re: Your mind will wrap itself in knots if you ponder the term 'African American'

Where I grew up it was very common for people to refer to themselves as Irish American, polish American, etc. Once during school kids were all saying what they "were" for some reason. It may have been part of the class but everybody was asking everybody else. Whatever. This was prior to African American being popular. What I remember is a white girl asking me what I was and then stopping saying "Oh wait. You're not anything you're just black". I knew that she didn't mean it like it sounded but it stung. So I kinda like the term African American.