American-Americans

I’m all for being sensitive towards people’s differences but, like any great idea or intention, these things can become their own worst enemy when fanaticized. The strong push to be ever more politically correct is one area where I sometimes find myself in firm disagreement with some liberals. This is not, as I must always explain to them, because I am insensitive, but rather that I think many of there good intentions have taken bad form. One of the most prevalent examples is the term “African-American” for all black people. This term is not only logically and practically inconsistent, it is divisive. The idea of calling black people African-Americans means that equality lies in labeling ourselves, each one of us, by the continent of our ancestors no matter how far removed, i.e. European-Americans and, I suppose, South American-Americans. But wait, what’s that you say? Not all blacks are from Africa? Well, this changes everything. It would be insensitive of us not to label people’s ancestral ethnicity by country. All well and good, I may spend an extra hour when filling out forms looking for the bubble next to “British-Danish-Russian-Ukrainian-American”, but at least no one is offended.
There is no doubt that there is serious racial inequality and discrimination towards blacks in this country, or that much of it comes from our nation’s roots in the slave trade. But labeling black people African-American does nothing to change that. At best, it distracts us from confronting the more tangible and objective issues of racial injustice. At worst, it serves to perpetuate these inequalities and muddle the struggle for racial justice by placating and further marginalizing those we should be embracing.
I’m not a European-American, I don’t have any connection to the countries my ancestors were once born in. Nor am I a Jewish-American, and if you want to my religious beliefs, ask me, I’m happy to share them, but they have nothing to do with my race or nationality. The last thing I care to know about a person is the ethnicity or religions of their ancestors, I would much rather know about the person. I’m an American, this is the country that luck had me born in, and every other citizen of this country is also an American and is free to self define whatever ethnicity they identify with. The color of my skin is important; I’m white so I receive unequal treatment in our society as compared to other races. And while there is a distinct black culture, it has far, far less to do with the continent of Africa than it does the country of America.
I’ll grant that the term “black” is an inaccurate description of varying shades of brown skin, as is true with the term “white”, but picky pigment arguments do nothing to improve education in segregated minority regions in our society.
How much longer will we chew over how many least offensive angels can dance of a pinhead, and avoid the actual offenses and injustices happening around us all the time? Confronting racism and bigotry takes real work, it takes recognizing different colors of skin and the prejudice we attribute to them. It takes accepting and appreciating our differences and overcoming our prejudices. Black people are black, isn’t it time for us to finally be okay with that and move on?