I'm not in the US, but the black vs white thing seems to be absolutely crippling there. I get that it's the legacy of slavery, but even with a "half-black" president there still doesn't seem to be any progress.

That's pretty much how it goes. White people pretty much need to act color blind in order to civilly interact with people of other ethnicities. There's lots of the 'blame game' going on. Though there's plenty of people who are absolutely chill about it.

One thing I draw a line against is the term "African American".

It's a habit. They reject african, and they reject american. And they reject 'black' (though I personally don't see a description as offensive). 'African American' is the widely accepted 'safe' term to use.

They're not African, they're American. They're more American than many (European/white heritage) Americans.

I agree. Though, there's a distinct difference between dark-skinned americans, and actual people with recent/direct family from Africa. I've met both kinds.

Drop that fucking term for a start, and it might help. All it does is isolate a section of the population and presumably increase divisions and paranoia.

Personally I do. Unless directly talking about different ethnicities, in which case it's their preferred term. Presumably to keep the link to the african americans who were slaves. Seeing as there's a sort of social 'respect' that's expected due to history reasons. Which is absurd, IMO.

You hear "black British"

And "black american" would get you killed/attacked. Just how it is. Though it's definitely a YMMV situation. Some people don't care at all, and some people are uptight about it.

but never as "Afro-Carribean British" as though they're a separate or lesser component of Britain.

Most of the time non-white people use it as a way of distinguishing that they have culture. And that they are important and need to be distinguished for some reason or another. It's why it's popular to say how you are indian (native american), even though most people really aren't. 'Asian American', 'African American', and so on have certain connotations that an individual may or may not want to use/accept. And yes, this happens from people who's family came from europe as well.

It's absolutely ridiculous. if you are here, you're a god damn american. Doesn't matter where you're from. Unless you have dual citizenship. At which point you can be two nationalities.

Generally though, the 'african american' card is played to try and get various benefits. And for that they get a lot of hate via other ethnicities (and even other minorities).

It pretty much boils down to: every single group of ethnicities/gender get various benefits for being minorities, except for white males. And if white males try to point this out, the racism/sexism card gets played. For every scholarship that white males can enter (which other ethnicities/genders can enter as well), there's maybe 10-12 'minority' scholarships that explicitly exclude white males. I pretty much gave up on scholarships when I found that out.

When job hunting, preference is always given to minorities and women. Since those are actively checked against a quota to ensure your company is 'culturally dynamic' or w/e.

It's all ridiculous and awful. By continually pointing out how a minority is a minority, you just cause more problems. Just treat everyone the god damn same.