Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9491349:


Karen

36
Fun for the whole family 7 6, 3:19pm

@Innanna "A rose by any other name is still a rose" First off, if you're going to quote Shakespeare, at least get it right. The phrase is "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet", from the original in Romeo and Juliet, "What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Secondly, would you say that about anything? "A bacteria by any other name is still a bacteria" - really, so you want to treat the acidophilus in your yogurt the same as botulism? "A chemical by any other name is still a chemical" - want to treat citric acid the same as hexavalent chromium?

Third, you're assuming that your choice of "rose" is inherently the "right" term; any logic built on a premise of assuming that you're right is inherently flawed:

Example: "Stop calling this flower a chrysanthemum. A rose by any other name is still a rose!" - "But it's not a rose!"

Fourth, you're assuming that a broad-category term is inherently better than a narrow-category term.

Example: "Stop calling this flower an eglanteria. A rose by any other name is still a rose!" - "You're throwing away important nuance, because not all roses are eglanterias - the vast majority aren't!"

Fifth, you're *still being a jerk* when you call people by things that they don't want to be called, regardless of whether or not you think you're "right". And this is *still* something you should have learned on the playground when you were five years old.

"Please do not call them African-American."

The random people that you talked to in Africa do not have the right to decide for people thousands of miles away what terminology *THEY* feel comfortable with and is meaningful to *THEM*. And FYI, I've read plenty of articles from for example Kenyans rushing to claim Obama as one of their own, so don't claim to speak for an entire continent.

" Just because your skin is black does not mean your ancestors came from Africa "

Oh, so now you're going to decide that they don't even know their own ancestry, but you, Stranger Extraordinaire, can set them straight!

"It also does not mean your ancestors were slaves. "

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. They were just tourists from Ghana. Thought that that big crowded wooden boat looked like a nice cruise ship.

The odds of a person with pre-emancipation African ancestry in the US not being a slave are so vanishingly small as to be irrelevant.

"I am mixed race so should I insist on being called 'African-European American'"

I don't know, you tell me? What do you want to be called?

Seriously, I'm not sure what's hard about this for you. If you knew someone named Robert, and he said, "Hi, my name is Bob", would you get furious at him and say, "NO, YOUR NAME IS ROBERT! ROBERT! NOT BOB! QUIT ALL THIS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!"

Or would you just call him Bob, like he wants to be called?