[DD]

I am curious as to when and mostly why hyphenating one’s race became politically correct among mostly non-white ethnicities. Is black or Negro offensive? Asian-American, Native-American, African-American, etc., seem to be more divisive than black, white, Oriental, Indian. Do blacks in England for instance refer to themselves as African-Britons? Are there Asian-Italians? I realize that the United States is a melting pot, and perhaps this is a way of showing pride in one’s heritage which is commendable.

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Name : DD, City : Tampa, State : FL, Country : United States, 

[Original Poster]

I have heard your concerns expressed many times by others as well. Your impression is that hyphenation is divisive, and I have to disagree. America, unlike England, has a history of xenophobia, isolationism, especially against non-European (or Non-Anglo) immigrants. Consequently, people of Asian, African, Indian, or Native-Plains descent have had a history of difficultly being accepted as true ‘Americans’ in this country. So you have a situation where you’ve got (1) white Americans; and (2) everybody else (non-Americans). Now, that’s divisive. The self-empowering act of saying ‘Asian-American’ or ‘African-American’ is just a way of saying ‘look, I’m American too, and my ethnicity is Asian…etc.’ Europeans are in the same boat — they are ‘European-Americans’ (a.k.a. white-Americans). In short, we are all Americans — but tracing roots from different parts of the world (for example ‘e pluribus unum’ on the American quarter means ‘out of many come one’). Can you honestly say that that is divisive?

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Name : Original Poster, Gender : M, Race : Asian-American, Age : 26, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Law Clerk, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Felipe L. Simmons]

Unfortunately, this nation is not a melting pot. Also, we live in a nation that has made whiteness the norm, and you can look no further than the images presented on television, in movies and in magazines as to who is regarded as beautiful and smart. All too often, it is white people and no one else.

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Name : Felipe L. Simmons, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 36, City : Los Angeles, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Cafeteria Worker, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, 

[LaMar]

There is a very long history behind the reason why people of Afican decent and other minorities in this country choose to identify themselves using hyphens in their cultural titles. But I’m just going to explain the African-American reason. Sometime during the 16th and 17th centuries Europeans began to call themselves White to differentiate themselves from Africans whom they referred to as Negros, which was Spanish for ‘black’ because the complexion of Africans is very dark. A more appropriate term would have been ‘brown’ because no Africans skin color is completely black. Over time, Negro became the word used to describe people of Afircan descent from the period of American slavery until the 1960’s and the Civil Rights Movement. The word negro is also where slaveholders derived the derougatory word ‘nigger.’ Because of the orgin of the word Negro, African-American leaders during the 1960’s decided they wanted to change the name in which they were referred to and thus came the names Afo-American and Black American, because of the slogan ‘Black is Beautiful.’ During the mid 1970’s through the late 1980’s, our politically correct name became Black Amercians. And now from the 1990’s through the present, its African-Americans. Many white people often wonder why we distiguish ourselves like that. It is because many Africans-Americans feel they have never been totally asymilated into American culture because of the injustices that we are faced with in this country, unlike people of Afican descent in other countries.

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Name : LaMar, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 22, City : Charlotte, State : NC, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

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