Allow Me To Introduce Myself

Hi, my name is T. Mitchell, and I am an American. I could say, I am an Irish-Anglo-Celtic-Norse-Cherokee-Slightly Republican - With a Hint of Libertarian - American. But that really bothers me. Why do we have to put so many labels on our nationality? I've never seen or heard of an African-Britain. Or a Chinese-Frenchie. Why in America, the biggest melting pot in the world do we have to identify ourselves by subcategories?

By categorizing ourselves we divide ourselves, and propagate racism. I hate racism horribly, it's just like any other type of extremism. Some people may say, "Well, you have it nice because you are white!" Sorry, racism is a two way street, I have felt the effects and been the target of racism myself.

I remember growing up near a military base when my father was in the army, you never saw racism. We all bleed the same color, and those were men trained to fight together, and families that knew how to support each other. Then I moved to a rural county in Florida, and there it was, like a cold sore that you can't stop but look at even though you know it's polite not to do so.

Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and plenty of other people, black or white, male or female, have fought for decades in America for equality. Fought for desegregation, the ability to drink out of the same water fountain, or the ability to vote. When I got to Florida, the first day I got on the bus, all of the black people were at the back of the bus. When I went to lunch, or while we waited for the doors to open, people segregated themselves, black people in one cluster, white people in another. I didn't understand it....no, I don't understand it. There were those few exceptions of course, people on the football team for example. But why is it after so long fighting for intermingling, now we have drifted back to a voluntary segregation? Was it that segragation wasn't a problem, we just wanted it to be our choice, and not by force?

Now you see prejudice coming out even more, splintering us into even smaller fractions. I'm a republican, he's a democrat. He's a black republican, she's a native American democrat. And some of these people are bitter just because someone is a republican/democrat. It's ridiculous. I'm a southerner, he's a northerner. He's a southern-black-democrat, she's a northern-Chinese-Japanese-republican-American.

And that doesn't even begin to include Religion...

As long as we classify ourselves as being different, then we help to promote recognizing our differences. I say, let's identify with our similarities. I say, "Hi, my name is T. Mitchell, and I'm an American. Nice to meet you, American!" Cut out the hyphens. You were born in/immigrated to America. Your nationality is American. Not a plurality, you didn't sign up for ""American subsection A, part 234B Half Japanese Half Chinese" I'm not saying deny your heritage, or forget your roots, but to embrace your present.

Be proud of where you came from, but also be proud of where you are. This country is by no means perfect. We have murders, corruption, crime, and our share of skeletons. I don't mean to claim that we have never done wrong. We have done countless things that are scars on our record, from the native Americans to slavery to putting Japanese people in camps to countless other quagmires.

You can't walk forward with your head turned backwards. You move forward, and stop every once in a while to think about your path, looking back to make sure you don't get lost, but you have to look where you are going and where you want to be.