I am talking about the ones that get 'offended'.

i have not heard of Chinese being offended being called Chinese, or Indians from India being offended being called Indian, or people from Africa being called Africans.

Because the 'offense' is not real, its about throwing PC weight around which those minorities love to do. Chinese etc have no reason to do it.

I just mean the term minority gets thrown around for special treatment and protected groups and how anybody not white gets called minority is moronic.

Also, one of my former colleagues hated being called "African-American" She blasted the (white super PC liberal) guy full on. It was great. Her response:

"I am not African-American. I am American, I was born in America, my parents were born in America, my grandparents were born in America, my great-grandparents were born in America. I was born in New Jersey, I have never been to Africa and I am never going to Africa, do not ever call me African again."

it was epic.

She also was a hockey fan here in Florida like me. She and I got along great! I miss working with Dee.

Nice story!

What she says is rite....

Here in Australia people have no idea, they want to have indigenous Australians recognized in the constitution. Seems that everyone has forgotten Aboriginals are actually human beings capable of doing anything any other human being can do, why you need to put a label on them "indigenous', NO, its 'human' morons

As an African-American myself, I don't give a flying crap what I'm called so long as you're not intending to offend me.
Somebody getting offended over "African-American" is stupid, in my honest opinion. Yes, we're all Americans. But the term "African-American" is just a racial classification. What's the big deal over it?
Because it's very useful for classification/survey/culture/data collection purposes.
Maybe because it refers to specific AREAS rather than the entire world.
There are a crapton of Indians in India but not very many in America compared to, say, Mexicans.
On top of that, the official term/definition of it ("ethnic minority") is to talk about a group of people that is commonly discriminated against. White people, on the whole in historical terms, have been nowhere near discriminated against as badly as most other races. So yes, most whites are not minorities, although there are definitely subsets ("white" is a very broad term) that qualify.

i think the issue is about being pigeonholed as a particular race as if that is who you are, when it is not who you are because you are a human being. This is why i do not like all this 'indigenous' crap going on in Australia rite now because it reinforces the perception that Aboriginals are 'native' Australians which overshadows the fact that they are Human!

Yes culture is important, but it should not define who you are as an individual person - this is why the indigenous recognition in the constitution is so wrong.

Yogurt has more culture than I do


*rimshot"

I agree this is bad, but simply calling somebody what they are (i.e. African-American or Aboriginal) isn't really pigeonholing. It would depend on the treatment, but just naming them? Meh.
But then, I don't know of what's going on currently in Australia, so I can't really accurately comment on that.

Of all Americans they are the only ones, who feel ashamed for theirs heritage.
Country, which exploited them, now made them feel ashamed for this. *facepalm*

So we can call all white people "European-American" now?

what about black people from Jamaica or the Dominican Republic? They are African-Jamaican-American?

Oh, I know what if a person is English-German-European-Canadian-American?

And people are not "African-American" how are fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh generation people born in America who have never been to Africa "African-American"?

I have dual citizenship to America and another country so technically I am Blank-American or American-Blank, but really I am American.

It's funny, because to Europeans we're just Yanks and anybody who calls himself or herself "Italian-American" or "Irish-American" or any other "Blank-American" is laughed at because it is obvious they aren't Irish or Italian or any other European - they are American and viewed only as American.

Same with "Japanese-Americans" You think when an American of Japanese decent goes to Japan with an American accent whether it be a New York accent, Boston accent, Southern accent, Midwestern accent and limited crappy Japanese they are seen as Japanese or as American? No, they are viewed only as American,.

"African-American" is usually used as a term for somebody who is of some sort of African descent. If the term "black" works better, sure, use that instead. Again, it's just a simple term used for classification purposes, as we humans love to classify things.

So far as the European bit, do you have any idea how many white people here will explain to you about their German/Polish/French/etc. ancestry? It's just a thing people do and there's no real point in getting up in arms over it, in my opinion, unless, again, they're using it in some derogatory manner.

If you want me to get into deeper specifics, I could bring up the idea that race tends to matter less or more depending on what group you're born into, but that's a bit of a more complicated conversation and this thread has been pretty much completely derailed as it is. I think we should probably avoid adding fuel to the fire even further and either continue this in PM or just open up a new topic.

Derailing is encouraged and allowed in this thread.

Music to my ears! lol

But yea, regarding the word Eskimo or Indian being offensive.... it does annoy me when people pretend to be offended at things that are just nonsense and the real reason is that person just wants to throw their PC weight around - we all know this is what its all about.