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From: Black American
Date: 10/2/01
Time: 6:22:29 PM
I have lived in the United States all of my life. I am an American and proud of it. There is no other country or nation I would rather be in, or have my children raised in. But as the days turn into weeks after the attack on America, I can’t help but have mixed feelings.
The government-sponsored ads reflecting the diversity of America with different races and (obviously) religions stating, “I am an American” seem to serve two purposes. 1: To remind us all that we are a nation based and built on our diversity. 2: To apologize to Arab Americans for any discomfort if they have encounters with other Americans who may have forgotten this fact.
Where is my apology? I was never forced to leave my country of origin. I was never a refugee. I was forced to live here by you. Upon pain of death, I was forced to relinquish my own culture and language and adopt yours. So, I did. And yet, to this very day you have no problem with insulting me by saying, “You speak so well” or “you’re very articulate”. What you are really saying is “you sound like me”. In every war effort I was right there defending this nation. But it was less than forty years ago before you would let me vote. If I happened to be murdered and mutilated, it wasn’t even considered a serous crime.
Over the years, anyone who found anything remotely valuable about our re-invented culture was labeled nigger-lover. Nowadays they’re called wiggers {White-Niggers}. Pretty interesting how, when you wish to insult another race you use the same word invented to dehumanizes us: sand-niggers {Arab Americans}, wiggers, red-niggers {American-Indians}, etc.
In the late 80’s- early 90’s catch phrases were invented to skirt the issue instead of addressing it. As we all know, you never have to fix anything if it’s never addressed as a problem. Hence the term “Political-Correctness”. If you refer to Americans by their heritage first, you never have to confront the indignities they may suffer to this day. Pretty slick, huh? Here’s another: “White-Guilt”. That’s the thing that will make some people reply to this post in a defensive posture, saying such ridiculous stuff like: “I’ve never…” and “Some of my best friends are…”or, “Why should I apologize for….” Still others will avoid this post like the plague.
I’ll give you another example of white-guilt. The automatic spell checker I use recognizes “nigger” as a real word when I spell it correctly; but when I misspell the word (on purpose), it never comes close to correcting my mistake.
Note: Most “African-Americans” I know prefer “Black” or “Black-American” instead, since there is practically no way to determine if we were ever from Africa.