Comment by Atlas667 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Atlas667 | Hacker News Reader

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Jesse Owens example is literally one example and one where they would have the obvious inclination for him to be in-group.

> (Remind me, which one of us is arguing that it's awkward and uncomfortable to emphasize someone's race?)

I don't think its awkward or uncomfortable to emphasize someones race. I'm mixed and I identify as both black and white, purposefully.

I can tell how deep you are into the culture war because you seem to be arguing right past me and with some imaginary figure of me that you have in your head.

Tell me what do you think the civil rights issues were/are about? Nah, ill tell you: That "american" didn't actually mean all of us on a constitutional/federal/state level and even cultural level.

I'm not gonna pretend I'm a sociology expert for internet points but there are many papers that show evidence of what I'm saying and they are not hard to find at all. Literally put a small amount of effort and you'll see at least 5 pop up. You can analyze their results if you want.

> Legos are Danish. It's not actually clear how the history of American racism or the applicability of the term "American" to black people prior to 1945 has any bearing on the creative intent of a Danish toy manufacturer, and if anything it's a little ethnocentric to judge it in that context.

Hilarious, dude. You totally lost the plot. I was using "american" vs "african american" bias as an analogy to explain the "yellow was universal" but that lego then decided to add brown lego figures. Yellow wasn't actually universal, yellow was white. White was then implicitly seen as universal.

The culture warrior has ended themselves.

> Jesse Owens example is literally one example

He wasn’t even the only black American gold medalist from that day’s track and field competition. Regardless, you made the claim that the term “American” was never used, without qualification, to refer to black people prior to 1945. One or two counterexamples is enough to disprove such a claim.

> I don't think it’s awkward or uncomfortable to emphasize someone’s race.

And I do. That’s part of the disagreement that we’re working through here.

> Tell me what do you think the civil rights issues were/are about? Nah, I’ll tell you: That "american" didn't actually mean all of us on a constitutional/federal/state level and even cultural level.

I already addressed this. Repeating for clarity: I'm not saying that racism didn't exist in 1936 or that Jesse Owens was treated fairly, but there was no inhibition against referring to him, or any other black American, as an American whenever it was relevant to do so.

You made the very specific claim that the term “American” was not used to refer to black people prior to 1945. Now that I’ve demonstrated that this claim is false, you are using figurative language to retreat to the claim that black people were not historically treated equally to white people. But I have never disputed this. You are the one arguing right past me and with some imaginary figure in your head.

Furthermore, as I’ve already said, this is exactly the reason that the term “African American” became popular at one point: because it emphasized that black people were also Americans. Contrary to your false claim that it was meant as a backhanded implication that they weren’t Americans.

> The culture warrior has ended themselves.

Uncalled for and unnecessary.

I'm not retreating into a wider claim. The civil rights issues were literally about "american" not meaning all of us legally.

That is my example for prior usage of the word "american" being biased. It was so biased that people willfully forgot the law and the constitution. Why does it not suffice?

Here is one more I recall:

“When I say all Americans — I mean all Americans...” President Truman when ending segregation in the army

I could keep looking up examples but I feel these are fundamental enough.

Yes african american emphasizes it, there was a need to do that. I wonder why?

Also I should add that I specifically dont give a damn about emoji color. I always leave default yellow cause i rarely use em anyways.

You're playing semantic games. I was specifically addressing your claim that the term "American" is and was widely understood not to refer to black people, and you have retreated from that claim in a puff of figurative language. Civil rights issues were and are not literally about word usage, but rather segregation and discrimination and voting and things of that nature.

Word interpretation is a part of "word usage".

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