African-American

[Wilson Gray]

I don't know who you are, but " 'White' person" tells me more than I
need to know about you and your "thought-processes" - I use the term
advisedly - given that you've sent me what you yourself define as an
"insult," a term which you use quite loosely, given that, in order for
me to take your e-mail as other than a demonstration of asininity, I'd
have to have at least a modicum of interest in your expression of your
unsolicited personal  opinion of my post.

--

-Wilson Gray
-----
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


On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Brian Hitchcock <brianhi at skechers.com> wrote:
> Sir:Â  I submit that your posting (below) had nothing useful to say about
> dialect; it evinces only a transparent disdain on your part for “colored”
> people in general, and for Rev. Jackson in particular.  You seem to think
> that he had no right to propose the usage of a particular moniker for people
> of African and American descent (of which he is one); but that you (who I
> assume to not be of African and American descent) do.
>
>
>
> I am surprised that the moderator of the ADS-L listserv allowed your posting
> to be published.  Anyway, I am replying to you personally, rather than
> through the listserv, as I do not wish to insult you publicly, thus
> exacerbating the ad hominem tone of that public form.
>
>
>
> It seems to me that you also implicitly include Chinese Americans, Japanese
> Americans, Arab Americans, etc. (who are generally not considered “white”),
> in your catch-all phrase “every *white* ethnic group”.    Those terms are
> common now, but I don’t recall  whether they were common in 1988.  If they
> were not, ought we to credit (or rather, do you discredit) Rev. Jackson for
> that shift in terminology as well?
>
>
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Brian Hitchcock
>
> “White” person and logophile
>
> Torrance, CA
>
> ====================================================================================================
>
>
>
>
>
> Date:Â Â Â  Sun, 5 Feb 2012 22:02:34 -0500
>
> From:Â Â Â  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>
> Subject: Re: AP article on Black/African-American split
>
>
>
> 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
>
>

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