HORIST: Is the hyphen destroying the American culture?

Larry Horist

8 years ago

The answer to the title question is a definitive &ldquo&semi;probably&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; It started innocently enough&period;&nbsp&semi; Newly arrived immigrants were identified with the new status as American citizens and the nation of their birth&period;&NewLine;The women&rsquo&semi;s movement decided that taking the last name of the male marriage partner was sexist Initially, I viewed it as more of a Hispanic tradition where such name connecting has had a long history&period; Personally, I never thought my mother less of a woman because she followed the custom of taking the family name of my father, but that is just me&period;&NewLine;Like many parents, we preserved family names by using them as middle names&period;&nbsp&semi; Hence, my first born carries his mother&rsquo&semi;s maiden name &ldquo&semi;Kelly&rdquo&semi; as his middle name and my daughter carries my mother&rsquo&semi;s maiden name &ldquo&semi;Trendel&rdquo&semi; as her middle name&period;&nbsp&semi; But, that is just us&period;&NewLine;I am not terribly bothered by the hyphenated name, like that of the former Democrat National Chair Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz &ndash&semi; an ironic combination of iconic Jewish and German names&period;&NewLine;The hyphen in more recent years, however, has come to be divisive&period;&nbsp&semi; It became more the custom of the left-wing feminists&period;&nbsp&semi; It is sort of like putting an &ldquo&semi;I am a liberal&rdquo&semi; tattoo on your forehead &ndash&semi; Wasserman-Schultz case in point&period;&NewLine;Even worse, America is increasingly obsessed with preventing the melting pot from doing its work by keeping alive our nationality or so-called race differences&period;&nbsp&semi; When does the hyphenated ancestry drop off&quest;&nbsp&semi; One, two, three generations&quest;&nbsp&semi; When does it get diluted into simply American&quest;&nbsp&semi; Seems only logical that you should have the pedigree of at least fifty percent nation of origin to claim the right to the hyphen&period;&NewLine;For generations, government forms insisted that we allege a primary nationality, such as Italian-American, Mexican-American or Polish-American&period;&nbsp&semi; When such diverse designations were too cumbersome to manage politically and governmentally, we started a less precise but more politically useful designation, such as African-American, Hispanic-American or Asian-American&period;&NewLine;In making these designations, politics trumped genetics&period;&nbsp&semi; The most notable example is President Obama, who is officially designated as an African-American even though he is fully one-half Caucasian&period;&nbsp&semi; His mother, Ann Dunham, is more or less officially &ldquo&semi;white&rdquo&semi; because hyphenating her as an English/German/Swiss/Scottish/Irish/Welsh-American was too much for the space on those government forms&period;&nbsp&semi; In fact, she is the product of so many nationalities that she is almost un-American&period;&nbsp&semi; That&rsquo&semi;s because no one can be allowed to be simply an American in the new paradigm&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;I have a similar problem myself&period; I am according to documents mostly Austrian with Polish, Hungarian and Ukrainian influences&period;&nbsp&semi; I often think of myself as an internal border dispute&period;&nbsp&semi; I recently had my DNA analyzed and confirmed that I am 99 percent central European and &hellip&semi; (wait for the drum roll) &hellip&semi; one percent Nigerian&period;&nbsp&semi; People like Ann Dunham and myself are often referred to as mongrels&period;&nbsp&semi; However, that is far too pejorative of a destination to be used officially&period;&nbsp&semi; Mongrel-American&quest;&nbsp&semi; Really&quest;&NewLine;Most blacks in America are unique in that they mostly have no national heritage back in Africa&period;&nbsp&semi; They really do not know whether their family tree originated in Nigeria, Ghana or Somalia&period;&nbsp&semi; But they are at least all Africans&period;&nbsp&semi; Or are they&quest;&NewLine;My black daughter was born in Jamaica &ndash&semi; as were her ancestors as far as the family tree can be traced&period;&nbsp&semi; When entering Knox College, the professor of the new African Studies department said that she would be enrolled in the course, so she could identify with her ancestry &ndash&semi; especially since she was being raised in an insensitive honky white family&period;&nbsp&semi; Okay&excl;&nbsp&semi; That is not exactly what he said, but he might as well have&period;&NewLine;I explained that she was actually Jamaican&period;&nbsp&semi; Spoke Jamaican&period;&nbsp&semi; Cooked Jamaican&period;&nbsp&semi; Even dressed with a Jamaican flair at times&period;&nbsp&semi; The professor condescendingly explained to me that her ancestors most assuredly came to Jamaica from Africa as slaves&period;&nbsp&semi; My God&excl; That was likely more than 300 years ago&period; If we apply that same principle to the descendants of our Founders, they should still be referred to as British-Americans&period;&NewLine;Unfortunately, in modern politically correct, identity politics America, it is how you look that determines African ethnicity &ndash&semi; of even Asian or Hispanic, for that matter&period;&nbsp&semi; I mean, Egyptians, Libyans, South Africans who migrate to the United States are not allowed to be African-Americans even though they are&period;&nbsp&semi; We do not call citizens here from mother Russia as Asian-Americans, but they are as much as are Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants&period;&NewLine;This may be a bit of a digression, but I just wondered why a lot of southerners are not designated as Confederate-Americans&period;&nbsp&semi; If you can trace your ancestry back to the days when Texas was an independent nation, are you a Texas-American&quest;&nbsp&semi; Is that any sillier than asking people living in America what their ancestry is so we can hyphenate them into a political category &ndash&semi; but not asking them if they are a citizen&quest;&NewLine;More recently, that innocent looking hyphen has surfaced as the symbol of politically correct censorship&period;&nbsp&semi; It not only replaces pejoratives in polite conversation, but it upends the accuracy of history&period;&nbsp&semi; Most notably, of course, is that ubiquitous n-word&period;&NewLine;Once quotation marks faithfully represented precision in expressing exactly what a person said&period;&nbsp&semi; Today that is unacceptable&period;&nbsp&semi; President Lyndon Johnson once said that passing the war on poverty measure would &ldquo&semi;keep the (n-words) voting Democrat for 200 years&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; Today, it is in bad form to accurately quote him&period;&nbsp&semi; So, we employ the infamous hyphenated euphemism&period;&NewLine;<a name="&lowbar;Hlk511926293"></a>This tendency to soften the words of history led me to wonder what the language might be like if the hyphen advances unrestrained&period;&nbsp&semi; I imaged a police report involving a fight between gang bangers&period;&nbsp&semi; As one participant tells it&colon;&NewLine;&ldquo&semi;I was standing on the corner with my (b-word) when the mother (f-word) comes up to me and tells me to get my (a-word) off his corner&period;&nbsp&semi; I tell him (f-word) you&period;&nbsp&semi; He said if I did not move, he was going to kick the (s-word) out of me&period;&nbsp&semi; At that time my (b-word) tells him to (f-word) off&period; He says I better tell that (c-word) to keep her (f-word) mouth shut&period;&nbsp&semi; He then says, okay you (n-word) (a-word) hole&period;&NewLine;It seems in America, the only purpose of the hyphen is to replace reality with politically imposed designations&period;&nbsp&semi; Maybe, in these days of social media, we need a hashtag, &num;banthehyphen&period;&NewLine;Larry Horist is a conservative activist with an extensive background in economics, public policy and politics&period; Clients of his consulting firm have included such conservative icons as Steve Forbes and Milton Friedman, as well as the White House&period; He has testified as an expert witness before legislative bodies, including the U&period; S&period; Congress, and lectured at major colleges and universities&period; An award-winning debater, his insightful and sometimes controversial commentaries appear frequently on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation&period; He can be reached at <a href="mailto&colon;lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com">lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com</a>&period;&NewLine;