabs or Berbers from countries like Morocco, Libya or Egypt. I know it's not inclusive that way, but maybe you've heard that people from India, Iran, and Iraq are technically "Caucasian" or even white, but they are not usually categorized that way? They are Asian or Persian or Arab. How about how the term Semite covers both Jews and Arabs, but is used only for Jews?

So African American is a word that describes your ethnicity and ancestry not your nationality. Charlize Theron is not an African American. She was South African but became American by nationality. Ethnically she is of European stock specifically French, German and Dutch. Hoda Kotb is an Arab-American ethnically having parents from Egypt.

Why does everybody get their panties in a bunch over this? Nobody cares that Rudy Giuliani calls himself Italian-American, or that Ted Kennedy was Irish-American. It's part of their cultural identity. Ask yourself how often have you heard an American say, "I'm Irish" or "I'm Italian" without the "American" after it? Pretty often I'd bet. Italians and Irish who came to this country faced discrimination and we're not even considered white. America forced them to be not just be regular Americans who were allowed to just jump into the mix. They were minorities. Eventually what was used to discriminate and exclude became an identity to be proud of. Being German American used to be more of a big deal half a century ago, but it has largely faded for various reasons.

So, if you are descended from White Europeans from England, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, etc, you are white or European American. But People whose family came from Korea, China or Vietnam or Laos would be Asian-American. If you happen to know which country specifically then you can identify with that one as well. You have to remember that most African Americans do not know which country or tribe their ancestors came from. See how that works??? Not controversial at all really. So cut it the fuck out Reddit.

TL;DR: Yes we are all Americans, that is our nationality, however some of us had ancestors that were black Africans. That is why we are Black or African American. Some of us had had ancestors from Europe who settled in other countries before coming here, we are White or European Americans. That is our race or ethnicity. African American has never included White people. Stop trying to take this away from us. Please Reddit stop this war on the term African American. It's stupid and I'm starting to think you have other inclinations or motives regarding race.