I have always said that culture or even nationality are not labels that identify you, they are labels that you identify with. When someone 'complements' you by saying you are not black they have an internal impression of what the label 'Black' means. You take offence to this as you identify yourself with 'Black' and your impression of what that means is very different. As someone on the outside looking in the '*-american' terms that Americans use to describe themselves has always fascinated me. Would I be 'Irish-American' if I lived there? When someone uses that term to describe me what does it really mean. Do the connotations attached to it represent me? I would imagine like all blanket terms it would be incorrect as often as it was correct. As an honest question what is the difference between the 'African-American' label and the 'Black' label? Where would one apply but not the other?