Honest to God heard this on a pop radio station this morning.
The morning show was discussing the resignation of the pope along with Black History month and wondered if they would elect a black pope. One of the hosts mentioned that there was indeed a black cardinal from Ghana.
“That would so totally be appropriate; electing an African-American cardinal to be Pope during Black History month.”
Now, she did realize what she said, stumbled a little before correcting herself clarifying that the cardinal was just African, not African-American.
Some people really reject the notion of the hyphen; that it’s silly or even insulting. Me? I tend to think we should refer to a person, people, groups or whatever, by the name/term that they desire. So if someone wants to be referred to as “Pete” instead of “Peter” or “African-American” instead of “black”, I’m for self identification. With that said, I would feel a little strange referring to myself as “German-American”. However, my grandfather and grandmother are native Germans, born in Germany and straight off the damn boat at the Island.
Anyway….the native Ghana born cardinal is, you know, African-American.