Which box should I check: I am northern African (Mauritanian/Algerian/), however I am not white nor middle eastern. The thing that outrages me is that Northern Africans are considered white? I feel as if the U.S Govt stripped us away from our identity by saying all northern African are whites which is fact totally inaccurate considering that the majority of northern African are mixed and mullawad, a term widely used back home to describe offspring’s of black slaves & Arab. The term mullato by the way derived from Mullawad (Arabic for mullato). That being sad, I wanted to address this, obviously there are some northern Africans who are whites but nothing even close to the stereotypical Anglo Saxon Caucasian. Some other want to call us middle easterners, but this is also false, Northern Africa is NOT in the Middle East, and we are not white southern Africans either. So I am just curious, what should I check on my LS application? I feel that checking African American would not be accurate since I am not American, African yes, but not American , soon to be American certainly, however this would not capture my northern African heritage and also the fact that I am French. I label myself as African European because that’s what I am, however, checking white is not an option since I am not white, and definitely not middle eastern but black, as they say here in the states, if you have one drop of black blood you are black, marcus garvey even talked about the persistence of westerners wanting to label Northern Africans as white and called it ludicrous and is nothing but an attempt to divide us, more on this subject can be found at this link:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=737So now what should I check from an ethical stand point? Damn, I wonder why americans need to know any way ?
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