Posted on 12/03/2014 8:34:38 AM PST by Doctor 2Brains
Even the world's most hard-core, fire-breathing conservatives have me baffled. I'll paraphrase John Stossel in harsher language than he used (no conservative he, but he did address the issue) "If you use the term 'African American' you are either gutless or stupid. Gutless because you are afraid to "offend" those looking to be offended, stupid because you've not stopped to ask yourself what the hell this new term is all about."
Why do SO MANY conservatives, even here on this site and even Rush Limbaugh, use this term?
Blacks invented the term to wield power over nonblacks. If I force you to call me by some regal-sounding, magisterial title with 10,000 syllables, then I am wielding power over you. Period.
On the day that I demand to be called a European American of Caucasoid Descent with Scotch/Irish Roots (Roots? Get it? That's funny!) then I'll start using the AA term.
Just how low must you bow when using the term AA, and are you allowed to look the AA in the face when speaking to him?
I mean, I do realize that "they" were surveying the building sites of the pyramids they built from the gliders they invented thousands of years ago, while lowly whites were still stabbing each other over grubs in the forest, but come on!
Sorry, I’m pro-life, anti-sodomite-pseudo-marriage. I may be a moron, but I will continue using European-American instead of “white”—I’m sharkbait white—and in honor of my beautiful African-American Bride of 33 years, who is a bigger truth-teller than me, fearless, I will continue using the term.
“Here’s another expression I utterly detest: people of color.”
Me too,it’s awkward.
Can you imagine telling kids that they will need “paper of color” for a school project?
.
A very white friend of mine who teaches History in Middle and High School is sometimes challenged by Negro students who tell him he couldn’t possibly know anything about Africa and African Americans. Troy then tells them intensely that he is more African than they could ever be as he was born and raised in what is now Eritrea and what do they know about anything African, anyway?.
It's all due to a skin condition from an excess of Vitamin A.
What is Obama? Halfrican-American? Are light-skinned Egyptian-Americans also African-American?
And Liberals are not liberal. But Communist is such a harsh word.
Now that got a little chuckle out of me.
There is an awful lot of linguistic background to this, so please pardon the use of some of them.
In Roman times, sub-Saharan African blacks were known by their kingdoms of Nubia, hence “Nubians.” While there were other African kingdoms before then, Nubian was the first name really associated with blacks.
In the 15th Century, “negro” became the Spanish-Portuguese term for black people from sub-Saharan Africa. This lasted for about 400 years, synonymous with the English word “black”.
In the United States, only in the late 19th and 20th Centuries did other words emerge, mostly in the South. By then, “black” was considered somewhat offensive, and variations of “negro” appeared, accepted or rejected based on social class.
The word “nigger” was only used by the poor of whatever color. Oddly enough, the word “nigra” was regarded as more polite by the middle and upper classes, having a *Latin* derivation of the word “niger”, which meant “shiny black” instead of “dull black.” “Colored” was often used as a legal term, probably coming about to group many different variations of mixed race people together.
“African-American” is a contrivance that was useful to blacks until about the 1990s, when increasing numbers of African immigrants started to arrive in the US. It will likely continue to fall out of favor, because these immigrants both reject is as a label, and resent being called African-Americans.
Okay, even better.
Read before it’s gone.
Hang gliders.
LOL
People should be called what they want to be called, not what someone else decides they should be called. People should not be called what Jesse Jackson decides they should be called, however. He made it up and decreed that it should be used from here on out. I have always refused to use that term.
Absolutely perfect!
People should be called what they want unless it is ridiculous. AA is as ridiculous as “European American of Caucasoid Descent—A People Who Invented the Modern World”
I’m agreeing with you. What people want to be called has to be based in reality and perhaps history. Not some new word made up for political reasons and only to batter another group. Blacks expressed a preference for Negro over Colored, so people started using that term. Then they decided they liked Black better, so we went with that. No big deal, just a similar term and Negro and Colored both had reasons why they might not be preferable to a black person. However, African American was made up from whole cloth, is not accurate in that there are white AAs and that there are blacks from Africa who were never Americans or slaves, and so on. It was just an effort to divide America, and should never have been adopted and accepted.
That is as stupid as a reporter from, say Peru, coming to New York and calling all whites "Euro-Peruvian".
To your point -- that reporter would or could never get away with saying "African American" to the faces of those black guys in Britain, at least not without being told off.
p.s. My apologies for belaboring the joke.
You’re a good sport—cheers!
For example, I will watch one of those crime shows, and the narrator says "they found an African-American hair at the scene". So I'm saying, how do they know that the person was an American?
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.