This is all part of the steady mutation of the Melting Pot into the "Cultural Mosaic" -- and as Frank Miller so pointedly noted, a mosaic is something made out of broken pieces.

Something that drove me absolutely nuts, when ROOTS was telecast, and suddenly Black couples all over America were naming their newborn sons Kunte Kinte -- without bothering to check if maybe Alex Haley's Mandinka peoples were the bitter enemies of their own ancestors. Haley must have dispaired to see the whole point of his monumental effort lost like that.

The hyphenation thing has bugged me since childhood. A glance at any map of the world reveals that Africa stretches from the northern Sahara all the way down to Cape Town -- and across that span there are many different races, all of whom are "native" (ie, born there). Charlize Theron, being Afrikanner, joked on SNL about being "African-America", yet she has as at least as much claim to the term -- probably more -- as does, say, Will Smith (who was not born in Africa). Egyptians are not referred to as "African-Americans", yet they are.

The "Asian-American" label is just as dumb, considering the expanse of Asia.

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Dont we have our own ingnorance  to blame for that?  When we say "African" we think Kenya not Egypt. When we say "Asian" we think China not India. Those images have more or less been pounded into our heads.

Though again for most Americans who ancestry is from Africa, "African-American" is a about as close as they can get.I suppose it would be nice to be a "Mandika-American" but its a bit hard to track down. Not sure every family would be as lucky as Alex Haley.  Though as a European-American, I cant track my family past my grandparents either. It's all guess work based on family names. European-American or to get a little more specific Northwestern European American (maybe). I guess we've been here so long American-American is correct. My wife is lucky in that area. Her grandparents were immigrants. Italy and Mexico.

Curious (genuinely) why you define Alex Haley as "lucky", tho.

One of the other things that bugs me about "African-American" is that we never say "African." 

Let me explain.  We only use "Irish American" or "Italian American" or "Greek American" in a demographic discussion.  In other words, we use those terms in an academic way to refer to whole people groups.  But in a casual discussion about an individual person, we say "He's Italian," or "I'm Greek on my mother's side."

But we never say "He's African," or "two African guys gave a presentation today."  It's the hyphenated version, or nothing at all.

For most uses, I'm sticking with black, white, etc., fully expecting to do mea culpas to my grandchildren that "we didn't know any better then."  (It's what I think of when I cringe at the use of "colored" in an old book)

Black seems to be the commonly used term.At least by people I know.  African-American is  used in more formal setting like a newspaper article. I think we like things short and simple, the hyphenates are just too long.

I still cringe a bit when people say "Black".

Even as a kid I always hated the "black" appendage to any African-African superhero's name. I never thought of my friends that way. "Black" Jonathan, "Black" Curtis, "Black" Fleming?! Huh?!

So... Black Falcon, etc., equally moronic.

Black Storm? Feh!

Tangent: JB's Ororo was the best character in his X-MEN run. (And then she was utterly ruined.)