AFRICAN AMERICAN.

[powderman]

Anybody else sick of this hyphenated garbage??? They are black, is that so hard to say?? I guess you can call me an English, Irish, Cherokee white American. POWDERMAN. 

[45-70.gov]

Anybody else sick of this hyphenated garbage??? They are black, is that so hard to say?? I guess you can call me an English, Irish, Cherokee white American. POWDERMAN. 

they  are  not  black
they  are  various  shades  of brown

you   are  not  white...[tho  many yankees are]
you  are    a shade  of  tan as  i am [which  is  just  a lighter shade  of  brown]

so  why  are  they  called black  and  you  white??
because  some one  wants  us  to see  each  other  as ''different or opposite''
why  do  they  want us to  fight??

how  about ....working-american
                ....taxpaying-american
                ....patriotic-american

i think  i want  to be a hyphenated american

[powderman]

This is mlk day and it seems that all I've heard all day long is African American, I'm really tired of hearing it. We're all Americans, at least most of us here. POWDERMAN. 

[nw_hunter]

This is mlk day and it seems that all I've heard all day long is African American, I'm really tired of hearing it. We're all Americans, at least most of us here. POWDERMAN. 

Tomorrow is the birthday of an honorable man with true integrity that the Government does not recognize, so I celebrate the Birthday of Robert E Lee on this holiday.

[45-70.gov]

powderman .... i understand  your frustration

have  you noticed  every  city  has  RENAMED  a street for  him

i  have  no problem  with  naming  a NEW street  after  him

but  in  jacksonville fl
guess  what  street  is between  19th  and  21st??
20th.........NO   mlk pawkway..or  something

in  my  hometown of fernandina
all streets are  names  of  trees in alphebetical  order on  the south side
what street  do you think  is between date  and fir street??
ELM STREET.........not any more.....martin luther king street

they  must  just try to make  us  hate  him
because  he was  a republican
or  else  they would  name a nice  new street  after  him

powderman....
how  would you feel  if  they  changed  the  name  of  YOUR street
sorry  thats  not  funny........... ha ha

[MGMorden]

I have seen some whites refer to themselves as European Americans. 

It's a useful term.  "Black" merely refers to race and not nationality.  Afterall there are "blacks" living in the UK, France, and tons of other countries too.  It also is a somewhat poor choice of words as many Indians (not Native Americans but actual Indians) are just as dark, and Australian Aborigines are typically darker than Africans (and despite their similar skin color are genetically much father from African Blacks than Africans are from Europeans).  Why should Africans get the simplistic label of "black" when from a practical matter of simply labeling skin color it applies to multiple ethnic groups (and some more appropriately than themselves)?

I have no problem with Native American, European American, African American, Asian American, or any other terms a group chooses to refer to itself by. 

[yellowtail3]

AFRICAN AMERICAN - Anybody else sick of this hyphenated garbage???

There is no hyphen there, ya dimbulb

But seriously - what's wrong with people describing themselves? I think you've got some race issues you need to deal with, but then, all I know, I what I see you post... .

[Dixie Dude]

Why can't we all just be Americans regardless of where we came from.

[powderman]

Years ago I did maintenence at 2 apt complexes. The blacks got upset cause I was working on mlk day. I told them I had to work on Washingtons and Lincolns bday so I darn sure wasn't going to lose a days pay for mlk. One local company that did govt work was forced to close on mlk day so they also closed on groundhog day for spite. These apts were mostly sec 8 housing so nobody there worked anyway. POWDERMAN. 

[LONGTOM]

+ 1 nw_hunter

The MLK thing is something that gets me going.
The government forces us to honor a black man who may or may not have been a commy and who really did nothing but lead a protest to help the blacks.
If you go into about any older black persons home you will most likely see on the wall a picture of MLK & JFK.
Truly two men who fought for the black race.
What you should see are the pictures of ABRAHAM LINCOLN and ROSA PARKS.
IMHO they did more for the blacks than MLK did.
So we must honor the black heritage but they won't let me/us honor my/our southern heritage with out being called raciest.

AFRICAN AMERICAN:

They may be AMERICANS from AFRICAN decent.
All that are legal US citizens can call themselves Americans.
I would think that only the AMERICAN INDIAN can truly call himself that.
I am an AMERICAN of NORDIC decent mixed with AMERICAN INDIAN.
Not sure just where in the NORDIC region but my Great Great GRANDMOTHER was full CHEROKEE.
I don't refer to myself as NORDIC or INDIAN AMERICAN, just AMERICAN.
Why do they feel they must refer to themselves as AFRICAN AMERICANS?
Seems like the only reason would be to refer back to the days of slavery.
On that subject:
Why is it that the CHINESE AMERICANS who we also enslaved at one time don't refer to themselves as such?
All i know just say they are AMERICANS.

Some call the days of slavery as AMERICA'S dark times.
I say we are now living in the DARK TIMES (pun intended)!

I am sure I will receive some slack over this reply.
I really do try not to be raciest towards the blacks, except when referring to THE LIAR IN THE WHITEHOUSE but this whole AFRICAN AMERICAN thing is getting a little old!
True, slavery and the way the blacks were treated in the past was wrong.
They think they had it bad, look at what we did to the AMERICAN INDIAN!
They seem to forget that some Northerners owned slaves also along with a few wealthy Northern black family's.
They too seem to forget that it was a black that sold the first slaves.
It is a part of our history and should not be forgotten.
With that being said I think it is time to either let me/us honor our southern heritage with out ridicule or get over it and move on as just AMERICANS.



LONGTOM

[yellowtail3]

With that being said I think it is time to either let me/us honor our southern heritage with out ridicule or get over it and move on as just AMERICANS.

what does southern heritage mean, and how do you honor it?

[MGMorden]

Why can't we all just be Americans regardless of where we came from.

Because the world refuses to work that way.  You say this, but then how many will jump to exclaim that they are different from Muslims, Atheists, Democrats, people who make too much money, people who don't make enough money, people who were or weren't in the military, etc.  We as a people have taken to labeling ourselves and everyone else to point out our differences.  If we're going to label everyone anyways, we might as well let the groups choose a non-derogatory label that they can live with.

[MGMorden]

With that being said I think it is time to either let me/us honor our southern heritage with out ridicule or get over it and move on as just AMERICANS.

what does southern heritage mean, and how do you honor it?

Southern Heritage is a perfectly viable thing to honor.  The culture of the South is markedly different from the North.  Southern Heritage is a cooking style, a set of superstitions (many followed still even if their participants don't believe them anymore), tradition of stories and heroes, etc.  I don't have a problem with anyone celebrating Southern Heritage or identifying themselves as southern (I'm southern and though I love my country, I'll admit that I hold more loyalty to South Carolina than to the whole US).  Not allowing southerners to take pride in their culture would be hypocritical.

However, a major part of what a lot of people consider to be "Southern Heritage" (though I don't) is flat out racism.  While as a supporter of the 1st amendment I support anyone's right to say what they want (and I'm against classifying anything specifically as a "hate crime"), the rest of us do also under the 1st amendment have the right to point out the idiocy of racism as well. The door swings both ways.

[Questor]

I thought homo sapiens originated in Africa. Doesn't that make us all African-Americans?

[swordfish]

Why do people from th United States think they are the only Americans? America consists of North America, Centeral America and South America. They are ALL Americans no matter what race they are.
So...........we here in US should be called United States citizens, white, black, yellow, red, or what ever color it doesn't matter, you are a US citizen, or you are from somewhere else other than the United States.

[45-70.gov]

I thought homo sapiens originated in Africa. Doesn't that make us all African-Americans?

civilization  started  in  the tigris river  and euphratis  river  area

so  we  are  also  towelheaded-amreicans

[swordfish]

I thought homo sapiens originated in Africa. Doesn't that make us all African-Americans?

That is just a theory. Some say Homo Sapien origins may have come from France, God save us all.

[swordfish]

civilization  started  in  the tigris river  and euphratis  river  area

That is only one theory. The Sumerian Civilization(in the same area) predates Mesopotamia as does Indus Valley(from India). There is a theory now that the submerged rock formations off the coast of Japan are human made and also predate civilization from the Tiger/Euphratis Delta.

[45-70.gov]

civilization  started  in  the tigris river  and euphratis  river  area

That is only one theory. The Sumerian Civilization predates Mesopotamia as does Indus Valley.

so  we  are

sumerian-northamericans-southo'canada

[MGMorden]

That is just a theory.

Important note: the Scientific definition of the word theory isn't what the public has adopted it to be (which seems to be a wild eyed guess).  In Science, if someone just ponders something that may or may not be true, then it's a hypothesis, not a theory.  A theory is a hypothesis which has been researched and tested and has a significant amount of evidence to support it.  As a comparison - GRAVITY - the phenomenon that says that if you drop something it will fall back to the Earth, is still "just a theory".  

[swordfish]

That is just a theory.

A theory is a hypothesis which has been researched and tested and has a significant amount of evidence to support it.  As a comparison - GRAVITY - the phenomenon that says that if you drop something it will fall back to the Earth, is still "just a theory".  

All are theories, hypothesis if that's what you would like to call it, based on phisical evidence/artifacts, that can be dated.
........................just sayin'

[LONGTOM]

Sorry, I was away for awhile with a customer.

Thank you MGMorden for explaining the SOUTHERN HERITAGE so correctly.
I couldn't have stated it any better.
Saved me a lot of typing.

Who really knows where we all started.
Remember, theory has it that all the continents were all part of one great big land mast sometime in our distant past.
So in theory we are all the exact same I guess as far as where we originated from.
If you believe as i do in the BIBLE than I think it was from GOD himself through the creation of ADAM & EVE in a place called the GARDEN OF EDEN!   


LONGTOM

[MGMorden]

All are theories, hypothesis if that's what you would like to call it, based on phisical evidence/artifacts, that can be dated.
........................just sayin'

No, my point was specifically that a theory and a hypothesis are DIFFERENT things - they're not interchangeable .  I'm just pointing out the problem with referring to theories (as the word is used in science) as "just a theory".  A theory isn't something that someone just dreamed up - that is a hypothesis.  A hypothesis BECOMES a theory when it has sufficient evidence.

To sum it up:

Hypothesis - "This MIGHT be the truth . . ."
Theory - "This PROBABLY IS the the truth . . . "
Law - "This is unquestionably the truth . . ."

The thing is, the scientific community doesn't declare much a law anymore, because when you say it's a law you're not just saying that it's generally true, but that every single detail is true, and we've had scientific laws from long ago get a few details wrong.  For example, Newton's Laws.  They were declared scientific laws, and for everything that happens on Earth and in nearly all of the Solar System, Newton's "Laws" worked fine.  However, we discovered an oddity - according to Newton's Laws, Mercury didn't move right.  Turns out, when you get REALLY close to a massive body such as the sun, the equations start producing results that are a little off.  In comes Einsteins' THEORY of Relativity.  His equations were more complex, produce the correct results in the same situations that Newton's did, but also work even when you get close to a massive body.  

So Newton's Laws weren't really 100% correct.  From a mathematical standpoint, they work as perfectly viable approximations for anything that happens on Earth, but they were less right then the Theory of Relativity which works in more cases.  And so even things that we understand really, really well, we're still hesitant to call a scientific Law.  Put it this way - the satellites we're flying to other planets, the GPS systems that will show your coordinates anywhere on the planet, the radio waves that show your TV - they're all built upon a ton of stuff that is "just a theory".

[MGMorden]

Remember, theory has it that all the continents were all part of one great big land mast sometime in our distant past.

That's Pangaea, but it would have broken into the continents we see today LONG before people were around .  Also, before Pangaea they were likely separate too - they just all collided to form Pangaea and then separated again (a dance that will likely continue to repeat for as long as Earth's core remains hot, which is for the foreseeable future). As an interesting tidbit though, the continents are still moving via plate tectonics.   Not very fast, but definitely moving - in some cases apart (North/South American moving away from Europe/Africa), but also in some cases colliding (India is on a separate plate from the rest of Asia and is colliding with the main Asian plate).  In time they'll likely recollide coming back around the other side to form another super-continent of sorts. 

[Questor]

Gosh I love it when a thread turns out like this!

[LONGTOM]

I am sure you are correct.
I just remember that they say it happened, didn't remember when.
I wasn't around back then.  

Still, who really knows where we came from?


Thanks
LONGTOM

[sagegrouse715]

Wow, we can be angry sounding bunch.  IMHO, we Americans celebrate our cultural diversity and heritage all the time.  That's why my mom still makes lutefisk and we have St. Patricks day. I am sure Joe McCarthy thought King was a commie but then he thought everyone was. Saying MLK did nothing more than protest to help blacks, is like saying Jesus did nothing more than die for my sins.  I do not feel I am forced to honor MLK and any more than I am forced to recognize Christ's birth.  And am not comparing the two other than the fact they are government days off.  

We are recognized by our names as individuals, groups, or subgroups.  It is a simple item of respect. I learned not to call people names they didn't like in second grade. I got punched in the nose. I don't think a Libertarian likes being called liberalirians.  What is wrong with African-American?  I don't find it all that long to say or type.  It is easier than calling me Dutch-English-Norwegian-American.

I guess there have been liars in the Whitehouse. Bush II saying Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  Clinton saying he didn't have sex. Bush I saying read my lips no new taxes.  Reagan saying we don't sell weapons to Iran.  Nixon saying I am not a crook.  Eisenhower saying Gary Powers wasn't on a spy mission over the USSR.  Give President Obama time and maybe he can rise to their level but I haven't seen anything yet where he deserves to be called a liar.

I am very supportive of people celebrating their regional heritage.  It is a good thing.  I think I will celebrate my Norwegian/Northern heritage and go skiing.  Carrying my Marlin 39A of course.



 

[SHOOTALL]

You know what people are either American or not PERIOD !
Some are lucky to be SOUTHERN though !

[rex6666]

I really can't say where people came from.
But GOD came from OKLAHOMA

[yellowtail3]

I really can't say where people came from.
But GOD came from OKLAHOMA

...and all the racists in it. Diversity abounds; can we lay it at God's doorstep?