Why Are We Not All Just Americans

Kirk — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:08:47 +0000

I am having a problem keeping up with all the politically correct labels that people want to put on themselves and I think this has reached the point of insanity. I think for me to be determining the country of origin for every person I meet is unreasonable and actually kind of racist in it self. This all got started for me with the whole African-American thing.

Isn’t the term African-American a little wrong anyways? I mean if your are an American, why does the African part get to go first? We don’t refer to people as Short Americans or Fat Americans. There are rules for displaying the flag which state “No such flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the right of the flag of the United States…“. Why shouldn’t the same hold true for some ones ancestorial roots, or denounced country of origin. That should not get top billing.

We are just getting started here….

Now I have flipped through many National Geographic magazines, as a kid, and I think that I can reasonably assume these are Africans. But the last time I was downtown city in the United States, I did not see anything like this.

Here is the other problem, look at these Africans. Are they Americans? Who knows, but no one who meets one of them on the street is going to refer to them as African-Americans. Just because they are from the South why are they not entitled to the same African-American status. This just seems wrong to me.

Now using this logic, shouldn’t I be offended when someone refers to me as that fat white guy? Should I expect them to refer to me as that Fat-Irish-German-English-Canadian American?

The other people I worry about are the Jamaicans. Without some form of training, I personally can not tell someone who has 3rd generation Jamaican blood from someone who has African Blood or even someone who has Aboriginal blood lines. If I were a Jamaican, I don’t think I would appreciate automatically being tagged with the African label.

This is not really about any specific racial bias here, even though it may sound like it, this is just what set me off. You may all be assured that I am equally ill-equipped to tell someone with 3rd generation German blood from someone with 3rd generation Irish blood. Once their accent’s are gone, it’s all a crap shoot for me.

This is all probably a mute point since in another few generations since there will be just one race and everyone will be gray. I wonder what we will be complaining about then?

Ride With Kirk» national geographic

Why Are We Not All Just Americans