A minor rant.
An article I was reading discussing the recent arrests in the Washington area sniper case thingie (discussing how wrong all the profilers were) quotes a pundit who remarked on his shock that the snipers proved to be "African-American".
I have rage.
Why?
Because one of the two snipers was from Jamaica. Indeed, a citizen of Jamaica.
Let me elaborate my rage in a Question-and-Answer format.
Q: What is the purpose of the politically-correct term 'African-American'?
A: Something to do with negative connotations to the word 'black', I understand, and so used to describe Americans whose ancestors come from Africa, because apparently you can't just be American if you're black, you have to be African-American, because people miss the point that drawing the distinction is kind of racist.
Q: What is America?
A: In general usage, a subsection of the continent North America, the United States of.
Q: What is Africa?
A: A continent. Head for Europe and turn south-westish. Big place. Can't miss it. Desert at the top, jungle in the middle, bit more temperate down the bottom. Contains lions.
Q: Is Jamaica a part of Africa?
A: No. It is a part of the West Indies, however.
Q: Is someone from Jamaica an African, therefore?
A: No. He is a Jamaican.
Q: If someone is from Jamaica, and is a Jamaican citizen, is he American?
A: No. He is a Jamaican.
Q: If someone is a Jamaican, is he an African-American?
A: No. He is a Jamaican.
Q: Does African actually equal black?
A: No. Along one line of my ancestry, my family has been living at the south end of the continent since, I believe, 1632. I feel this is an adequate duration for us to count as locals. My ancestors are African. They are also white. (My actual direct antecedents, anyway. Not all my relatives are. All hail the revocation of the laws forbidding mixed-race marriages, for now absolutely nothing is different bar people are now legal about it.)
Q: Does black and an American necessarily mean African-American?
A: No. I have heard people use the term "African-American" to refer to Indians. India is also not in Africa.
Q: Are many pundits, reporters, and politically correct people complete morons?
A: Yes, yes they are.
And one final point about political correctness.
Let's look at our terms here, kids. Sure, "nigger" is an ugly word - but it's not, in itself, racially offensive in Joseph Conrad's
Heart of Darkness because it wasn't meant to be. (It was racist, but it's one of those interesting signs of the culture of the period that are the POINT of literature.) So we don't use it any more, because nowadays it is
only applicable nastily.
On the other hand, 'black' is used purely descriptively, in the same way 'white' is, in the sense that it's totally inaccurate but people know what you mean.
"People of colour"? I'd feel just as uncomfortable using that phrase as I would using "nigger", because the only people I've known who used it are the kind of people who make you feel degraded just being near them, because racism is in intent, and you can put a spin on "people of colour" that even "kaffir" can't carry.
Oh, and my other rant on racial terminology? "Caucasian" does not mean white. Caucasian technically includes Indians, who come in a range of colours to suit every decor including very, very black, and who generally do
not count as white. (In the Bad Old South Africa, the racial code for white was 00, and for Indian was 05. No, I don't know these things off-hand, I had to check the explanation of codes on the back of my birth certificate.)
White means white. "European" works reasonably well, except that there are lots of Europeans who aren't white these days, and besides, what about the white people who aren't European?
Mostly, I think the idea that changing the language will change people's attitudes is stupid, after the beginning point where you make it socially unacceptable to use the really nasty words. You can be just as racist in politically correct terms, only with better camouflage.
And I think that calling someone an African-American when he's neither is positively moronic.
