I was browsing the Sunday Globe’s article on the "most authentic" Boston-area restaurants of various types when I came across this amusing couple of sentences in the section on southern food, talking up Chef Lee’s II Soul Food in Dorchester (which sounds like a great place to eat):
Expect a long line at lunch, when the regulars patiently wait their turn at this cafeteria-style joint. (But while you’re waiting, check out the impressive photo gallery of African-American luminaries like Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Martin Luther King Jr.)
Hmmm, thought I to myself, something seems wrong with that last sentence … can’t quite place it … oh yeah! Of the three "African-American luminaries" listed, two of them are of course not African-American. I suspect that Messrs. Mandela and Tutu would be quite surprised to learn of their new US citizenship. "African-American" and "black" are not synonyms, and treating them as such leads to embarrassing errors like the Globe’s.
Here’s a related puzzler: can you name the TWO African-American Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court? Drop your answer in the comments!
2 African-American SJC justices are Ireland and Marshall
And we have a winner! For those unsure of why that answer is correct, read Marshall’s bio.