MovieChat Forums > Lilies of the Field (1963) Discussion > Sidney Poitier isn't an African American...

Sidney Poitier isn't an African American.


He is the first of African descent to win the Oscar. In no way is he an African American. He is a Bahamian.

reply

He's Afro-Bahamian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Bahamians

They were brought as slaves by Puritans in the 17th century.

reply

He was born in Florida, therefore he's American. His ancestors were from Africa, therefore African. Yes, he was Bahamian, too.

reply

Obviously doesn't have a southern US accent! He was accidently born in Miami, but spent his first 15 years in Bahamas.

reply

His parents were Bahamian, but he was born in Florida while they visited. He's Bahamian-American, not African-American.

Actors train to ditch their regional accents. Poitier sounds like he acquired the Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic accent favored by actors like Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. I hear a little Bahamian accent from him during his interviews.

reply

Elon Musk is african american.

reply

Nope. Musk's ethnicities are Afrikaan, British, Dutch, and French Huguenot. He has South African, Canadian and American citizenship. Besides the ethnic groups I previously listed, you can say he is South African on his father's side and Canadian on his mother's.

African-American is a term specifically used for the ethnic group descended from West and Central Africa people who were brought to the U.S. during the slave trade centuries ago. They have mixed African heritage which is the reason for the very generalized term instead of a specific location. They also share a history, struggle and culture.

Interestingly, there are African-Americans who settled in Liberia during the 1800s, but they recently fled and have migrated to the U.S.. They are ethnically Americo-Liberians.

Amateurs tend to label all black people in the diaspora as one group, but that isn't the case. Obama is really Kenyan-American. V.P. Kamala Harris is Jamaican or West Indian or Caribbean and East Indian. Maria Carey is part Afro-Latina or Afro-Venezuelan.

reply

so with your rule whites should be call by their background...polisg, french, german..ect......

reply

He's black. Many black people are referred to as "African Americans" that aren't actually African American, that's why I don't usually use the term.

reply

You need to get a life

reply