Jack, in my opinion, "Negro" is derogatory and degrading, as it carries the negative, historical baggage of the pre 1970s-before we "said it loud/I'm Black & I'm proud". Few African Americans under sixty years of age still use the term "Negro" in spoken language or in print, unless we mean it as a put down {insult}. For instance, if a Black man or Black woman acts in a subservient, currying for favors manner toward White people, he or she may be called a "Negro". If he or she really does that uncle tom, aunt jemina thing up, than he or she is a negro with a small n, which means the insult has been multiplied to the x degree.

We {African Americans} realize that most White people have difficulty keeping up with our slang and colloquial expressions-particularly since we often change them if they become used too often by White people. :o)

But we figure that it's been almost forty years since we decided on the formal referent "African American". Therefore, by now, we think that White people should be used to saying and writing "African American" instead of "Negro". The best we can say of a White person from the USA who doesn't use "African American" as the formal term for Black people is that they are old fashioned. But "old fashioned" suggests that they may be stuck in the pre-1970s when many White people didn't respect Black people's humanity. Using "Negro" would call into question whether that [non-Black] person is just simply stuck in the past because of his or her inability to stay current, or is using a long retired referent on purpose to convey the message that Black people should have remained second class citizens.

Notice that I said "African American" and not
"Afro-American". These two terms are absolutely not the same.
Using "Afro-American" as our group referent means the non-African American person is trying. But using the term "Afro-American" means for some reason or reasons-good, bad, or indifferent-that person hasn't kept up with the times. Instead, they are stuck in that brief interim period between the late 1960s and the late 1970s or so before "African American" had been solidified as the approved referent for Black Americans.

Of course, a non-Black person could just say "Black people" or "Black Americans", though both of those terms refer to more people in the African Diaspora than African Americans. But my suggestion is not to say "the Blacks" [or "the Whites"] or "the Black community". "Black" should always be used with another noun. Why? Well, to do otherwise has come to be interpreted as a person generalizing, and lumping all Black people together into one person, And that is a big no no. It harks back to that "all Black people look alike" syndrome. There is more than one Black person. There are tons of Black people, numerous Black communities, and different Black cultures. We aren't a homogeneous people who think alike, talk alike, look alike, or act alike.

I wish there were at least one other Black person on this forum who publicly acknowledged his or her Blackness. I wish there were times when we [that person and me] could go at it about politics or religion or culture or what have you and then folks would see that Black people don't always agree.

Maybe I'd disagree with that person just to prove my point that all Black people are not the same.

Well, maybe not.

:o)