I'm starting to become annoyed by term "white". (illegal, solution)

[City Data Guy]

I'm starting to become annoyed by the term "white".

I've ranted about this before too.

It's annoying when it's used alongside a politically correct term such as African American.

Example: African Americans were disenfranchised by the harsh laws, so were many poor whites.

That sentence can "fixed" in two ways.

• African Americans were disenfranchised by the harsh laws, so were many poor European Americans.

• Blacks were disenfranchised by the harsh laws, so were many poor whites.

The inequality of the terminology in the original sentence itself just annoys me so much, so does this.


Here is a quote from the video.

"Asian American students consistently outperform their white classmates on standardized tests, and not just here."

This sentence irks me for two reasons:

• The politically correct term, Asian American, being used with the mainstream term, white
• The stereotype of Asian students being smarter than everyone else

All students have the potential to be smart in their own way.

Because of the consistent use of the term white alongside "fancy" terms for minorities, I want to start being called a European American.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[rhawkins74]

tell the liberals to quit calling us African American, and we will stop using the term white, if you prefer...

But if the liberals are going to tell us, what we have to be called, why should we worry about what we call others?

[skinem]

Actually I think it's all pretty ridiculous.

But, if that's the route we're going I want to be called Native-American-Scot-Viking God-Southern-Irish-French-American.

[theother]

I thought you guys liked white...

[MIKEETC]

I prefer descriptions that are coordinated with food. Therefore, I am a Light Chocolate American.

[lifelongMOgal]

Quite frankly a hyphenated country is a divided country. People in the USA are either citizens, tourists, visitors(legal) or aliens(illegal).

[YAZ]

I'm a Cracker-American.

You can also call me White Bread.

[♠atizar♠]

Something bothers you and your solution is to adopt that same methodology yourself?

If that wasn't sarcasm I have to say that I think that your stance on the issue is ... odd. The old "If you cant beat them, join them" bit?

Your sarcasm aside -- aren't you being PC yourself by deciding which terminology is most "correct"?

I think the best approach would be for people on all sides of the issue to just accept that people are going to self-identify differently (and identify others differently), and true "correctness" would be accepting this and not become hung up on semantics.

[City Data Guy]

Originally Posted by theother

I thought you guys liked white...

The term white is bland, boring, and not very descriptive. I like the term European American better.

[LuckyGem]

European American isn't specific enough, African American is a vague term because many don't know their ancestry.

Just continue with the German-American, Irish-American, Italian-American. Or better yet drop the compound ethnicity description and call yourself - AMERICAN.