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Since the issue of race has been raised with regard to Barack Obama I’ve been thinking more widely about the American obsession with ‘roots’ and labels of all kinds, in particular the label ‘African American.’ It’s one that Obama himself leans on, even though his mother was white.
I simply don’t understand the point of this; I simply don’t understand why the label American is not sufficient in itself. I know it was devised to escape terms like ‘negro’, to give black people an identity and heritage specific to themselves, just as white people were in the habit of describing themselves as ‘Irish American’ or ‘German American’. Nevertheless, I take this practice to be an indication that America is a ‘melting pot’ whose contents have not melted!
But African American (I would also add ‘Native American’ to this) seems to me to be particularly problematic insofar as it has been adopted as a de rigueur expression by the liberal middle-classes, people who would not generally go out of their way to refer to other white people as ‘Irish American’ or ‘German American’. It’s become yet another symptom of the cancer of political correctness, no matter if it was popularised by people like Jesse Jackson in the first place. In its own way it’s just as bad as older expressions like ‘negro’ and the even more hateful ‘nigger’ for the simple reason that it is no longer a badge of culture or identity; it is, rather, a badge of race.
I sympathise with Whoopi Goldberg, who, in rejecting the label, said that, “Rosa Parks did not sit on that bus so that I could put something in front of the word American. She sat on that bus to remind people that we are all entitled to the same thing.” In responding to this Donna Leonard Conger, an author and herself an ‘African American,’ wrote a book based on her life story which she called Don’t Call Me African-American. A woman of bravely individual outlook she refused to allow others to predetermine how she should think and act on the basis of her skin colour. Her argument cuts two ways: it’s not just whites who expect black people to act like ‘black people'; black people themselves have similar expectations.
I’m not black but I can feel something of her anger, understand exactly how I would feel if I were perceived not as an individual but as a racial or cultural collective. This is how she expresses her chief point;
A strong, balanced self-identity started at my family roots, not the mass of African and black American roots worldwide…I cannot blame white masters for the heinous unspeakable crimes they levied against the black race as early as a century ago. I cannot because it did not happen to me personally…I am human first, and that’s where my efforts have gone.
Conger is not a ’sister’ or an ‘African American’; she is a woman and an American. Is there not pride enough in that? Political correctness is a crippling and dehumanising disease, even when self-inflicted by the likes of Jesse Jackson and other ‘professional black people.’ To be oneself is all that really matters, not to be a stupid cultural stereotype.
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Wow. Stupid cultural stereotype, sorta gives it perspective, doesn't it? Nice to know you understand "exactly" what someone who's ancestors were slaves, were lynched, were and are still treated like third-class citizens in most of the country (not yours, of course). Good on you.