AP article on Black/African-American split

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> quoted:
>> The Rev. Jesse Jackson is widely credited with taking African-American
>> mainstream in 1988, before his second presidential run.
>> Jackson, who at the time may have been the most-quoted black man in
>> America, followed through with the plan.

For a very long time, I thought that the contemporary use of the term
had *originated* with Jackson, but that was a mispreapprehension on my
part.

>> "Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some land base,
>> some historical, cultural base," Jackson told reporters at the time.
>> "African-Americans have hit that level of cultural maturity."

"Every ethnic group ..."

By which he means, "every *white* ethnic group," of course.

"African-Americans have hit that level of cultural maturity."

In his opinion, the colored have now, at last, (almost) earned the
respect of their betters, the white and, therefore, have the right to
"lick up behind them and take their mess" - paraphrasing Elmore James
- by continuing, on a whole *new*, totally uncalled-for level, to
accept the "Great White Way" as the standard by which the colored are
to judge themselves.

"We're no good, if we can't do what The Man does and glory in being
from somewhere else, even though the leaving of that place by our
ancestors was entirely coerced and is, therefore, of no
came-over-on-the-Mayflower-through-Ellis-Island-seeking-a-better-life-in-the-land-of-the-free-and-the-home-of-the-brave
significance whatsoever and even though all that we know about that
place is that it is, in fact, a number of unknown locations in Africa,
from a time when no 'countries,' in the European sense, existed
there."

Utter nonsense. "African-American" makes less sense than "Beizhing."

--
-Wilson
-----
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

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