When you put a label on something, you separate it from everything else around it. For example, if you have a box of shoes and you label one pair “brown shoes,” you have a box of shoes that contain one pair of brown shoes, separating them from the rest.
We have been doing the same thing in this country since the first person uttered the phrase “politically correct.” This great country was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. This country is a melting pot of people from all over the world.
We are all too familiar with the phrase, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” However, look at what we have become … a country of labels, separated by those labels. I am an American; I am not a white American, I am not a Jewish American, I am not a Romanian American, I am just an American. After all, isn’t being an American enough?
Why after more than 250 years of growing together as a country have we decided it would be smart to label ourselves and separate ourselves from one another? If you immigrate to this country and become a citizen, aren’t you just an American?
I am not advocating giving up our individual heritage. Lord knows I love potato pancakes and a good pastrami sandwich, but what I am suggesting is that we cannot begin to put an end to the ignorance that fuels racism and the tension that exists if we are going to continually separate ourselves from one another.
If there was a ground war in the United States, do you think the other guys are going to be checking to see if you are an Irish American, a Korean American, or dare I say it, a Muslim American? No, they won’t, because we are all Americans.
Everyone outside of the United States sees us that way … why can’t we? Is a black man in England an African Brit? No, but here in the United States where we pride ourselves on being one people out of many, what do we do? We are politically correct and it is just plain stupid.
I am an American; if my country or countrymen are attacked, my loyalty is to them, Americans. Isn’t it time to stop all this silliness and just be people?
I am so tired of having to think about what kind of person you are supposed to be. I don’t care if you are white, black, Catholic, Muslim, Armenian, gay, transgender, whatever. If you are an American, you are an American. Be an American, don’t be a label.
Ira L. Levin
Marlboro