American Media’s Classic Stupidity of Misreporting and Political Correctness

More than a decade ago, the word came down from on high that journalists should stop referring referring to black people in the United States as “black” and start calling them “African-American.”  Never mind that originally Blacks objected to the term and much preferred the use of “colored” as in the NAACP (National Association of Colored People). After a while, this gave way to Negro and then in a turnabout back to Black only to give way to Afro-American.  On January 9, CNN reporter Chris Cuomo referred to killed black Frenchman (responsible for the murder of four French Jewish hostages in a supermarket where he was trapped)  and terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly, as an “African-American man.” He called him that because he didn’t want to say “black.” Of course, this is not just an error – it is an example of idiocy. Coulibaly is of African origin and a native speaker of Arabic as well as a French citizen. Such an example of gross negligence and misinformation – even worse than Obama’s referral to the language of Austria as Austrian explains why American media stupidity is self-reinforcing.