the United States is filled with "plastic Paddies", which are Americans of distant Irish (sometimes actually Scots-Irish) ancestry who consider themselves Irish. Are they Irish? No. They clearly aren't Irish in culture and you could not place them in Ireland and have them blend in to that society.
Watch it JS, I am "Irish".
JS could you say the same think about African Americans?
As you said "they consider themselves" African.
Are they African?
They clearly aren't African in culture and you could not drop them into the Congo and have them blend in?
I am not being a smartass. I am just curious. Is it in some ways the same?
Me too. I possibly have one of the most Irish full names a human being can have. Yet, if you or I were dropped into Belfast or Dublin, I doubt that either of us would be anything more than Americans to the people there. In fact, you're so far removed from Irish culture that you don't practice their faith (that's not an insult, just pointing out the difference). While Irish-Americans drink green beer on Saint Patrick's day and have large parades, while turning the city river green - it isn't even a major event in Eire. It is a day to go to church and typically a holiday with a few parades (nothing like here). Most Americans do not know who Bobby Sands was, what the difference is Londonderry and Derry are, why 1 February is a holiday, and what goes into a proper Irish stew.
My point is not that Irish Americans are bad people, but that they aren't Irish in any true sense of being from Ireland. They are a culture unto themselves, with their own peculiar practices - some of which have little to do with the Irish.
Your question about African-Americans has a similar answer.
African-Americans are not culturally identical with the tribes of the Congo or the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda, Congo, and Burundi. You cannot take Whitney Houston and place her in Ghana and expect her to blend in as if she is culturally identical. She is not, nor are the vast majority of African-Americans. That misses the point.
African-Americans are a unique culture formed from the crucible of the slave trade and life as second or third class citizens of this land for the past four centuries. African-Americans have been the most impoverished (along with Native Americans), the most subjected to institutional violence, and also subtle forms of class and racial prejudice. They fought a racial war against institutions of governments, churches (notably the Southern Baptists), and the bourgeoisie establishment of white citizens across the country (but especially in the South). African-Americans are absolutely a culture unto themselves, perhaps with some regional variation, but a distinct culture nonetheless and with some rich traditions and heritage as well.
