Gendered and unbiased language - Week 14

In my literature class last week, we were watching the film “Much ado about nothing” with Denzel Washington. At the end of the movie the teacher asked us what differences we noticed from the book and the movie. One of the students raised their hand and said, “I didn’t expect Don Pedro to be black.” This was a valid point in my opinion, but the teacher looked at the student in a shock and said, “The politically correct way to say that would be African American.” I’m not sure what the politically correct term is anymore since I’ve heard some people say Black American is more politically correct than African American. Either way I don’t think the student meant to offend anyone and we continued to talk about possible reasons that Don Pedro could be black. We came to the conclusion that Don Pedro demanded a prominent actor and Denzel Washington fit the role. We also talked about the fact that Don Pedro was from a part of Spain that was pre-dominantly inhabited by the Moors.