American first - Writers Forum

Black Phoenix · 05-31-2008, 11:18 PM

Understand, those of you not in America, I'm referring to my country, I'll try to elaborate so you can understand what I mean.

"I'm African American!" Someone says to me, and proclaims it proudly.

"Really?" I ask, "You come from the country of Africa?"

"Yes."

I walk away laughing.

You are American, not African. Africa is composed of 52 distinct countries. BTW, how many "African Americans" have actually traced their lineage enough to know they are not from India, Brazil, the Middle East, an original European tribe or even Russia? The color of your skin says little about your heritage, only perhaps, it's most likely origin, but not much for definite.

Course the issue only gets worse with "Asian Americans". "Wow, somewhere back there, your ancestors come from somewhere in the largest content in the world. Mine came from Germany, can YOU get that specific?"

My biggest issue, why not "American African"? I'm an "American German", I'll say it if asked. I love my country more than Germany. Germany screwed up royally and America and the rest of the world had to well... set it straight shall we say? (Fire bombing can have that effect, thanks Britain.)

I guess I'm one of those radical people who says "if you don't like this country and want to be somewhere else, there's no machine guns at the boarder, what are you doing here and not there?" In other words, "love it or leave it". I know, such a radical thing to say.

geminye · 06-05-2008, 11:37 AM

It does seem that in the past few years it was first politically correct to say African-American, then Afro-American, now we are back to black. Seems a little overly critical doesn't it?

Then again, I am a caucasian (i.e. white guy) from a backwoods state where the racists are probably higher per capita than anywhere else (not me.) Oh, well.

smilinghelps · 06-05-2008, 12:47 PM

I always thought that saying African American or Asian American was less PC and redundant, really.

And who cares, really? If you're black or yellow, green, blue or white? I don't. People are people and when we stop labeling everyone and categorizing ourselves, we will become ONE race.

Human.

geminye · 06-05-2008, 12:52 PM

I agree...

Tiamat10 · 06-05-2008, 12:57 PM

I think Carlos Mencia did a rant muchly similar to this one. When my computer's not about ready to overheat and shut down, I'll try to find it. He agrees with you.

Neo · 06-05-2008, 01:08 PM

Yeah - they should say, "American-Ethiopian" or "American-Algerian."

Non Serviam · 06-05-2008, 01:19 PM

I don't see the problem.

I mean, "I'm Afro-European" makes sense and doesn't give offence. Why should "I'm African American" be different?

As I understand it, "American" in this case refers to a continent rather than a country. There's such a place as Latin America, and the people who live there are Latin Americans. "African American" is a logical extension of that.

So I'm genuinely perplexed: why all the huffing and puffing?

Cossack · 06-05-2008, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Black Phoenix

Understand, those of you not in America, I'm referring to my country, I'll try to elaborate so you can understand what I mean.

"I'm African American!" Someone says to me, and proclaims it proudly.

"Really?" I ask, "You come from the country of Africa?"

"Yes."

I walk away laughing.

You are American, not African. Africa is composed of 52 distinct countries. BTW, how many "African Americans" have actually traced their lineage enough to know they are not from India, Brazil, the Middle East, an original European tribe or even Russia? The color of your skin says little about your heritage, only perhaps, it's most likely origin, but not much for definite.

Course the issue only gets worse with "Asian Americans". "Wow, somewhere back there, your ancestors come from somewhere in the largest content in the world. Mine came from Germany, can YOU get that specific?"

My biggest issue, why not "American African"? I'm an "American German", I'll say it if asked. I love my country more than Germany. Germany screwed up royally and America and the rest of the world had to well... set it straight shall we say? (Fire bombing can have that effect, thanks Britain.)

I guess I'm one of those radical people who says "if you don't like this country and want to be somewhere else, there's no machine guns at the boarder, what are you doing here and not there?" In other words, "love it or leave it". I know, such a radical thing to say.

So you can't love your heritage as well as your nation? This is something i've found to be pretty uniquely American. Nobody here says they're African-British. Most often you just hear Afro-Carribean when someone is describing their race, and British when describing their nationality.

About fire bombing, you're right, we're to blame for all of that. it certainly wasn't a joint operation. American fighter planes certainly didn't gun down people in Dresden the day after the bombings while they tried to hide in the parks.

velo · 06-05-2008, 01:40 PM

It's all rather stupid. You're either an American of your not. Period. Who cares where your ancestors came from? I don't. I am who I am and what country my great-grandparents were born in has no influence over who I am in today's society.

We need to stop dwelling on the past and move to the future. A person is defined by his/her words and actions, NOT their ethnicity or heritage.

Quote:

People are people and when we stop labeling everyone and categorizing ourselves, we will become ONE race.

Amen, sistah! Tes-TUH-FIE!

geminye · 06-05-2008, 01:42 PM

No offense Non, but i don't think African-American is a logical extenstion of Latin-American. I could see that if Africa was a part of the "Americas," but the use of African-American is just a way of legitimizing ones heritage. Just as the OP said, we don't go around saying I'm German-American, or Russian-American, especially if our lineage hasn't been in those countries for hundreds of years. To me, this is just like someone wearing a t-shirt or badge announcing they are gay, or have AIDS, Cancer, or anything else. I don't announce that i am Bi-Polar. Hello, I'm a Bi-Polar American....its silly.
The focus on race eliminates the ability to remove discrimination. Being proud of one's heritage is one thing, but announcing it for the sake of aknowledgement is the badge of a weak personality, hungry for empathy.

A-L · 06-05-2008, 01:43 PM

I don't see anything wrong with how you choose to identify yourself, if that is what he wants to be called than that is his business and none of mine. I personally prefer black, but again that is his business, and better yet...who cares?

smilinghelps · 06-05-2008, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by velo

It's all rather stupid. You're either an American of your not. Period. Who cares where your ancestors came from? I don't. I am who I am and what country my great-grandparents were born in has no influence over who I am in today's society.

We need to stop dwelling on the past and move to the future. A person is defined by his/her words and actions, NOT their ethnicity or heritage.
Amen, sistah! Tes-TUH-FIE!

Why, Thank you! *takes a bow* lol

Non, I understand what you're saying but the point (at least IMHO) is that the US is a melting pot, all of our ancestors come from somewhere else.

If we all go around labeling ourselves we're defeating the purpose of the US in the first place, which is to have separate heritages joining into one, which is American! (There is nothing wrong with being proud of your heritage, btw)

I could say that I'm Irish, English, Polish, Native American. But, why would I?

I'm American. The fact that someone has dark skin, light skin, medium skin, two-toned or neon skin shouldn't matter. At least it doesn't matter to me.

You're English (or do you prefer British?) and I'm American.

Does it need to be more complicated? The only thing different between us that I can see is that I'm a woman, you're a man and there's a big giant ocean in the middle. (and you're a better writer, but that's off topic).

HarryG · 06-05-2008, 02:02 PM

We could well have a half-black, half-Muslim president of the largest democracy in the modern world in November. It's just what the world needs, the entire world. Us Brits are miles away from anything like that, we have a multi-cultured society, ruled by the bigoted few.

The rest of Europe is not much better, the bigots rule everywhere. We need America to lead the way, to show us that racial ignorance is dead, at long last. Mind you, McCain is still there. It's going to be fucking close.

The Hack · 06-05-2008, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryG

We could well have a half-black, half-Muslim president of the largest democracy in the modern world in November. It's just what the world needs, the entire world. Us Brits are miles away from anything like that, we have a multi-cultured society, ruled by the bigoted few.

The rest of Europe is not much better, the bigots rule everywhere. We need America to lead the way, to show us that racial ignorance is dead, at long last. Mind you, McCain is still there. It's going to be fucking close.

This kind of talk scares me (not that I disagree with your point, Harry). My concern is that the people of the U.S. quite often vote for the Republican Party in larger numbers than for the Democratic party. And the latest numbers show that a fairly even number of people align themselves with each of the major parties. My point is that, if McCain wins, I am fearful that there will be talk of "America showed it is bigoted" because they failed to elect a black man as President. This completely ignores the fact that the past 28 years has seen a Republican in office for 20 of those years. Republicans who defeated white Democrats (with one year where the higher popular vote getter did not win a plurality of the electoral districts - but that's a different subject all together). I just don't want a vote based on legitimate political differences to Obama to be interpreted by the world as a vote against "a black candidate".

geminye · 06-05-2008, 02:13 PM

Smilinghelps has a point. It seems like the need to hyphenate one's heritage could be seen as a sign of a disapproval of being american. There is a large contingent of the world population who greatly dislike america. Perhaps this is the method certain people use to differentiate themselves from the rest of us american mutts.