THE EXCLUSIVITY OF THE PHRASE 'AFRICAN AMERICAN'

THE EXCLUSIVITY OF THE PHRASE 'AFRICAN AMERICAN'
by Carol Taylor

Let's, for the sake of veracity, end the deplorable euphemism rampant in this society in which public figures and mainstream media folk continuously wallow. If they mean "Black," why not say "Black?" Instead, it's "African American" this and "African American" that, ad nauseam and nauseam.
Question: What would one call a Black U.S.A. resident who as born in England? It's just not good enough to put all Blacks into a 'catch-all' category of "African American." ('These people all look alike') Not only is this blatantly arrogant in the extreme but pejorative and insulting in its neglect of respecting the beautiful variety of people of color.
Sticks and stones and batons and guns routinely hurt and kill people of color (Eamon Morales, Long Island, N.Y.) and names based on racist/colorist inaccurate delineations and ignorance also hurt people of color.
Take serious note of the wholly mistaken, senseless name-calling by the U.S.A. Census Board as it attempts to divide the one hueman race into 117 'races!' This is surely one dire consequence of a racist/colorist miseducation system in a society which obdurately and dangerously refuses to teach the truth about the Black African origin of huemanity. Hence the sad state of its students when it comes to their mental health as it relates not only to their knowledge of self but also to their understanding of and behavior toward people who wear skins of observable melanin.
Suggested Solution: would be for everyone to learn and acknowledge in public forums who has the sovereign right to name themselves; however, the critical issues of identity and ethnicity in this country are arrogantly and arbitrarily based on observations of skin color by folk who've been purposefully mis-educated about even their own origins, the 'namers' (usually white-privileged supremacist males) stubbornly ignore those national origins and 'clamp on' their own signifying nomenclature based on their self-serving observations of skin pigmentation.
And "African" to them is supposedly always a pejorative "Black."
Finally, using "African American" and "Black" interchangeably as too many people do (especially academicians of all colors), is obfuscatory and in no way mitigates the inaccurate use of the phrase "African American." This practice merely illustrates the confusion brought about by colorist conditioning and undergirds the severity of the need for a major overhauling of colorist language usage. "Truth crushed to earth will rise again; noose appearances (and actual deaths of people of color in these 'post-Obama-
Win' days) are on the rise, unfortunately, despite the fact that all huemans are "of Black African ancestry."
Question: Does everyone in the U.S.A. have to be struck blind before we as a nation begin to treat individuals by the content of their character rather than the color of their skins?
Suggestion: www.discussrace.com and www.racismtest.org - EVERYone! (With Follow-up Ethnotherapeutic Psychological Counseling when pathological dysfunctional responses to differences in color and/or culture are uncovered - especially in those 'killers-of-Black-males-cops! (In Coney Island, N.Y. recently, an 'of-color' man only waving a chair was shot and killed by a trigger-happy NYPD cop!)
You say you want racism/colorism to end?: THEN CHANGE YOUR LANGUAGE USAGE! (Leave off the "African American" - use 'Black' and get away completely from 'race' 'races' biracial' 'transracial' 'interracial' different races' 'out of her/his race' 'multi racial' 'white race' 'Black race' (or any other colors), 'racial' - etc., etc. etc.!)