Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Thoughts on hyphenated Americans, racism, and cynicism


Is it dogmatic to question dogma? Only if atheism is somehow equivalent to a conservative religion.

Yes, we could be crass cynics like Matt Stone & Trey Parker are, and spew forth flatulence which while briefly humorous becomes quickly sick and putrid.

People of a certain color can't jump. People from another culture tend to have trashy back yards and are not noted for high quality craftsmanship. People from another culture get very angry indeed at cartoons or other humor revolving around past historic and non-historic figures.

Everyone's a bit racist. The hyphenated language that permeates forums such as NPR is key evidence of this. Frankly, I don't care if you're a hyphenated American this or that. Get on with life and do something useful, other than obsess about which hyphenated phrase you can associate with yourself and others.

Is such a request cynical dogma? A dogmatist is unwilling to question his own suppositions. People on the right and left perfectly fit into the same box in this regard. The main thing I question about hyphenated Americans is that their labels take too much of my verbal time to state the self-assigned labels. And the second thing I question is that maybe the hyphenated phrases people assign to themselves & others aren't really all that accurate.

For example:

Who is a Native American? Anyone born in America. That is the traditional definition of the word "native."

Who is an African American? All humans in America, because we all came out of Africa.

And what was adding a religion to the hyphenation?

Muslim American

Mormonism American

Catholic American

Scientologist American

Idiot American

What a waste of time and language to merge these words together.

Who are your ancestors? It's ok to use labels to describe your ancestry. But adding the word "American" to your label is a lame, time wasting, pompous, and superfluous.

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