Suggestion change to African-American Sticker [closed]

Question

The African-American sticker returns the statement

(Name) is a part of Black history.

I'm suggesting a more appropriate statement might be

(Name) has African-American heritage

This would be more inline with other heritage stickers that indicate ethnic/national ancestry.

Comments

Perhaps there should be two stickers: one for heritage and one for someone who played a significant role in Black history.

---

That would be appropriate.

Annie Gail-149 has Black heritage and likely was a active citizen in her community.

Harriet Tubman (Ross-9405) was certainly significant in American History.

---

Not all those part of Black history are American, so reverting to "African American" would be doing a disservice to those folk.

To note: Gene Rodgers, a Notable Black American, had non-American parents, non-American grandparents, non-American great-etc grandparents.

To label him as having "African-American heritage" would be downright wrong, and totally incorrect.  He is part of Black history, however, and the current wording reflects his Black Heritage, while not incorrectly labelling him as "African-American".

Answer 1

First, we are no longer using the term African-American in the US Black Heritage Project because although most Black Americans consider themselves Black, most of them do not identify with the term African-American. So we will not be changing the sticker back to African-American. (please note the sticker was recently changed to Black from African-American). That said, if people personally identify as African-American and wish to use that term on their family profiles, they can do so.

Second, we just published an African Ancestry sticker today that is now available for worldwide use. I just hadn't announced it yet. This is the code: {{African Ancestry}} and you can find the information here: 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:African_Ancestry/docs

Finally, the US Black Heritage Project has been discussing the wording of the sticker, but hadn't gotten to updating it because we've been busy rolling out our slavery project. This was the original wording from when the sticker was created a long while back. It's important to understand this is meant to be a USA sticker. There will be specific Black Heritage stickers by country created later, under the global Black Heritage Project.

My recommendation at this time is to use "...is a part of US Black heritage" rather than "has" Black heritage because that's ambiguous. The {{African-American sticker}} is meant to honor their Black experience as a US citizen as well as their heritage. The African Ancestry sticker can be used alongside it to honor their African roots.

Answer 2

I agree with this suggestion.  When I add infants or children who died young I have been putting the part of black history sticker but felt awkward doing so.  I think African-American heritage would work better.

Although, would that work for the Bahamian profiles I have added who were black people?  Some remained in the Bahamas, but their children or relatives immigrated to the United States, Florida, mostly.  I have been adding the African-American sticker to them all but feel funny about doing so on those who stayed in the Bahamas.

Comments

We haven't had a sticker to use for those who lived outside the United States. I've tried to be clear about that from the beginning--that this is a USA sticker. We now have the African Ancestry sticker (just went live today) and I will be working with other countries to create a Black Heritage sticker that is country-specific. The global Black Heritage Project has only recently gotten started.

African Ancestry sticker:  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:African_Ancestry/docs

---

I do agree that it is important to provide a sticker for non-Americans. I am concerned that the new sticker places an entire continent of people in one category. There is a very large cultural difference between people of Egypt and those from Zimbabwe, yet they would fall under the same sticker. We do not have a sticker for all of Europe or all of Asia, so we ideally shouldn’t for all of Africa either. We even have stickers for each county of England and each American state. Yet, I can see that in the Americas it is common that descendants don’t know which part of Africa they are from so this new sticker may be helpful in that regard. I don’t know what the correct method should be, but I appreciate that the project is actively addressing these issues. Thanks.

---

I now see that the template can differentiate between groups, if known. This is excellent.

---

Culley, we will be creating country specific African stickers as well, but we haven't got the country projects set up to support the need for those stickers yet. It's definitely in the plans for later--Just like Ireland, Scotland, France stickers, etc. For now, we wanted an African roots sticker for worldwide use for those who are considered African diaspora. Also, many people who are African diaspora don't know their specific country or tribal heritage, but they know thy have African roots.

---

Thank you!