Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Time to End the Hyphenated American Thing
The American Thinker ^ | September 05, 2009 | Lloyd Marcus

Posted on 09/05/2009 3:23:45 AM PDT by Scanian

The announcer introduces me to the audiences of thousands, “Singer/songwriter of the national America Tea Party Anthem, Mr. Lloyd Marcus!”

I enthusiastically enter the stage, “Hello my fellow patriots! I am not an African American ... I am Lloyd Marcus ... AMERICAN!” The mostly white crowds go wild with applause and cheers of approval. I feel their relief and gratitude of a black man who loves his country and is not hostile or resentful toward them.

I am traveling across America on the Tea Party Express Tour. We began August 28th in Sacramento, CA. Our 34 city tour will end September 12th in Washington DC. The audience's emotional response to my, I am not a hyphenated American proclamation has been a big surprise to me. After each rally many approach me, many with tears in their eyes to thank me. They tell me, “I can not begin to tell you how much I appreciate what you said. I'm Irish (or I am Italian), and I would never hyphenate. America doesn't need things to divide us. It is fine to honor your heritage but, be an American first”.

My long ago decision to go un-hyphenated is not a criticism of blacks who choose to call themselves “African American” and feel a connection to Africa. Their choice is none of my business. I live in Florida. My “mother land” is Baltimore, Maryland, home of the Baltimore Orioles, Hall of Famer Cal Ripken and the best crab cakes on the planet.

This cross-country tour has opened my eyes to the reality that Americans have been held hostage by political correctness. Americans want to be united. They hate hyphenating. In New Mexico, a young man thanked me, “I tell all my friends I am American ... not Mexican-American!"

As I said, simply proclaiming myself an American is striking an extremely emotional chord with my fellow Americans across America. Their affection and gratitude is sometimes overwhelming. Moving me to tears. An elderly woman who owns a small dry cleaning business in Nevada offered me free dry cleaning for life! A rancher invited me to his ranch to shoot guns and drink whiskey. While I do neither, his offer was genuine and sincere.

These same Americans who so desperately want to be united without hyphenations are called racists by the Obama administration for disagreeing with his radical agenda. Freedom to identify one's self in whatever way one pleases is a part of the greatness of America. While I acknowledge my African descent, I will always proudly refer to myself as an American!


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: blacks; ethnicity; pc; race

1 posted on 09/05/2009 3:23:45 AM PDT by Scanian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Scanian

There is no room in this country for hyphenated
Americanism.
When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer
to naturalized Americans.
Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were
naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad.
But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.

This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before
the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or
English or French before the hyphen.
Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul.
Our allegiance must be purely to the United States.
We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any
other allegiance.

But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic,
then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an
American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation
to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing
to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become
a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot
of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans,
French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-
Americans, each preserving its separate nationality,
each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of
that nationality than with the other citizens of the
American Republic.

The men who do not become Americans and nothing else
are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no
room for them in this country.
The man who calls himself an American citizen and who
yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen
of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in
the life of our body politic.
He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the
land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the
better it will be for every good American.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt, October 12, 1915


2 posted on 09/05/2009 3:30:10 AM PDT by HuntsvilleTxVeteran ((B.?) Hussein (Obama?Soetoro?Dunham?) Change America Will Die From.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

I have worked with and known more than a few black people that do not like being labeled African-American.

They usually say they were born here and have never been to Africa. They would prefer to be called American.

Which is what they are. The hyphen is the leftist tool used to divide and pit groups against each other for political purpose. It has nothing to do with pride and respect, which is what they claim.


3 posted on 09/05/2009 3:42:26 AM PDT by dforest (Who is the real Jim Thompson? I am.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HuntsvilleTxVeteran

John Wayne explains the hyphen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ewDbT3PYHE


4 posted on 09/05/2009 3:54:06 AM PDT by jdfromny (At what point are we officially "North Americans"?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: indylindy
I have traveled to many Countries in Africa and I have
never heard any of them call themselves Africans.

In Nigeria, they called them selves Nigerians.
In Algeria, they called them selves Algerians.

In the Ivory coast, Did They call themselves “Ivory Coasters”? Me BAD.

5 posted on 09/05/2009 4:03:42 AM PDT by HuntsvilleTxVeteran ((B.?) Hussein (Obama?Soetoro?Dunham?) Change America Will Die From.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: indylindy

Thar type of black is like the Cedrick character from Barber Shop who said “f___ Jesse Jackson.”

Jesse, after all, promoted the use of that term and maybe invented it too.


6 posted on 09/05/2009 4:10:36 AM PDT by Scanian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: indylindy
"The hyphen is the leftist tool used to divide and pit groups against each other for political purpose."

Absolutely right. It's like welfare - when people accept it, they think it gives them power, but it just consigns them to dependency.


7 posted on 09/05/2009 4:12:34 AM PDT by chuck_the_tv_out ( <<< click my name: now featuring Freeper classifieds .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

Anyone who hyphenates his nationality should go back to the cause of his hyphenation.

IMHO


8 posted on 09/05/2009 4:19:36 AM PDT by ripley
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HuntsvilleTxVeteran

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated
Americanism.”

I don’t know. Maybe it’s time for hyphenated terms like ‘Socialist-American’.


9 posted on 09/05/2009 5:02:39 AM PDT by pieceofthepuzzle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

Has anyone heard of a:

* African-Canadian
* Mexican-Canadian
* Irish-Canadian

You get the idea, someone up thread mentioned Jesse Jackson
as founding the hyphenated phrase, I think that’s true, but at
the same time he has changed it several times. Black American
was used for awhile, along with several of the monikers that
failed miserably much like Jesse himself.


10 posted on 09/05/2009 5:05:59 AM PDT by ThreePuttinDude (o)(o)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThreePuttinDude

I mentioned that Jesse started the African-American thing because Lloyd Marcus used that particular term as an object of criticism. But, yes, Jesse and his type have used numerous terms over the years to the point of making it silly.

African-American seems to be what they’re stuck on now. I don’t think it will stay around, however—too may syllables for American speech.


11 posted on 09/05/2009 5:21:02 AM PDT by Scanian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Scanian
Being from Chicago, Jesse has always been in the spot light
even when he's tried not to be. Now his son is taking the torch
and has vaulted to the next level, from street preacher/scam-man
to an actual lawyer with an education. It's funny to see how
the Chicago machine operates since I've been away. When you're
in the middle of it everyday, things don't get noticed until
you step outside the circle and see what actually happens.

The Daily’s, Jackson's and many more that haven't made the
national spot light, Chicago is a great city but the politics
is nothing but a cesspool of breathing crap.

12 posted on 09/05/2009 5:31:56 AM PDT by ThreePuttinDude (o)(o)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: indylindy

Eich bin ein Mayflower-American. (Mixed German and Son of the American Revolution.)


13 posted on 09/05/2009 5:36:43 AM PDT by SERKIT ("Blazing Saddles" explains it all.....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: HuntsvilleTxVeteran

The main problem with most blacks in this country is, that they have no idea where they came from. They do not know who their families were, where they were from, or anything other than they were from Africa, and its George Bushes fault.

They were rounded up as bush people by the Obama family Arabs and sold to the Spanish or Portuguese as slaves, their heritage gone previous to the time they were brought into the West Indies. So, really they dont know where they came from. As far as I can determine, none of my family ever owned slaves after coming to this land in the early 1700’s. So, I dont have a dog in the fight, but the people who are here, were born here, as were their parents and grandparents, and it high time to drop the racist baiting hyphenated naming.


14 posted on 09/05/2009 6:30:23 AM PDT by Concho (Tell all parents to keep their children home from school on Sept 8.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson