CNN: Political correctness leads to idiotic statement

I am just cuirous on this technicality so here goes:

I am a white male (1/16 sioux indian-but whose counting). My wife-also white and I just moved to South Africa (like the skiing). We are about to give birth to our first child (hopefully whiteif not there is some explaining to do). So my child will be African correct? Now if I move back to the US and I have my child become a US citizen, will he then be tecnically an African American?

Seems to fit the bill?????

Anywho just a thought, cant we all just treat people as people no matter who they are or what they look like? That should not be too Utopian.

Words matter a little - actions matter much more.

Political correctness is about censorship and coded language - a band aid on a gaping chest wound.

Your little jazz argument doesn't fly - nice try though.

Lazy L wrote:

[quote]dmb wrote:

Many of you must be living in a cave, anyway. It is perfectly acceptable to call people of African descent living in America "black".

I hate to have to go here, but this statement proves some of my earlier points. I know very few black people who have a problem with being referred to as "black."

It's mostly silly white liberals who have an issue. Do you actually know any "African-Americans?" Or have you just made up your mind that you know what's best for them?

Self-Examination wrote:

And, if a black kid tried to sit down next to you at school and assimilate himself as one of your friends?

Never bothered me who sat next to me. Do you have an issue with who sits next to you?

I'll call all the bs artists out here. What have you done to make the US better in this regard? I have worked several summers in the Upward Bound program mentoring youth in math and science and I have sponsored several kids in Project Seed (American Chemical Society) who worked in my laboratory for 10 weeks in the summer. A number of these kids went on to college - successfully. They almost always are first generation college attendees.

I'll admit that these are modest contributions, but I'll bet they far outweigh most of the jokers on this board.

Call me a racist for having a point of view - fine. But at least I do something to help kids out - regardless of race.

What have you done Lazy L? Self Examination?

Great Mental Image,

Thanks, I didn't know you cared.

Blacks are from the equatorial areas of the globe. Whites are from more polar areas of the globe. It's easy. The human genome project has found that peoples from a closer proximity are related irregardless of skin color.

Example, the aboriginals in Australia are genetically close to the Thais than they are to Ethiopians or Kenyans (see this is a running forum).

All skin-color race myths have been discredited by the human genome project. This is as dramatic as when they discovered that the earth is round, and as dramatic as when they discovered that the earth is not the center of the universe.

Don't be a Meany wrote:

are related irregardless of skin color.

REGARDLESS.

I'll call you retard. wrote:

KUFI wrote:

There is no such thing as political correctness. CAlling groups what they want to be called is not political correctness, it is basic respect. IF your name was fred but we all called you a****** it would bother you. That's all it comes down to.

See, you're not bright enough to understand, like the typical PC f**. Let me explain it to you:

The moron called the two *****FRENCH***** kids *****AFRICAN-AMERICAN*****, which they are not. THEY ARE *****FRENCH*****. The dumbf*** called them AFRICAN-AMERICAN. In an attempt to be PC, the retard labeled the kids something which is totally incorrect. This is how far ingrained this is in our culture, that we have to call ALL black people African-American. If you want to be PC, try calling them by the correct label, which in this case would be "AFRICAN-FRENCH."

He wasn't talking about the French. He was talking about Americans.

x (formerly .) wrote:

I'll call you retard. wrote:

See, you're not bright enough to understand, like the typical PC f**. Let me explain it to you:

The moron called the two *****FRENCH***** kids *****AFRICAN-AMERICAN*****, which they are not. THEY ARE *****FRENCH*****. The dumbf*** called them AFRICAN-AMERICAN. In an attempt to be PC, the retard labeled the kids something which is totally incorrect. This is how far ingrained this is in our culture, that we have to call ALL black people African-American. If you want to be PC, try calling them by the correct label, which in this case would be "AFRICAN-FRENCH."

He wasn't talking about the French. He was talking about Americans.

NO, the moron (reporter) WAS talking about the French. Unless you are calling KUFI a moron.

Yes, I f'd up - I misread your post. I'm killing time at home today with a stomach bug and must have been delerious when I wrote it....

I never thumped my chest about volunteering - I said that my contributions were modest. My point was that in my experience most people who get worked up about PC issues do not really do much in the way of pitching in.

falafel wrote:

NO, the moron (reporter) WAS talking about the French. Unless you are calling KUFI a moron.

You are correct. The reporter was talking about the French. KUFI wasn't. The direction of the thread splintered. (Am I sounding like a broken record yet?) Some people are talking about the French, some people are talking about Americans, and some people are replying to posts when they haven't read the whole thread and seen that it has gone off in a different direction, hence the confusion.

We are talking about:

1. Calling black French African American, which is crazy and incorrect, although probably an honest mistake, and

2. The politics and semantics regarding the monikers "African American" and "black" when referring to blacks in America.

Since when is does a continent constitute a race? Have you met/seen someone from North Africa and someone from central Africa? They do not look very similar. The North African will be lighter, live in Africa, have thinner facial features and be ARAB in descent. I know it's a shocking concept, but CONTINENT does not equate to RACE. Two separate things. By your logic, emigrated Morrocans and Egyptians would be African-American, while the Jordanians who live a few miles from them & are similar gentically (i.e. racially) are Arab-Americans, and if you know anything about the Middle East then you know that the Iranians, who look like Arabs, live around Arabs and have the same religion as Arabs are actually Persian, but that's not important--lets just call them Arab-Americans too. We don't want to confuse your world view with facts. Moreover, Caucasian is a total misnomer. I know a Caucasian, he's from the Caucasus mountains just west of the Caspian Sea, and he looks more Turkish than European. One time a blonde American girl described herself as Caucasian to him, and he burst out laughing. BTW, it is pretty funny that French citizens of African, (probably Algerian) descent are described as Afro-American. "African" sounds racist, but not if it's part of a compound, so...

Are people still writing about this? Good heavens! Get over it. I still sense tight ace.

WHO CARES!

This is as important as when the dunces marched around school demanding that history be named herstory! Shut your mouth and get in the corner you morons.

This has all gone too far. If everyone and I mean everyone would get over themselves and the giant pity chip they have then we could move on to topics that MATTER! Will Tara Reid snort coke tonight? Will Patrick Swayze regain his dominance? Come on! get in the game folks.

PS Rexing is training! Training!

PSS Racism is dead. It's economics and education that matter. Period, End of story. If you believe that a white kid whose parents make 25k a year has a better chance of making it than a black kid whose parents make 200k a year then you my friend need to go out back and blow your brains out. You can swap the black kid and white kid and the result is the same. It comes down to OPPORTUNITY and WORK. It is no longer RACE.

DR. W

I realize that continent is not race. But I think my original argument holds true that Tom Jenks was saying he wanted to be called Scottish-Irish-Spanish-German, whatever - American. I do think that is the equivalent of somebody from Africa wanting to be called Sudanese-Nigerian-Moroccan-American. Nowhere here did I mention race.

And if you take African American at it's face value, it mentions nothing of race, only of continent. So in that case, it would apply to any American who is from Africa. So yes, to use your example, emigrated Moroccans and Egyptians would classify as African American. That is not a problem with my definition, it is a problem with the specificity of the moniker.

It's funny that you mention "if you knew anything about the Middle East..." as I am a Near Eastern Studies major! And yes, I have seen North Africans. In fact, my Arabic professor is Egyptian, and I see him every day, and I know he would not be classified by the conventional use of "African-American." (even if I don't think he's American, but let's just pretend he is!) But he would be classified as "African-American" taken literally. That was my point in the first place, and I stand by it.

Geez, don't let anyone have a debate about anything, it doesn't matter to you! Just because we're debating something doesn't mean that what we're debating is going to change the world; it's just something we're interested in and want to talk about. Have a problem with that?

PERSONALLY ,I prefer " negro " as I am TAN, not black, and African-American is just plain stupid. Actually we need a better word , I will work on it.

bro satch wrote:

PERSONALLY ,I prefer " negro " as I am TAN, not black, and African-American is just plain stupid. Actually we need a better word , I will work on it.

How about MOCCA/American?

;-)

bro satch wrote:

PERSONALLY ,I prefer " negro " as I am TAN, not black, and African-American is just plain stupid. Actually we need a better word , I will work on it.

How is negro better than black? Just curious, as it means black. Whites aren't white either, but that's what we're called. I don't know. I think we should be respectful of other people's wishes, that's only fair, and I also think that if we aren't 100% right 100% of the time, we shouldn't get all offended by it. Sometimes you have to look at intent, not the outcome, when it is something like semantics.

x (formerly .) wrote:

[quote]bro satch wrote:

Sometimes you have to look at intent, not the outcome, when it is something like semantics.

Glad to hear that you are not anti-semantic. :-)