When I was teaching high school, this was precisely one of my frustrations. Minority students (using this because it stemmed from more than African-American minorities) would use a slant on the derogatory terminologies for their race claiming that it was acceptable, but if a white student used that slant there was a fight brewing. My comment was always that if they didn’t want other people using the derogatory terms or slants of those terms, they shouldn’t be using them with each other.

I found it interesting when taking a refresher course in Spanish taught by a fabulous Brazilian woman that an African-American student wanted to know if “people of color” were called African-Brazilian. He was taken aback when she was emphatic that they were just Brazilian, nothing hyphenated. With all this hyphenating, we have furthered our racial separations and groupings.