European-Americans versus White-People!

wrath
4

I think this is why some people avoid it. An anti-fascist group recently noted that people like this guy regularly use European American to mean white, to avoid getting into trouble:

https://afainatl.wordpress.com/2017/03/19/alert-far-right-militant-at-georgia-state-university-seeks-information-on-leftists-and-anti-racists/

This is a minefield, of course, with competing meanings attached to it, especially since who is considered properly European has been a historically moving definition. It used to be synonomous with Anglo-German protestants, and has in the last century expanded to included pretty much all European ethnicities (including Jews, although that’s slipping). [quote=“popobawa4u, post:1, topic:98225”]
The advantage I think there is in using this term is that it brings us into parity.
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I’m not sure what you mean here? If European Americans have historically been the most socially powerful group in the US, what parity are we getting to here? What do you mean by parity? [quote=“popobawa4u, post:1, topic:98225”]
So I see using European-Americans as having the advantage of reminding people that they too are immigrants
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Many European Americans also have the privilege of being able to point to much more specific locations of immigration. I can point to a town on a map to tell you were at least one part of my family came from. On the other side, my grandmother had a book of her families history. Quite a few white Americans can also make specific claims of heritage that many African Americans can’t, because of how much harder it is to trace back ancestry through the period of enslavement. But of course, many African Americans can claim to have been here longer than my family, even if their ancestors were enslaved. Perhaps they have stronger claims to being Americans and having built this country than I do myself.

So… I’m really not sure what you’re attempting to correct here. I’m all for having a better understanding of one’s own personal family background, as well as the larger picture of migrations of various kinds into the US (from those who were enslave, indentured servants, forced out as refugees, or who came with plenty of privilege and $$$).

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