No More Hyphenated Americans

American Thinker ^ | January 13, 2017 | E.W. Jackson

[Kaslin]

Every time we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we confess that we are "one nation," but there is less and less cultural evidence of that. In fact, after eight years of perhaps the most divisive president in American history, we are more balkanized than ever. Not only have the ethnic divisions been exacerbated by the constant allegations of racism and white privilege, but we now contend with a whole new set of tribal identities. We are not only segmented by racial classifications of black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American, but shoehorned into the mix are sexual categories of gay; lesbian; bisexual; transgender, and, according to Facebook, 56 other gender identities.

With the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the time has come to take a bold step toward unity. To borrow from the president-elect, it is time to make America unified again. We will never be perfectly unified, but we can reverse the politics of division and reorient our culture toward unity.

Since the election, Mr. Trump has called for solidarity. We need to make that sentiment tangible. The left's identity politics fosters the narrative of victim versus oppressor, white male versus everyone else, white privilege versus black "empowerment," capitalist versus worker, and now enlightened sexual liberators versus the bigoted, hateful traditional Americans.

It is an effective strategy for obtaining and holding power, but the whole country suffers for it. President Obama and his fellow liberals have unleashed racial hell on our country, moving us away from our vision of "one nation under God with liberty and justice for all."

[bankwalker]

I’ve been saying this for 30 years.

[Tax-chick]

A tangible expression of this sentiment would be for government to stop asking citizens their ethnic background.  Those questions should be removed from every state, federal, and local form.  

Good idea. Start with the Feds, since that's the only legitimate arena for the President and Congress to act. Many other levels of government are in the racial bean-counting business mainly because it's a requirement for Federal funding, anyway.

[Ann Archy]

AMEN!! The Hyphen has DIS-UNITED us!!

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

And let’s also enforce the standard of using “American” as the noun and all other descriptors as the adjective.

Italian American
Japanese American
Mexican American

No more switching the construction around to use “American” as the adjective for another primary group identity that.

That is as disuniting and separatist as the hyphenated term.

[Pollster1]

I would like to see an executive order from President Trump, with legislation to back it up where needed, forbidding the government from gathering racial or religious data in the census or any other database. We are Americans (except for the illegals), and that is all that should count. Take the Census back to its roots and stop making skin tone a political issue. Eliminate the whole concept of hate crimes, and prosecute crimes aggressively regardless of motive.

[LambSlave]

To do this, we must give no quarter when it comes to identity politics. Too many (even here) are too weak willed to do this and play right into the Dems hands, IMHO. When discussing who should be vice-president how many advocated the token minority or woman, and do the same for cabinet picks? It sickens me. They also back down on PC issues. You have to change the status quo; don’t acknowledge identity politics at all, pure meritocracy, do not even acknowledge their words or discuss it. The only reason there are hyphenated Americans is because they have gained power from it, take that away by ignoring them, or better yet ostracizing them, and they will become Americans once more.

[ripley]

“I’ve been saying this for 30 years....”

There are many people who love hanging on to their ethnic identity as a badge of honor and will never give in to being “American”; tribalism is alive and well in the U.S., principles of freedom and equality be dam&ned.

IMHO

[yobid]

I’m a proud Pan-European-American.

[RetSignman]

Italian American> Americans of Italian descent
Japanese American> Americans of Japanese descent
Mexican American> Americans of Mexican descent

Or as The Donald has pledged, American(s) FIRST.

[Lisbon1940]

Can hyphens be banned? What about subtractions?

[JDoutrider]

Bookmark

[Little Ray]

In the US, ethnicity should be excuse for a restaurant or a party.
That is all it should be.

[RU88]

What you are talking about eliminating is what has sustained the democratic party for the past 50 years! Identity politics is their tried and true trademark. Obama practiced it on almost a daily basis! Divide and conquer. Make one group feel aggrieved at the expense of another. Pit one gender against the other. Pit Christian beliefs against all others. I’m telling you, the democrats would cease to exist if everything operated on a system of equality and meritocracy. They could not survive, and neither could their hardened base.

[albertabound]

AMEN

[b4me]

“Americans of (whatever) descent”

That’s all I ever heard growing up, none of this origin country taking precedence over being now American.

[SandRat]

HYPERTHTICAL NAMES OF ANY KIND ARE AN AN INSULT,

AN INSULT to whomever it's used against,

AN INSULT by whomever users for Whatever purpose.

AN INSULT, upon whomever is forced to hear it spoken, written or written.

There you are LAWYERS something new to File a Court Case on.

[Oatka]

Hyphenated-names = hyphenated-loyalties.

We should stop after the first sentence.

Teddy Roosevelt addressing the Knights of Columbus in Manhattan on October 12, 1915.

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.

This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.

But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as anyone else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.

The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.”