Historically, what made the american system successful, what made the so called melting pot work, is the idea that, once you're american, you're american first and foremost, and then you are something else. Jew, christian, black, white, asian, italian you name it. It was understood that you were american first, and foremost. For christian of course it's easier since the nation was mostly built by christian and cultural christian, and oath of office is sworn on the bible to begin with. Also, in the declaration of independence, the god given rights, come from "god". So while you're american first, above all else, there' that notion that only god is beyond any man made authority.. So that's for the overall compatibility, between faith and the "american" identity Now, with the emergence of the "african american" concept, you have a problem implied here, there's something put, conscientiously or otherwise, before "american", something that takes precedence, de facto, namely "african" And what's "african american", it's not exactly any american, it's basically any US citizen that happens to have at least one african ancestor in his genealogy, even if you're 1 percent african you can technically qualify as "african american" if you choose to. it's lame stuff when you start digging into it That's the starting point as far as I know, from there you got all the derivatives, such as asian american, or native americans, italian american etc Do we say jewish american? Or rather american jews? https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jewish+american&ia=web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews >>American Jews, or Jewish Americans, are Americans who are Jews, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality.[6] It goes both ways it seems Do we say christian american? https://duckduckgo.com/?q=christian+americans&ia=web Nope, no such thing You have american christian, and that's it. Christian american isn't a thing, why? It's funny how that works I could go on like that and name the rest of the "insertYourWagonHere american" ... On the other hand you have "american muslims" and no "muslim american"... And it's a recent addition and it doesn't really fly, even them don't really buy it lol, because there's only muslim in the end, because there's no place for america in islam, lol, there's no such thing as roman thirteen, in islam, there's no place for the 1st amendment in islam. But I digress Usually they are referred as "our muslim community", by joe biden for instance... Yeah, "our diversity pets" ... Long story short, there are people for who, being american is clear, always has been always will be it's not even a natural thing to them to even question whether they are american or not, them and their family always have been for the past hundred years. They have no second allegiance in a nutshell. And you have people for who it's not really clear, or still not really clear, or "has never ever been clear"... But I digress again! You're american first and foremost, that's how it works, anybody having a problem with that is by definition, a problem The end