Politikal Correct-ness

I found this article on slashdot in response to a fascinating study on why the majority of video game players are African-American, whilst only 2% of video game developers are African-Americans themselves! It's a very insightful explanation of being Politically Correct (http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/04/13/183224.shtml)

----

Your link misses the entire point of the term "African American," which is not a fancy P.C. word for "black people," but a term used to identify people in a specific cultural group, with certain overall traditions, customs, and apparently gaming habits. It's come into commonplace usage because it's a unique phrase which sets that group off from other cultural, ethnic and racial groups in America. Exactly like Pennsylvania Dutch, who are called "Pennsylvania Dutch" even though they aren't really Dutch and don't all live in Pennsylvania. And, check it: someone might actually be from the Netherlands and move to Pennsylvania, oh no, what do we call them?

Regarding black Americans and the notion of "well, let's just call them black Americans." True, you could do exactly that. But how is it more accurate? I'd venture to say that there are extremely few black people who are truly "black" skinned, and lots who are on the pale side of brown. They're just called "black" by convention, even if it's not 100% precise. Furthermore, America doesn't equal the USA, it's two continents. We call USA-ians "Americans" also by convention. There's no escaping it, we're stuck using a non-precise moniker one way or another. "African American" is just one more, and happens to be the one that people generally find less offensive when compared with Negro, Afro-American and nigger. It leads one to wonder, is the constant self-righteous outrage over the term "African American" based on logic (I've argued here, no) or based upon an anger that the blacks among us have the gall to object to being called whatever the hell we feel like calling them?

To answer the parent post's question directly, obviously black people in Denmark aren't African-Americans, just like Russians aren't Poles, even if they wind up in the same country. But if by chance a black person from Denmark moves to the US and gets called African-American, it's not going to cause the universe to self-destruct. Real world categories are heuristic, not absolute.

As for the pic of Chiwetel Ejiofor, who cares? Oops, maybe some ijit misidentified him as African American. What does that prove? I accidentally called my Scottish friend Irish one day, According to Genius Maddox, I guess my dumb mistake means that Scotland and Ireland don't make any sense.

Now, on to people of color. No argument from me: that's nauseatingly P.C.