Campus-resident alien: African Americans should be called American

As an international student and columnist, some friends have told me I should write about customs and situations that immediately stand out differently from where I came from in my daily life here in America. They say writing about such interesting cultural dissimilarities should trigger catching stories and writings.

This is especially true because in many ways the United States and Brazil have similar social and economic characteristics. I'm not falling into the trap of rough comparisons. But you find yourself in the imminent risk of being awkwardly funny or inadvertently rude when you face trivial situations in which you don't really know the proper behavior to adopt, the proper attitude to take or answer to give.

Under this perspective, one of the first things that popped to my eyes when I started living here was the segregation between blacks and whites. The term "black" may offend some, but I must say as a citizen of Brazil — a country where miscegenation is acknowledged as the pillar of the national identity — I'm certain the pretentiously polite term "African American" denotes more prejudice than many other words.

Calling a black person "African-Brazilian" would be cause for laughter.

I'm not saying there's no racism in Brazil. We had slavery, and afro-descendants there also suffered a cruel life imposed by colonial aristocrats. There was a lot of discrimination, though black people were never separate from white people by law.

But at some point, race was not significant enough to impede a broad miscegenation among blacks, whites (Europeans) and native Indians. In this way, Brazil is truly a melting pot.

I acknowledge the United States is a nation that was colonized and formed by different nationalities and races. The heinous belief that people from Africa could be brought to slave work in America is past. But racial discrimination is so firmly rooted in the core of American society that black people are called African Americans. I understand the African heritage that black people carry in their DNA, but following the same logic of denomination, white people should be called European Americans instead of Americans only.

I can't avoid being deeply upset when someone refers to a black person as an African American. Blacks are as much Americans as any other person. Moreover, the influence of African descendants and the legacy they left became a crucial and pivotal part of the American culture. You are all Americans, as we are all Brazilians down there. I'm not Spanish-Italian-Brazilian. I'm Brazilian.

Black people have understandably created a community with social codes of their own. Many white people don't carry the prejudice against the black race anymore, but they don't get involved either. Many black people would rather not deal with white people. It's a sad reality. Rather than a melting pot, America is more like a tossed salad.

It's admirable that different cultures live in the United States preserving their elements and habits. I must confess it doesn't happen in Brazil. Everything there falls into one pot. Pointing out your forefathers' nationality in a conversation is not a question of pride, but more a curiosity.

Here I can again highlight a commonality between countries such as ours: Their strength and beauty reside in the multitude of cultures that build the nation's life together.

Marcelo Vieira is a 32-year-old jazz cello graduate student from Brazil. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_mvieira.



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Contact Marcelo Vieira at mvieira@lsureveille.com