That sounds silly, until you realize that "African-American" is just code for black, from a time when saying "black" was considered mildly racist.

Seriously...What?!??!

It doesn't make much sense anymore, but so it is:

> Most of us became familiar with the ethnonym African American in the 1980s, when Jesse Jackson began popularizing it as an alternative to black.

https://yalealumnimagazine.org/articles/4216-the-origin-of-a...

> African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans

Interesting example: Elon Musk is technically an "African American," except the word is actually used to mean Black American

similarly, I think Charlize Theron has joked about the same for her, how confused the terminology is.

It's still mildly uncomfortable depending on how it's used. As a white guy I usually say "they're a black person" or "a person who's black" when referring to a non-specific person. Adding "person" I feel is helpful in the same way it's better to reference "a Jewish person" versus "a Jew"

Mildly uncomfortable for who?