What's in a name?

I was working on the discussion boards last week and found many of the posts to be inspired as well as insightful. The subject of the class seems to foster genuine thoughts and discussion between classmates. It's pretty cool. I commented on a particular post on the board, but I wanted to discuss it further and hence this blog is immediately coming in handy. The original post was about how the term "African-American" seemed to lessen the stature of black people. For full disclosure, I am a white male. I agreed with the postee that the term did seem to be somewhat disparaging. I mean I wouldn't consider myself "European American". I mean I don't know any more people in Europe than most black people know in Africa, so why the need to label them and not me. I think that we spend too much time in this country worrying about meddlesome things such as this. Not to say that it doesn't have value but I feel there are more pressing issues that deserve our attention. I feel there is a sentiment in this country to go above and beyond in order to avoid being offensive. I mean I am all for equal rights and the right to live in peace and freedom but it's just a name. Whenever I am around a black person I am always hesitant to use the term "black". To me I don't know exactly how they might feel about it because again I'm just a white dude. I mean to refer to someone as "black", is that offensive and/or racist, I don't know. I mean if someone reffered to me as "white" I wouldn't even bat an eyelash. However, I realize that African-Americans have gone through much more struggle in the way or equal rights, so I almost feel that I don't have the right to comment. Even within this post I don't know whether to use the term "black" or "African-American". I think that black may have a negative connotation to some people perhaps. I don't know, it's all just so confusing about what is right and wrong. It's a slippery slope. I couldn't be further from a racist and don't want to offend anyone, I'm just trying to refer to something. To me we are all Americans, no more no less. If you want to get technical, if we were born in America, doesn't that make us Native Americans? That little nugget I will save for another post.