It’s Time to Let Go of ‘African American’
11th July 2025
I’m no fan of performative identity politics, and I think racial preferences are long past their expiration date. Yet I don’t think the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani did anything wrong when, as was reported last week, he checked off “Black or African American” on a college application. As a man of South Asian descent who spent the first part of his life living in Uganda, he was within his rights to call himself African American. The problem is that the term appeared on the application, or anywhere else. Plenty of Black people have never liked it, and ever more are joining the ranks. It’s time to let it go.
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A term that is meant to be descriptive but that can refer to Cedric the Entertainer, Trevor Noah, Elon Musk and Zohran Mamdani is a little silly.
The Left has never shrunk from silly. Indeed, their entire program is to make the silly into a semblance of normal.