Why do people say African-American?

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It is simply black. Newspapers and politicians use the term African American for their own good reasons. Black is black.

The appropriate, "scientific" term is negro. Just as the appropriate term for white is caucasian.

Well, logic would dictate that there is no "all Black people say...." type of answer because everyone has his/her own individual opinion. I personally, don't mind if I'm called black or african-american (although, african-american always seems forced when people say it). Additonally as has previously been pointed out, not all Black people are from the United States. Some are Carribean, African, from Europe, etc. Furthermore, African-American as a term does not describe a race it describes an ethnicity. Racially, all black people are black, but ethnicall they could be African, Jamaican, Dominican, Haitian, etc. So, to keep it simple, it depends on the person, but to be safe, call them African-American unless you know them well.

Not sure if people have mentioned this in other parts of the thread, but the term African-American is misleading anyway, because not all Africans are black. Charlize Theron was born in South Africa, and could absolutely 100% correctly be considered African-American - but she is white. Zinedine Zidane, the soccer player, was born in Algeria but took French citizenship; if he ever became a US citizen he could absolutely 100% correctly be considered African-American - but he is white too. A large proportion of the Egyptian population is not black, but Egypt is in Africa.

And what about black people who are not American? I was listening to some radio show once, and someone called Nelson Mandela "one of the greatest African-American leaders in history". I don't remember Mandela being American. Another example - the actor Adewale who played Mr Eko in Lost was described on a local news show as 'one of Britain's best African-American actors'. Um...?

We should just refer to people by their scientific racial classification and leave the unneccesary and divisive 'color of skin' stuff behind.

...when they're 1/16 or 1/32 Irish (or less). Isn't being American enough?

I'm 1/8 Irish and 7/8 English, but I don't call myself 'Irish English'. No-one does AFAIK.

Because African-American are from Africa. Or do you think black people were native in America or Europe?