Just an American

Senator Obama announced the other day that he is an African-American, has Hussein as a middle name, and that information didn't or doesn't make it easy for him as a politician. It didn't make it difficult, either. This split nationality b.s. is really a pain in the rear end. Obama is no more an African than I am. He was born in Honolulu, so how can he be an African-American?

And for that matter, why are all blacks called African-Americans? I imagine that there are a few blacks, and whites, who are citizens, but who were born in Africa, but what value is there to being called an African-American or any other hyphenated nationality, unless the individual truly holds dual citizenship. Look, first the blacks were Negros, then coloreds (which included all non-whites), then in the 1950s the name to be called was black – as in “Black Pride”. Apparently that wasn't good enough, so, regardless of where the person's birth occurred, the black became an “African-American”. I imagine that just being an “American” wasn't and/or isn't good enough. I'll have to start calling myself a European-American, since my family goes way back in time.

You might say that the American Indian is the only real American except that it is understood that those native to this continent may have come from either South America or from across the Bering Strait, which leaves that ethnic group out of the picture (Siberian-Russian-Tibetan-American, or what?).

Anyhow, the point of all this is that if Senator Obama wishes to be President of these United States of America, and achieves that goal, he better forget this African-American crap and just call himself an American. Otherwise, we'll really have a divided country. Millions of people have emigrated to this land, anxious and proud to become an American, not a hyphenated American.

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