Here's where we go horribly wrong with our struggle towards the land of PC Perfection...making shit up in an attempt to not offend. The other day, on the news, I heard the newscaster use the term "Muslim-American" to describe the shooters in the San Bernadino tragedy. First of all, are we worried about offending people that went into a facility and killed a large group of people? People with zero regard for human life...these are the people whose feelings we are trying to protect? What the fuck am I missing here? Why the hell do we care so much? Fear? Fear that if we use the wrong term, someone will hurt us? I refuse to live that way. And if you choose to have a paranoid existence, leave me the hell out of it. Back in the day, oh around 1978 or so, do any of you remember being concerned about how to describe someone to one of your friends or relatives? Were you oh-so-careful to use proper terminology and tried really hard to not hurt anyone's feelings? If you say yes, you are a liar! If you say no, join the rest of us on this side of normal and grab a beer. It just wasn't done! You called it as you saw it and that was that. Not so now.
Inventing terminology to classify humanity due to irrational fear has to be the most fucktarded thing we do in 2015. Far more ridiculous than twerking or selfies, this trend of "ethnic invention" has gone out of fucking control. Let's go back to the term "Muslim-American" for a moment. Since when have we ever included someone's religion in their ethnic background to convey who they are to someone else? In my lifetime, no one has ever referred to me as a Catholic American, nor do I want anyone to do so. What I believe or don't believe has nothing to do with my heritage. The same goes for the term Muslim American...Muslim is a religion, not a race or ethnicity. This distinction is borne out of hate and fear, nothing more. We are categorizing people by religion out of hatred. Is this who we've become? Apparently so, and I am disgusted by all of you who use these terms.
Let's look at the terms African American and Asian. Can we actually hail from an entire continent? Do black people claim roots in everywhere from Libya and Egypt all the way through the Congo and Eritrea? Come now...really? Does the person you are referring to as Asian have relatives who are Pakistani, Russian, Afghani, and Iranian? Or are you speaking about someone who is Chinese...or Vietnamese, perhaps? By extension of this, you could call me European American. Do it and I'll punch you in the throat. Why? Because I have no relatives who come from Sweden, Scotland, Greece, or Latvia. No, I cannot be called European American, that would be a false as fuck statement and completely not descriptive of who I actually am. Once again, these terms I started the paragraph with came from a fear of offending others and from people deciding they no longer "liked" the words used to describe them.
Going a step further, and likely to piss a shit ton of you off, shall we examine the black/white distinction? I am willing to step on this potential land mine to make some very valid points and to attempt to correct our stupidity as a whole. I completely understand that some people do not want to be called a color, such as black. No one is truly the color black, now are they? On this, we can all agree. We needed a better term, a more accurate word. I get it. And let's face it, negro is just black in Spanish. Again, an inaccurate color. However, and I am gonna get some backlash now, and I really don't care...I am not WHITE. Grab a piece of paper from your printer. That shit is white. I am not that friggin color. I am nowhere near that shade, nor do I relate to it in any way. As a matter of fact, Italians are not completely white, by census standards. If you look into our heritage, southern Italians, in particular, we have...wait for it...AFRICAN blood in us. By African, I mean Arab African, but African nonetheless. So, then, do I check the African American box on a government form? Because, if I trace my lineage as far back as it could possibly go, I know for certain that I will find some African connections. But some of you will tell me I can't. Why? I know some people who would try to check that same box and speak fluent Italian and have, as do their parents, Italian birth certificates. Yet, in this country, we'd call them African American? Why the fuck?
Are we seeing how ridiculous this is starting to sound? Not yet? If so, I am not nearly done. We can agree that people should not be referred to by a color name in a box of Crayolas. That being the case, how do we refer to each other? How about by name? Not possible always, so we need another way. We have determined that religion is not the way...what now? I suppose we can just cover all the bases to be safe and not crack the shells of the fragile egos that seem to exist in our world today. Let's see if I can do it for myself so I don't dare hurt another human. I'd be a Female Heterosexual Catholic Fair-skinned Freckled Blue-eyed Redheaded European Italian North American Canadian North American New York Born California Residing American. Did I cover it all? Was anyone offended? Show of hands, please. Imagine, if you will, trying to repeat this to someone after just meeting me and wanting to relay information about me. Could you even remember it all? If I closed this document, I couldn't either. Thus proving, this manner of distinction, this way of categorizing people, has got to stop. We are who we are: human fucking beings. All of us. But if you want to go out there and describe me to someone, I'll accept...she's an American woman. Accurate as hell, don't you agree? And I promise to be as succinct about you. We can't be that stupid...are you friggin kidding me right now???
