Wikipedia Unsure Whether African-American Should Be A A, A-A, A-a

[Wilson Gray]

Doug Harris writes:

"... I am somewhat disturbed by the need of some people to identify
themselves as, say, Irish-American, or Polish-American, when neither they
nor their parents came from Ireland, or Poland ..."

An excellent point, particularly in view of the fact that the average,
so-called "_African_-American" has no need to identify himself in any
way, given that the merest of glances is usually sufficient to
identify such a person.

-Wilson

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 9:42 PM, Doug_Harris <cats22 at stny.rr.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Doug_Harris <cats22 at STNY.RR.COM>
> Subject:      Wikipedia Unsure Whether African-American Should Be A A, A-A, A-a
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In attempting to learn what the oft used but seldom explained term
> 'robocall' means, I checked Wikipedia. In the article re robocalls,
> my eye caught the term African-american. Thinking that odd, I Wiki'd
> African-american, and was pointed to the article headed African-American,
> with both A's upper-cased.
> Then I noticed something else curious: Throughout that article, there
> was apparently indiscriminate switching back and forth from the hyphenated
> to the unhyphenated version.
> But African-american, in the form, didn't appear in that article even
> once -- unless I missed it.
> Though it has nothing to do with me, and no one particularly cares how I
> feel about it, I've always found that term somewhat disturbing, in the
> same way I am somewhat disturbed by the need of some people to identify
> themselves as, say, Irish-American, or Polish-American, when neither they
> nor their parents came from Ireland, or Poland, or whatever.
> Colin Powell, in his endorsement of BO today, made a similar point, about
> how certain Americans are vilified because they have Arab-sounding names,
> or happen to be Moslem, or Sikh, or whatever.
> As Rodney King said (as quoted by Wikipedia): "Please, we can get along
> here."
> Without hyphens, preferably.
> dh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org