By Selwyn Duke

Addressing a large panel of black conservatives on Hannity Friday night, host Sean Hannity
asked whether “African-American” was the correct label for black people.
Thankfully, a vast majority of the panelists quite passionately agreed it was
not, mainly making the point that we shouldn’t hyphenate ourselves. This is
true, but it still doesn’t get at the heart of the matter.

I said many years ago that I didn’t use the term
“African-American” and that I never would. It is part of the Lexicon of the
Left, and, as the old book the Tyranny of
Words points out, the side that defines the vocabulary of a debate, wins
the debate. But what really is the problem with the term in question?

Many terms have been used to describe blacks over the years,
from Negro to colored, from the innocuous to the pejorative. But they all had
one thing in common: they referred only to race. But African-American references
a different part of the world. This
can only serve to further alienate black folks from America. Is this
constructive?

Of course, it’s also silly beyond words. If you want to
describe someone’s race, you use a term that references race, not the supposed
geographical origin of his remote ancestors. African-American is a term whose
literal interpretation tells you nothing at all about race. Not all Africans
are black. North Africans are Arabs (who technically are Caucasian), and at one
time the region was occupied by the Germanic Vandals, who seized it from the
Roman Empire. And, of course, whites have now lived in sub-Saharan Africa for
hundreds of years and Indians have occupied the region since the 19^th
century.

Speaking of which, no one feels compelled to refer to those
white Africans as “European-Africans,” and, though the term does exist, nobody takes
pains to label me a “European-American.” We’re just white. Likewise, “black”
had been a preferred descriptive for blacks for a very long time; note that
“Negro” is from the Spanish or Portuguese word negro, which means “black.” And it’s clear to me that
“African-American” was adopted for social-engineering purposes.

Nonetheless, conservatives will dutifully use
“African-American” along with the rest of the Lexicon of the Left. Some will
say here that I have an obligation to call people what they wish, but,
actually….

No, I don’t.

If, for instance, someone wants to be called “God,” it’s not
incumbent upon me to descend into sacrilege. Other appellative desires are
destructive or just plain stupid. And I’m under no obligation to be party to
folly.

Conservatives need to stop conserving liberals’ decades-old
social victories, and this includes those in the linguistic realm. Would you
take your lead from neo-Marxist college professors and Lamestream-media
lunkheads? Well, who do you think originates these language innovations?

The invisible hand of Gramsci is everywhere — purge it from
your mind, from your heart, and from your lips.

                  Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

                                               © 2013 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved