The term was “Negro” which survives in the United Negro College Fund. But the word is too close to another unspeakable word.
Again, I dont see this.
Did I claim it did? But if he wants to call himself that, fine by me.
I don’t know about that one, but I did definitely see Nelson Mandela’s name on a list of “Great African-Americans” on a poster in a school
Someone can be living in the US without being American (and in fact that was the case for the individual in question). It’s America-centrism.
Lol.
What I was told is that ‘African American’ is supposed to parallel ‘Irish American’, ‘Italian American’ etc. The idea was to identify people by their heritage rather than race as such. You wouldn’t call an Italian, or eg a descent of Italian immigrants to Argentina an Italian American.
But in practice, what happened is that many people were told “don’t say Negro|colored|black, say African American”. So they learned the term as being equivalent to those, and used it accordingly.
Activists enjoy coming up with new words for things, sometimes to avoid perceived offence, and sometimes in an attempt to change the way we think - but new words quickly acquire the offensive connotations of the old ones, and phrases intended to have a different meaning are treated as synonyms of those they replaced.
If it’s not that they dislike his policies and don’t want to be tied to them in the minds of the public, why do you think there’s so much hostility towards Mamdani among liberals?
Who got in big trouble? Elizabeth Warren was criticized for it. Is that what we call big trouble nowadays?
I’m a white woman who has that kind of family legend kicking about – that there’s a “Cherokee Indian princess” in our background. The DNA results don’t check out, and the particular connection has been exposed as a myth. Some of my family is a bit salty about it, but we’re not suffering. It’s a little embarrassing, that’s all. I am grateful for the public discourse around Warren’s claim, because it led me to understand more about my family, and about the ways racism from the past continues to inform the present.
I don’t think Elizabeth Warren needs your (or my) pity. There are legit criticisms of how she handled the whole topic, even though I can strongly empathize with her being in that situation. I don’t think it’s very similar to the Mamdani situation, except in that how he handles it is more important than the accusation itself. He seems to be brushing it off, which is the right way to handle it IMO.
Heh…
And the thing is, when an American has family lore that they have a little bit of Native American ancestry, it’s usually true. Lots and lots of Americans have a little bit of Native American ancestry. Usually not enough to qualify for tribal citizenship, but a little.
It’s also usually only poorly documented, but then, for most families, their German or Irish or whatever heritage is also poorly documented. But nobody ever blinks an eye at anyone saying “I’m part Irish” or “I’m part German”, and celebrating both St. Paddy’s Day and Oktoberfest.
I don’t see anything in that article about her getting into trouble. Did she get punished in some way?
Too late to edit, but I suspect my question leads us too far away from the OP. It’s an interesting discussion, but would work better as a new thread – which I am too lazy to start.
Far more useful headlines about Mamdani than anything actually written by the New York Times. https://mamdanitimes.com/
I already posted it…
@Dr.Strangelove, apparently Mamdani did very well on the SATs…
Better than I expected, though still not really Ivy League material. Which I guess we knew.
Though that makes the error less excusable. This isn’t like a person incorrectly thinking thinking they had Native American ancestry because they supposedly had a Cherokee grandfather. It’s like someone putting down Native American because they were born in America, and that makes them native, right? No one that gets 710 on the English SAT II would think “African American” just means someone born in Africa that immigrated to the US.
Lest anyone think I’m not being even handed, here’s an amusing video where Eric Adams discovers a small armory and drug stash in a child’s room:
That’s not what Mamdani (at 17) did. He put AA and Asian and wrote in Ugandan.
I wonder if you’ve considered the possibility that maybe a 17 year old with a somewhat unusual ethnic and national background might have made an honest mistake?
Also, who the fuck cares what boxes he checked at 17?
Just to be clear, I have zero interest in the outcome of this election either way, and even if I did the “seize the means of production” stuff would be a million times more important. I’m only continuing this conversation because you tagged me.
But aside from all that, equity supporters can’t have it both ways. If equity systems like affirmative action are useful, important things for racial justice, then it actually matters that he didn’t take this seriously, since it meant he (could have) taken a slot from a minority group that the admissions department deemed more important.
If he thought AA/equity stuff is all racist bullshit, as I do, then it wouldn’t matter at all. But somehow I don’t get that impression.
Or, as in this case, if you do have a system of ethnic monitoring for any purpose at all, and you think accuracy is important, then you should design your forms so that anyone completing them (in this case, teenagers) with unusual ethnic backgrounds find it easy to fill them in correctly. (And if you were to make life changing decisions for the form fillers, you might check that the forms were accurate.)
Wait, in this specific case, the teenager wanted to convey that he is an American of Ugandan asian origin, and… conveyed exactly that? And that the college did not, in fact, get confused and offer him a place reserved for a black student? (Does such a thing even exist, and if so is it so easy to exploit?)
Could anyone remind me what the specific problem here might be?
He was fucking 17. And we have no reason to believe he didn’t take it seriously.
Once again… Isn’t it possible that a 17 year old with an unusual background made an honest mistake?
Even supposing I accept all that, it just means that Columbia’s admissions forms were utterly sloppy and useless for the intended purpose (which was racial discrimination in the name of equity). So again, no supporter of equity programs could defend that process if it was that trivially gamed.
But to repeat, we’re supposed to believe that someone that got 710 on the English SAT II couldn’t figure out that “Black/African American” didn’t refer to non-Black Ugandans? It’s absurd. The “Other” option was right there.
Look, obviously you’re giving him maximum benefit of the doubt and I’m not. I doubt we’ll agree on this. Is it conceivable that it was an honest mistake? Sure, any mistake whatsoever is possible, 17 years old or not. This just happens to be a very convenient mistake for someone in his position. Especially considering that his father specializes in African studies, and could have told him exactly what those options meant.
Which he used, and wrote in “Ugandan”, along with checking the AA and Asian boxes. Are you still unaware of what he actually did on the form?