Barack Obama Tells You A Thing He Knows About The Negro And The Oriental

Also, Dude, don't read the Breitbart comments

President Barack Obama took yet another move to divide America Friday, signing a bill that strikes outdated language like "Oriental" and "Negro" from federal laws. The bill, one of seven new laws Obama signed, was authored by Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), who issued a statement saying, “The term ‘Oriental’ has no place in federal law and at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good.”

In a rare bit of bipartisanship, the bill passed the House and Senate without any opposition; the Senate passed it unanimously last Monday and sent it on to the White House.

Reaction from predictable quarters was reactionary and predictable. The "Young Conservatives" blog ran a brief story accusing the administration unironically of "Whitewashing history, one day at a time," complaining,

If you’re a liberal, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words are the true killer.

It’s amazing that some people are so offended over the dumbest things. These words are a part of history; of America’s past.

Hardly anyone still uses these words today, so why cause such a fuss over nothing?

Remember, words have no power of you. Keep repeating that to yourself if you’re a Democrat.

The bill also updates several other terms in the U.S. Code, changing "American Indian" to "Native American" and "Eskimo" to "Alaska Native," for instance. Meng said she'd encountered the outdated language while researching legislation and decided it was time to update things:

Many Americans may not be aware that the word 'Oriental' is derogatory. But it is an insulting term that needed to be removed from the books, and I am extremely pleased that my legislation to do that is now the law of the land[.]

Commenters at Lucianne.Org were, of course, outraged and worried about the fate of our once-great nation:

• What an utter and complete waste of time that was unnecessary. I feel like I´m living in the former Soviet Union where all history was erased. I´m so sick of the insanity in this nation!

• I sure will sleep better tonight knowing that our national security, and economy, and rights and freedoms, etc, etc, are in such great shape that spending millions of dollars going through the countless volumes of federal law to remove a few phrases that were hurting nobody, then having to reprint millions of pages with the changes, it the most important the pressing thing facing this republic!!! /sarcasm off

  When, exactly, in history did the inmates take over the asylum???

• Does this mean The United Negro College Fund will have to change its name?

• A few months ago I had occasion to read an article from a 1950s era Jet magazine. Their style was “negro” and “negroes” throughout the magazine. And the magazine was full of negro dignity and pride.

If you're into branding trivia, the United Negro College Fund retains its name, but in 2008 the group shifted its logo and letterhead to simply "UNCF;" it retained the slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." This latter point is demonstrated daily on the internet.

As of press time, the president had not yet commented on whether he would issue any executive orders banning pissy hyperbole or turning back time to make rightwing morons more comfortable with the confusing new world in which they find themselves.

[ The Hill / Young Conservatives / WBAL / Lucianne.org / NYT ]