Narrow minded and intolerant thinking worked great in Germany during WWII and in the US when the Klan hit its peak. Guess what, the Klan is making a come-back. Wonder why?

In response to southboca: Hmmmmm..... I dont seem to hear the Irish speaking Celtic or having Irish flags flying 365 day a year at their homes. I also don't have the East Africans that I work with every day expecting me to learn their language and customs. Maybe we should rename this debate "I'M A VICTIM BECAUSE I'M A HISPANIC THAT'S TOO LAZY TO LEARN A NEW CULTURE!!!.

In response to corinthians: When will you be moving to South Central LA so that you can prove how diverse your thinking is???? No clan there, but lots of hate for "whitey."

In response to dasuit:Thanks, but I think I'll stay in Florida, we're plenty diverse and nobody hates me.

In response to dasuit:First, correct me if I'm wrong, but the debate is about whether we should have hyphenation, not whether immigrants need to learn English. (Immigrants who want to become Americans should learn at least survival English).

Second, you don't hear Irish people speaking Celtic, because it isn't a language, it's a language category. You don't even hear too many people speaking Irish. When the English settlers came over in the 12th century, English became the language of the ruling class, and hence more desirable. This came in handy when they started to immigrate.

In response to SallyDP:Sorry, but dropping the hyphen isn't going to make people color blind.

In response to Peter:
You are right, it doesn't make people be color blind, but it is a start, of con sidering everyone as just AMERICAN, and nothing with a Hyphen. I guess it will be a matter of years and generations, but we gotta start somewhere!

In response to SallyDP:I still maintain that this is simply a symbolic gesture not the start of a practical solution. The majority of the the time people do not base their bias or bigotry on what a person calls themselves, but instead by how a person looks.

In response to SallyDP:I agree with Peter, racism runs a lot deeper than you might think. In fact, it can even affect self perception. Here's a youtube clip that illustrates the point:

Here is a classroom exercise that does a better job of combatting racism than eliminating hyphenation will ever do. In the five part series, the teacher demonstrates racism in a non racially diverse setting by dividing her class into blue eyes and brown eyes. When children were in the discriminated group, their classroom performance dropped. The teacher's goal is to create a society where the exercise will never need to be used.

In response to southboca:What very cool videos. I especially liked the one where the class was divided by eye color. I wonder whether the lesson stuck with them over the years? And also what their parents must have said?

In response to Kat:One of the other parts in the series says the lessons stuck and that there have never been any parental or community complaints.

In response to southboca:Wow! The look on the little girl's face when she says that she looks like the "ugly, bad doll" speaks volumes. Our society obviously still has a long way to go.

Maybe we this IS a great start......eliminating hypocracy from the race discussions would be an excellent start!

Absolutely agree. Do any other countries do this? We certainly don't in the UK. From an outsiders point of view it just seems to reinforce the differences.