Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:African Americans

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Category:African Americans[edit]

Status: 4 votes keep, 4 votes delete. No consensus to delete.

For a general discussion on how to apply categorization to people: see: Wikipedia:Categorization of people (and its discussion page).

This is to delete the category tags of all articles about individuals from this category, not the category as such, which I think we need to do something else with. There are articles and subcategories that are appropriately placed under this: these include List of African Americans, List of African-American-related topics, African Americans in the United States Congress, Category:Historically black universities and colleges in the U.S., and Category:African American culture. The reasons why individuals should not be categorized as African Americans, however, have been discussed elsewhere and I will now summarize:

  • It is offensive to classify people by sexual orientation, race, or religion, and POV to think that people should or can be classified in such a way. People are not reduceable to their race, and the very lack of a Category:Caucasian Americans means that Category:African Americans is inherently POV in their construction. It is made with the implication that they are different from the norm or the default, which is the (white) state of not needing a classification. All others are instead classified based on how they differ from that norm. This should stop.
  • Inclusion in this categories is largely a matter of self-identification—what of multiracial people? Or worse, old racist cultural constructs—"if you have one drop of black blood in you, you're black." Race is an actual concept, but not an objective group in terms of membership.
  • Lists are less problematic than categories. Lists (or text in articles) can explain the rationale for inclusion (i.e., self-identification), while categories are unannotated. Furthermore, they don't function to brand the subject like a category does. Categories classify.

Once again, this nomination for deletion is only for the inclusion of articles on individuals under this category, that serve to classify individuals by race. Postdlf 22:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Keep. Formerly Delete. Hyacinth 23:07, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Neutrality 00:09, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. It is not offensive to classify people by attributes, it is in fact what we do here. The text of the category can explain any surrounding issues; yes, these are fuzzy sets, as are Category:Musicians (who qualifies?), etc., which we can live with. There is no need for Caucasian-American category just as we wouldn't need a list of right-handed Americans, but could have one of left-handers; it's simple numbers, not POV. We had this discussion re the (deleted) "list of white people", if you can find it. VV 00:23, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete as per Postdlf. In addition, rename it (perhaps to Category:African American topics) so as to discourage users from categorizing people. - UtherSRG 12:24, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_style#Identity. Hyacinth 15:59, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I'm trying to reconcile this comment (which I assume was to my vote) and your vote. The item in the style guide that pops out in regards to this is "African-Americans" bad, "people of African heritage" good. You are saying we should keep this category (although its name breaks style), and you are poking me for renaming it and giving it a more focussed purpose (and still breaking style to the same degree). And yet, there's a list of lists above, some of whose members break style. - UtherSRG 16:44, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete: fuzzy sets can be contextualized by lists but not by categories. -Sean Curtin 06:52, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. These categories seem to be made by narrow-minded straight white men. The logic of them is lost to me.-Erolos 23:51, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. As per UtherSRG. Noisy 11:43, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • keep. 桜花 23:17, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete and merge into annotated lists. Important information, but fuzzy, controversial, and possibly offensive. Better represented as a list, not as a category. -- Beland 03:25, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. In a nicer world this category might have little relevence, but as there is much history and culture involved with making this categorization, it has uses as an encyclopedic topic. -- Infrogmation 02:38, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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