Wednesday, August 4, 2010

In case you thought I was making stuff up...

The other day, I wrote about how stupid the phrase "African-American" is to refer to Blacks in the U.S.

Of the many things that's stupid about, there is that there's no good reason to make a special name for people of a certain race in a certain country. If you have a name for Blacks in the U.S., why wouldn't you have a special name for Blacks in Canada, the U.K., France, Ethiopia, or any other country?

Specifying something special about the U.S. isn't politically correct. So, unless, of course, you want to be politically correct by being politically incorrect, then it's stupid. Actually, it's stupid anyway.

But, my example about calling someone in another country "African-American-Britons" or something like that ... actually happened. I missed it. But, Paul over at Mean Ol' Meany didn't. He found a reference from a few years where someone on CNN actually referred to two Blacks in France as "African-Americans."

So, my suggestion of a though experiment to determine how stupid that phrase is was't necessary. An actual instance has already happened.

Thanks for finding that, Paul. Shows how far ahead of the curve I am ... even when I'm years behind.

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