[alistproducer2]

The author refers to African-Americans as "blacks" numerous times. In my experience, the only people who use that terminology are racists. I can guarantee you the author is a huge fan of "The Bell Curve." This anecdote is clearly troll bait.

[angersock]

Your experience appears to be limited.

[alistproducer2]

Not at all. I've never heard "blacks" used by a non-black person in a context that wasn't racially charged.

[angersock]

By the same logic, African-American never comes up without race being a significant part of the context.

I'm mostly surprised because "African-American" is a mouthful compared to just "blacks", so I'm suspicious that in common language it is somehow limited only to racists.

"Blacks" is also more accurate if you just want to refer to people by skin color (for whatever damn-fool reason).