by philwelch | 2025-09-11 23:50:00+00:00
> You're trying to accuse me of "crypto-anti-black racism"

No, I'm saying you're accusing the people who coined the term "African American", or perhaps the term itself, of crypto anti-black racism.

> Like I said before: 80 years ago+, 2-3 generations min, "americans" was meant to refer to white americans only.

80 years ago was 1945. Let me quote from the Richmond Times-Dispatch on August 5, 1936, reporting on the performance of Jesse Owens in the Olympics. If you have access to newspapers.com you can follow this link to a clipping I created: https://www.newspapers.com/article/richmond-times-dispatch-j...

> The weather turned blustery with the day's usual shower but Reichsfuehrer Adolf Hitler and another capacity crowd of 100,000 jammed the big concrete stadium most of the day with Owens as the main magnet.

> Der Fuehrer joined in terrific applause accorded the American ace whose performances now have thrilled upwards of 300,000 spectators three straight days and given the Olympic games their most outstanding individual performer since Paavo Nurmi's exploits of 1924 when the "Phantom Finn" won three gold medals.

> After fouling on his first trial in the finals, Owens jumped 26 feet 39-64 inch, finally 26 feet 5 21-64 inches while the stadium echoed with a roar that could be heard all over the Olympic plant.

89 years ago, an American newspaper--one in the south, no less--referred to Jesse Owens, without any further qualification, as "the American ace".

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, on the same date: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-plain-dealer-owens-cl...

> AMERICANS ROUT WORLD IN OLYMPICS > Owens Cracks Broad Jump Record as U.S. Wins Four Events. ... > The United States track and field forces put the athletes from the rest of the world to rout today in one of the greatest field days any nation ever experienced in Olympic competition. > Four times the Stars and Stripes waved triumphantly from the victory flagpole as Uncle Sam's stalwarts staged a smashing exhibition of sprinting, leaping, and hurdling before a crowd of 110,000. > Americans made a clean sweep of all championships in the men's division, retaining their broad jump supremacy with a record-breaking Olympic leap by John Cleveland (Jesse) Owens, 22-year-old Ohio State Negro...

The story does state Owens' race in a dated and uncomfortable way. (Remind me, which one of us is arguing that it's awkward and uncomfortable to emphasize someone's race?) But note that prior to doing so, the article twice includes Owens in statements about "Americans" routing the world and making a clean sweep of championships, and lauds him as one of "Uncle Sam's stalwarts". I'm not saying that racism didn't exist in 1936 or that Jesse Owens was treated fairly, but there was no inhibition against referring to him, or any other black American, as an American whenever it was relevant to do so.

> And so how does this relate to legos?

I would be justified in asking you the same question. Legos are Danish. It's not actually clear how the history of American racism or the applicability of the term "American" to black people prior to 1945 has any bearing on the creative intent of a Danish toy manufacturer, and if anything it's a little ethnocentric to judge it in that context.