Sunday, September 11, 2005
Something-American
Lee over at Right Thinking has a great article discussing the problem of Black Americans and the often self-fufilling tendencies they have when it comes to achievement.
My personal thoughts are how since the Civil Rights era we've come a long way in terms of race relations we are still stuck in the past. While we elimated de facto things such as the Jim Crow laws and the de jure laws in this country a new sort of de facto tendency has sprung up and that is the whole Something-American thing.
To call a black person African-American has become the PC way of referring to them. But what exactly does a majority of blacks in this country have to do with Africa considering most have never been there. I am not an European-American though my family goes back even more recent than many black families to live in this country. I've never been to Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, or Austria and have no real connection with them and even if I did I doubt I'd feel anything all that special about those places. But could I start calling myself a European-American just because I have family dating back in those countries? I don't think so. And neither should black Americans (and I hate calling them black) call themselves African-American when they don't have any real connections. Now if a guy moves here from Africa or any other continent (like a friend of mine) yes then it works I suppose of course if a white guy from South Africa moved here and started refering to himself as an African-American, I bet he'd get some odd looks.
The point is that we should stop trying to segregate ourselves. We are all Americans and we should work to remove the prefix. It is a form of racism perpetuated by PC America and is just working to keep the divide between us open.
Update: I just rememberd that the Jim Crow laws were de facto not de jure.
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My personal thoughts are how since the Civil Rights era we've come a long way in terms of race relations we are still stuck in the past. While we elimated de facto things such as the Jim Crow laws and the de jure laws in this country a new sort of de facto tendency has sprung up and that is the whole Something-American thing.
To call a black person African-American has become the PC way of referring to them. But what exactly does a majority of blacks in this country have to do with Africa considering most have never been there. I am not an European-American though my family goes back even more recent than many black families to live in this country. I've never been to Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, or Austria and have no real connection with them and even if I did I doubt I'd feel anything all that special about those places. But could I start calling myself a European-American just because I have family dating back in those countries? I don't think so. And neither should black Americans (and I hate calling them black) call themselves African-American when they don't have any real connections. Now if a guy moves here from Africa or any other continent (like a friend of mine) yes then it works I suppose of course if a white guy from South Africa moved here and started refering to himself as an African-American, I bet he'd get some odd looks.
The point is that we should stop trying to segregate ourselves. We are all Americans and we should work to remove the prefix. It is a form of racism perpetuated by PC America and is just working to keep the divide between us open.
Update: I just rememberd that the Jim Crow laws were de facto not de jure.
