[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by ladysycamore


While I agree, I again find it ironic that after 8 years, someone NOW has a problem with the award:

I've had a problem with things like this every time I've seen it. This is just ONE example that actually made it to the news that I managed to catch.

"The award has been given the last eight years to an outstanding black student as part of the school's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration."

So do they have a "Jesse Helms Award" that white kids exclusively can win? Can you imagine the outcry if they did?

So I'd say that the white student doesn't qualify based on the fact that the award is meant for a "black" student. Plus, since many people are so bent on dictionary definitions:

Main Entry: Af·ro-Amer·i·can
Pronunciation: "a-frO-&-'mer-&-k&n
Function: noun
: an American of African and especially of black African descent
- Afro-American adjective

*When you look up "African-American", it directs you to "Afro-American".*

My focus is the "especially of black African descent", because society (for the most part) knowns and understands that Af/American means "black".

Many may not agree with that, but I have yet to hear of a white OR black African who is now an American citizen call themselves "African-American". They normally identify themselves by culture or ethnicity.

It also seems to me that no one didn't have THAT much to say about the term "African-American" in the beginning, but for some reason NOW it causes certain people to have meltdowns galore!

Oh Come ON, Rho!! Blacks in America started telling everyone that "I prefer the term African-American, thank you." It became Politically Incorrect to call black folk "black". In fact, I personally witnessed a mexican get beat down because he REFUSED to call a black person "African American". American Blacks wanted to "maintain their cultural identity", and so took the hyphenated name. Then all the rest of the minorites took up the call and decided to hyphenate. Mexican-American, Chinese-American, Japanese-American.

And then, as now, it caused this same argument. We're ALL American, and I've held that view then, as I do now.

If people want to be known as just "Americans" then everyone needs to be treated like one.

I completely agree!! And I think that, again, going back to the post, is that blacks pushed so hard to be "African-American", that now the term is equated with blacks, but now we see a case where a person from Africa, a real "African-American", was denied an award because of his race.

My point here, boiled down to the bottom line is that the IDEA of giving an award to ONLY blacks is racist, whatever you call it, or whatever day you give it on.

If it's for "African-Americans," then the white kid should have been included as a selectee. If it's for black kids only, then call it for what it is: the "Black Kids Only" award. (Which makes my daughter ineligible, cuz she's part white.)

THAT is the problem I have with it. Using your quote of the article as an example, "The award has been given the last eight years to an outstanding black student as part of the school's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration." that is racist. Bottom line. Shame on that school.