It's not completely unusual to have a derogative term reappropriated and reversed by the target group, as some form of defense, defiance and resistance. It doesn't neutralise the term generally, it makes its value very context-dependant, or speaker-dependant...

True, and THAT makes political correctness an impossible subject to discuss.
In the US what is correct in one place may be "fighting words" just a few hundred miles away.
Hell, our own regional accents and slang can be cause for difficulty in communication. :-(
Being an old guy I pretty much guess at what's correct and prepare to duck.
Pretty soon I'd just have to stop talking otherwise. (no chance) :-)

'Czarnoskóry' (black skinned) is the correct one in Poland.
'Murzyn' used to be OK, but it seems to be changing and it's not-so-good now.
And I'm not aware if we have a super-offensive world for people of african origins.

Here, if you're going to use colour to describe someone it's usually just the colour. When I hear something like "African American" I instantly wonder if they hold citizenship in countries from both continents. I'll agree with Nijuu that colour doesn't even usually come into it.

We do have our hilariously stupid politically correct bullshit uproars every now and then, though.

Even in smaller countries, the "polite" or "offensive" flavor of a word may vary greatly with the community (age, social group, region) using it. "Con" (cunt) and "putain" (whore) almost function as punctuation in the south of France, but can be quite violent in the north. "Malaka" in Greece is both one of the most brutal and offensive insult, and a way to call each others amongst friends (like "dude"). Not to mention that these things evolve a lot with time, and generations jumps.

Also, "political correctness" is not always a very useful notion, to describe the values of these words. Sometimes it's just decency - one word being okay in one situation and shockingly out of place in another (you don't swear the same way at home or in front of your boss, or even in different workplaces). And sometimes it's really about the conveyed meaning. "Faggot" tends to mean "homosexual-which-is-a-bad-thing-by-the-way" (neutralised when it's used, in derision, within homosexual communities, just like "nigger"). "Nigger" used to imply something that goes beyond dermis tint (something more like a "race", with deeper predetermined traits) so it's more associated with racialism, and tends to convey this whole imagery. Quite often there is a reason for the shifts of language.

But yeah, the meanings of words are complex, and filled with implicit elements that vary from group to group. It's like a varying collective code, and we don't all use the same one everywhere. as modern communications puts us more and more in front of people from other backgrounds, we have to get more and more cautious about différences of "codes", when we want to convey one meaning or cone concept. Things get a bit more complicated and delicate, it's unavoidable. It's just how language works - it's far from being a uniform, static, thing, with univocal usages...

Here saying black is much more common but depending on the context might be seen as somewhat insulting. Black minority or if you want to be extra polite Americans of African origin would be perfectly okay.

I never understood why "African-American" had been rammed down people's throats since white people are still called white people and the hyphenated labels draw attention from current nationality. The better term should be "American of African ancestry" and even "black" is more accurate since a person usually has to be from a certain place to have the hyphenated label and even then it draws away from current nationality.

Also, I never understood how the term "oriental" has been treated as a curse word. I'm half-Asian and I don't have a problem with being referred to as "half-oriental." Technically it's a better term since "Asian" technically includes Indians, Pakistanis, and Afghans but we don't call them Asian.

In the (admittedly very rural/conservative) village I come from everyone seems to use the word "Neger" in German as well. I've not heard anyone say it with any particular racist or hostile intent, but it's definitely not a word used in civil conversation.
Do bear in mind that US English also frequently uses the word Caucasian for white people, which is also derived from a geographical region.

I don't think it's any different from calling someone Irish-American or Italian-American. A lot of people in the US hold true to their roots, African Americans included. And it's often a safe bet that a black person will have some kind of genetic heritage in Africa, even if it lies several generations back and on one side of their family only (which gets me thinking of the Craig Cobb thing, pure irony :) )

It's pretty completely different. European American is kind of a bullshit label as there's a huge amount of cultural difference between people from various parts of Europe and unlike most of the Black people here prior to the last few decades, there's still a good chance that they still practice some of the old ways.

What's more, Irish-American and Italian-American tell you more than just the genetic ancestry of a person, it gives a bit of a clue into their family lives as assimilation isn't typically as complete as people imagine.

Not to mention that the people who only know about their American ancestry are different from the ones that emigrated from the Caribbean most recently and they themselves are very different from those that emigrated from Africa of their own volition recently.

This whole African-American thing is just plain BS in most situations, it's relatively unusual to have a situation where that's the relevant thing, most of the time it's much more important to know where they're from more recently.

This is one of those things that Europeans don't get because historically there hasn't been sufficient immigration to need to deal with these distinctions. But, living in a country where probably 95% or more of the populace immigrated to the US and probably still keeps at least a few of the old values alive, it's a relevant consideration at times.

You could say that.

That's certainly a fair way of looking at it.

I personally don't use those kind of words, even when I'm in the group, mostly because I've heard way too many bigots use that as cover for why we can use that word and they can't. I can understand the logic behind taking back a word, but the reality is that the meaning still exists, the word isn't the problem, the fact that people think of whatever group in a derogatory way is the problem.

So, I respect that some black people have chosen to take back the word nigger and that some lesbians have chosen to take back the word dyke, but I absolutely refuse to participate in taking back the word faggot. The best we can hope for is for the derogatory form to fall out of usage.

I do admit that, I would kind of like to see the term faggot go back to meaning a bundle of sticks, but that's likely to never happen on account of the internet.

I'm assuming, you thought calling black people "black" is frowned upon in the USA. Just to back up what I said before, I've called black people 'black" around black people here in the states and they didn't find anything wrong with that. They call white people, "white', after all. There is nothing negative about the word, "black". And I think, the words "African American" have a higher chance of offending a black person than the word "black". It could make some think you don't see them as real Americans, like they don't belong.

I am a US citizen and I wonder how we should classify someone who is a descendant of the Europeans that settled in Africa during the late 1600s. I would guess that they are also "African-American".

For that matter I know people whose ancestry is Egyptian and they do not what to be referred to as "African-American". They just what to be termed American since they (and their parents) were born in the USA.

I remember several years ago there was some news story about a white guy who had emigrated to the US from South Africa. On some form (job application, voter registration or whatever) had marked the box African-American. The news people showed their usual ignorant indignation and called him horribly insensitive.

On a related note, where I grew up there were a lot of Mexicans. You had to say Mexican, if you used the word Hispanic people would yell at you "My family didn't come here from Hispainia, they came from Mexico!" Sometimes people would correct you and say "Actually I'm Puerto Rician/Cuban/Whatever." But they were always polite about it. Where I live now people get offended by the word Mexican and yell at me to use the word Hispanic instead. If i'm feeling ornery I might throw the whole Hispainia thing at them. Or sometimes take it further, since I'm half Mexican myself I'll ask them why my culture and heritage is so offensive to them.