Another point to consider is that many Americans may not be familiar any longer with the history of Apartheid in South Africa. It was a big deal when I was young, because the global boycotts were going on and Apartheid was a word on pretty much everyone's lips.

But a lot of people today may not understand that white South African people were powerfully privileged, benefiting from a society where a small minority of white people dominated and exploited the vastly larger Black population, who lived almost entirely in servile poverty.

So describing a person of white South African heritage as African-American does a really big disservice to the reality of race in South Africa. It erases, as it were, the racism.