[CRConrad]

> They also distinguish brown from black,

What, I thought that was just South Africa (under Apartheid)?

> African-American from black

I thought those were synonyms?

> and god knows what else.

Yeah, for a country ostensibly attempting to get away from its old racist ways, the USA seems remarkably fixated on the minutiae of distinguishing and registering "race".

[dragonwriter]

> > African-American from black

> I thought those were synonyms?

No, despite what the staff of my then-college’s newspaper apparently were thinking when writing about a visit by Winnie Mandela to the US, “African-American” and “black” are not synonyms.

[CRConrad]

Duh, true, of course. I've seen (and laughed at) the same thing, "African-American" being used about immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Sweden, people who had never been near America.

But what I (must have) meant to write was, "African-American" is pretty much the mandatory term to use for American Blacks, right? (<-- And should "Blacks" really be capitalised there?)