Posted on 05/13/2007 11:47:51 PM PDT by FriedBrains
‘How a simple word order can divide people and create countries within a country.’
Comment from Tezza: I don’t know what has been happening to me recently, but I have been getting these reoccurring nightmares; I keep dreaming I am a left-wing liberal. I keep on drifting into the liberal mind; the landscape of the liberal brain if you will. Traversing this landscape, one can see it is a very depressing, desolate place; it is very bleak and barren indeed.
The only color is found in the murky waters of Lake Communism, which leads to a river that filters down through the liberal spine. Apart from mountains upon mountains of political correctness stemming from the Political Correctness Mountains’ region, this landscape has nothing but vast areas of desert, vast desolate areas of nothingness. Where morality, humor, free speech, rational thought, and personal responsibility may have existed at one point in time, nothing exists anymore.
Looking around the peripheral areas of this landscape, one can see into the liberal mind; one can see fuzzy, distorted notions of ‘good and bad’ emanating from the nothingness.
Luckily for me, however, these nightmares don’t last long, 30 seconds to be exact, as 30 seconds is ample time to see all that the liberal mind has to offer.
Even though these nightmares never last long, one question always lingers. Why do liberals consider it a good idea to call black Americans ‘African Americans?’ Why not just call everyone Americans? After all, all Americans are Americans, aren’t they? For that matter why are any of these ‘hyphenated’ American labels needed? On the American passport is says “United States of America.” It doesn’t say ‘United States of Africa America,’ ‘United States of Korea America’ or ‘United States of China America,’ etc, does it?
‘Hyphenated’ labels such as African American, Korean American, Hispanic American, and Chinese American, etc, have two fundamental problems.
1. The word ‘American,’ always takes the second position, a position of lower importance. We always hear the American identity last.
By placing the word ‘African’ in front of ‘American,’ for example, the African identity is of higher importance than the American identity. So, in effect, these labels are not unifying America, they are dividing it. They are creating countries within a country.
2. Also, by placing the word ‘African’ in front of 'American,’ African Americans never become American. Even after generations of being American, they are still African because the word ‘African’ takes the front position, the position of higher importance.
To unite America, the word ‘American’ must come first; everyone must instinctively feel and believe they are American first and then identify with their origin second. Everyone must say "I am an American" and not "I am an African America," for example, but how?
Obviously when writing or speaking about people of a specific ethnic background we need to identify their origin. Indeed, it would be very difficult to describe black Americans without using the words ‘black’ or ‘African.’ Let’s look at the options using the black American example.
I. We presently say ‘African American,’ but this is not satisfactory because of the above word-order problems.
2. We also say ‘black American,’ but that doesn’t identify the African origin clearly, and it still leaves us with the same word-order problem.
3. We could say ‘American African’ as we presently say ‘American Indian,’ which is somewhat better as it places the word ‘American’ first. However, it still implies a division; a separateness from other Americans.
4. We could say ‘American from Africa,’ which is better as it places the word ‘American’ first, which elevates the American identity and lessens the African relevance. However, it kind of implies that the person is a new immigrant as opposed to an established, long-term citizen.
5. We could say ‘American of African origin,’ which is also good as it places the word ‘American’ first, thus elevating the American identity and lessening the African relevance. Additionally, it still identifies the African origin and doesn’t imply ‘new immigrant.’ However, it is a linguistic mouthful.
Of the five options, I prefer the latter. If the term ‘American of African origin’ were the semantic norm, I would suggest black Americans would end up just calling themselves ‘Americans’ as it is semantically easier. I couldn’t imagine anyone calling themselves ‘American of African origin’ unless it was specifically relevant. Hence, by simply calling themselves American, the American identity is elevated and separateness is lessened.
Even though the term ‘American of African origin,’ is a linguistic mouthful it is much better than having a fragmented country divided by separate identities -- countries within a country, as depicted below.
When Jesse Jackson and other liberals marketed the ‘hyphenated’ American labels to the Orwellian proles, or unthinks for a better word, did they honestly believe they were helping? Or did they know from the outset that these labels would create divisions? Was it their intention to divide people and thus fuel the vote-assured, victim culture? You decide.
I am so sick of hyphenated Americans. ALl four of my grandparents came over from Ireland, but I am not an Irish-American. Never been there, was born here.
I am an American. And so are you.
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas of thinking like a liberal. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone.
drat. nevermind the link to the music. you know how it goes...
I’m a racist WHITE American according to the standards within the ACLU.
Hyphenated’ labels such as African American, Korean American, Hispanic American, and Chinese American, etc, have two fundamental problems.
German-Americans dropped this very quickly during WWII
Obviously ‘American’ is the best. The only problem is when we need to identify a specific ethnic background in writing, for example. We could say ‘black American’ when writing but that also includes some South Americans. How do we classify Asians, do we say ‘yellow’ Americans when clearly we know they are not remotely yellow in color? When trying to describe Asians, we simply can’t classify them as ‘yellow,’ for example, as they are vastly different. There is a major difference between Chinese and Indonesian, for example.
Hence, I would prefer to call everyone American. However, when we need to idenify a specific background, I think it is better to call people ‘American of .......origin.’ But definitely not ‘Hyphenated’ American
American of African origin 
African American 
I filled out a census form and when asked I wrote in Heintz 57 Varities American. When my neighbor died and I spoke briefly, her black relatives and friends seemed to appreciate that I said that both ouf our grandmothers were Irish. She particularily disliked African American. People like to be treated as individuals, not members of groups.
I agree with you!
“1. The word ‘American,’ always takes the second position, a position of lower importance. We always hear the American identity last.
By placing the word ‘African’ in front of ‘American,’ for example, the African identity is of higher importance than the American identity.”
Actually, this is not at all true.
The last word of such a phrase is the NOUN, and the leading words are adjectives of that noun. If anything, the noun is the most important, and the adjectives are just modifiers.
The problem with the “African-American” label is that it is currently the only 1 that attempts to label a RACE. Apparently it is now taboo to be called simply “black” so they’re replacing the race name.
But there is no “African-American” race. There’s not even any “African” race, per se, although I guess 1 could say there is if not using the simpler label with no geographic reference.
And if you go to Europe, are you still of the “African-American” race? Do the checkboxes in their government and business forms say “African-American”?
Oh, oops, perhaps we have to say “African-French”, or “African-Italian” now. Then we can travel to Japan and call ourselves “African-Japanese”. The label always changes depending on where you are.
Meanwhile, I’m still “white”. And I’m not offended by it. Although, to match the other race, I’d prefer maybe “European-American”. Which also, incidentally, matches the now-somewhat-popular “Asian-American”.
At least there could be consistency.
The words ‘African’ and ‘American’ are both nouns. However, when ‘African’ is placed in front of ‘American’ it merely functions as an adjective. When hyphenated both nouns function as an adjective of the ellipsis ‘people’ as in ‘African-American people.’
You didn’t say anything that contradicted what I said.
As mentioned above, when the nouns ‘African’ and ‘American’ are hyphenated as in ‘African-American people,’ they act as a single adjective. Therefore, it is impossible for an adjective to modify itself. The key point is the stress. In this word order ‘African-American (ellipsis),’ the intonational stress is invariably over the ‘Af’ as in ‘He is an AFrican-American (person). In other words, in this word order the emphasis (stress) is placed on African and not on American. Not only is the word ‘American’ positioned second, we hear it second; we hear it of lower importance. Even when we disregard the ellipsis and just go with ‘African American,’ the stress pattern is the same.
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