Political (In)Correctness

In elementary school, when my fourth grade teacher would talk about Civil Rights, she would say, "These people with unequal rights were African-Americans.  You might have heard the term 'black' for them, but that may be offensive.  So, the correct term is African-American."  With my young developing mind, I took that for granted and did what she said.  In middle school, when my eighth grade teacher would talk about Civil Rights, she would say, "These people with unequal rights were African-Americans.  You might have heard the term 'black' for them, but that's considered offensive today.  So, the correct term is African-American."  Although she didn't say exactly what my fourth grade teacher told us, it was like deja vu for me.  With this notion of "African-American" revisiting my head, I began to question the purpose of it.  Now, in high school, I am fully aware of the stupidity of political correctness (or should I say, incorrectness).

To start, the term "African-American" is simply too broad.  Clearly, African-American is supposed to refer to the group of people with black skin.  But what it means is an individual whose heritage originates from Africa, and that individual may have white skin.  Technically speaking, Dave Matthews is an African-American because he comes from South Africa.  "African-American" also may not apply to all black-skinned individuals, because not all people with black skin originate from Africa.  Jamaicans are not African-Americans.  So this whole ploy to not offend blacks by calling them African-Americans is a complete failure; in fact, it may offend even more of them because of the term's inaccuracy.  And isn't that separating them more from the American population?  By saying Chinese-American, Native American, Japanese-American, African-American, and the like, we separate Americans into different groups (even when the goal of those terms is to bring us together).  Our country is called The United States of America for a reason.  There are blacks, there are whites, there are people with yellow skin, there are people with red skin, there are people with big eyes and small eyes and big noses and small noses and long hair and short hair, but we are all Americans.