[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by OnyxCougar
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".

Well goddamnit then, that particular black person was incredibly stupid, now weren't they? I'd like to know how that one incident have anything to do with me or any other black person that doesn't make others call us Af/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.

Hyphenation is not new. I'll let Sycamore explain in a later posting.

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.

Hrm...when he was in his homeland, he was known as something else, but once coming here, he's more than happy to be Af/American...interesting. Wonder when he decided to be that...when he left Africa? When he arrived? When some kids decided to put his face on a poster for an award?

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.

Ok, let's say that suddenly all that is put to rest. No more special awards. In fact, just no more awards..everyone is good and special. How does that addresses the issue of racism? I keep hearing "take away this and that" but let's say you do that, the problem still remains and I don't hear anything about resolving THAT.

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.

Apparently, the community didn't have a problem until now, so they must have thought it was ok.