We’ve seen the last couple of years this tendency of identifying some races, ethnic groups and categories of people by new different names. Black Americans became Afro-Americans, North American Indians (the few left) became First Nations, Romanian Gypsies or Tziganes became Roma… Did this solve the problem of their discrimination against? Is people looking now in a really different way at these groups?

Some of these name changes have been requested by the groups themselves, and the society and political class - in most cases - have been very glad to ascend to their demand. Why? It was the easiest way to “do something” for these groups with no cost at all. But as long as the general perception, people’s mentality and discriminatory attitude toward these groups didn’t actually change too much, the name switch is even worse for these categories than before. Why? Because they allowed the other categories to show and prove their “generosity”, when they in fact did nothing at all. Continue reading »