Adam J. Choit

Obviously, I understand why calling Native Americans “Indians” completely makes no sense, and is offensive.  After all, Indians are from India, and you’d think maybe 500 years and a few genocides or so later that the white man would’ve realized this error.  But nope, Columbus thought you were Indians, so to too many people, that’s what you still are –  the few of you still remaining that is.

Now, I don’t mind calling black people African-American, or black, or whatever overwhelmingly is desired by this group of people.  It’s just that in this hyper-politically correct world in which we live, I feel like we sometimes get the absurd notion that just by changing the name of a group of people, it improves their overall situation, so to speak.

Comedian Wanda Sykes actually mentions this in one her of acts, that once the term African-American came along into popularity, the quality of her life was not improved at all…not even in the least bit.  In fact, according to Wikipedia, surveys show “…the majority of Black Americans have no preference for “African American” or “black,” although they have a slight preference for “black” in personal settings and “African American” in more formal settings..”

But the definition of what constitutes a personal setting, and a formal setting can be a bit unclear at times, in my opinion.  If anything, I think what this could mean is that, if you’re not African-American, you’re probably better off playing it safe by just using the term African-American.  But once again, what does this prove exactly?  I mean, in a country where most African Americans don’t care if you call them black, what’s wrong with just using black most of the time, if not all the time?

I think the funniest thing to me about all this, is watching white people get all baffled, not always knowing which term to use.  I love that occasional hesitation in the voice, when a white person has to make it known for whatever reason someone is black.  “Yes, I saw Bob in line.  He was standing right behind that bla–, err I mean African-American man.”  As if you’re going to offend people by saying black, even though it’s a term overwhelmingly no one takes any issue with.

Before I continue on, yes, I know he isn’t known as Puff Daddy these days.

Listen, I come from the school of thought that if someone wants to change his/her name, he or she has the right to.  I’m agree with the old Jewish man in the barber shop in the brilliant film, Coming to America. “If a man wants to be called Muhammed Ali, godammit this is a free country, you should respect his wishes, and call the man Muhammed Ali.”

If Chad Johnson wants to be called Chad Ocho Cinco, fine.  If Ron Artest wants to be Metta World Peace, go for it.  Now, I may think it’s stupid and make fun of it, but I’ll call you by whatever you want, and won’t complain that you should change back to your birth name.

With this Puff Daddy, I have no idea if he’s ever processed any official paperwork when he’s changed his names, but nevertheless what impresses me is that everyone goes along with him — and as far as I can recall and see, nobody has any real issues with the name changes.  In fact, whether he’s “Puff Daddy”, “P. Diddy”, “Sean Combs,” “Puffy,” or just “Diddy,” (etc etc), the media and just about everyone else in the world seems to play along by keeping up.

I think part of it is that white people want to seem hip, and with it, so it’s prudent to keep up with all of Diddy’s name changes.

Anyway, sure, people like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can change a name once and have everyone along for the ride, but Mr. Puffy-Sean-Puff-Daddy-Metta-Combs seems to change that shiz every five minutes and we not only eat it up, but we keep up, too!

Despite this country not “truly arriving” yet, we have made much progress in terms of the improvements of race relations.  We’ve had the civil rights movement, and of course we got President Obama now too.

However, it seems white people have yet to embrace Tyler Perry.  Having never seen a Tyler Perry TV show or film before, I consider myself part of the problem.   Maybe if I would actually make the effort and go see a Tyler Perry movie in the theater, I’d be pleasantly surprised by seeing more white people in the theater than expected.

I just feel like most white people I know aren’t anti-Tyler Perry per se, but just haven’t made the effort to check out his work.  Friend/Co-worker Dan Shott suggested as white people, we ease our way into it.   He suggested a gathering of white people for a viewing party of really any Tyler Perry film.

Viewing this viewing party could turn out to be one of the most hilarious things ever in itself.  The hypocritical nature of the whole scenario just intrigues me.  It’s not often when you can embrace black culture and at the same time practice segregation.

I don’t mean to talk too much smack about white people.  I mean, I’ve already done that before, and white people are typically such an easy target.  It’s just that I don’t like kids named “Henry Wyatt,” and mothers who say both names every time this 4 year old in designer khakis walks by them.  These are the same moms that pronounce the Spanish word ”casa,” with the first syllable like the in the word “at.”

I think it’s true that many Europeans speak multiple languages.  Yet in America, most of us do not.  Even worse, we often ignorantly misprounouce so many “crossover words.”  Words that people of other native tongues adopt for one reason or another.  HEY WHITE LADY, LEARN HOW TO PROUNOUCE “CASA.”

I’m not saying we should learn 10 languages, but if you’re going to adopt words that are alien to you, at least fucking learn how to pronounce them semi-correctly — especially if they are simple enough to learn.