Blah, blah black sheep, have you any Wolf, a Jew, pontificating on racial language?

Nordlinger also mentions that during the 2002 Olympics NBC's sports beings were trying to tell the world about an American woman who had won a gold medal in the bobsled. She was the first black woman ever to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics, but NBC couldn't use the word "black," so someone wound up actually saying: "She's the first African-American woman from any country to win a gold medal."

If there are African-American women from other countries, no wonder the world hates us. We just seem to come from any place we damn well please.

You can't use the word "black," which is interesting because the word "black" was once the word of choice by African-Americans to describe themselves. I remember in 1968 when Bill Cosby's social history, Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed aired on tv. That tv show marked the end of the use of the "n" word, that is "negro."  But eventually "black" fell out of favor and was replaced by "African-American."

I understand. I'm a Jew and I don't like being called a Jew by non-Jews. The designation is isolating, and you feel like you're one step away from being excluded from a country club and two steps away from being sent to a concentration camp. Of course, we Jews are a curious lot. We hate to be isolated but we relish being the Chosen People, that is, isolated. But I can say that. You can't.

Chris Rock can make fun of black people, and he must wonder if he is America's favorite affirmative action comedian. That is, being smart and funny, he probably doesn't like telling jokes about African-Americans because he doesn't really know if he's getting a laugh because he's being funny or because he's being black. You notice that the last big laugh he got was over Roman Polanski. And he even went anti-Whoopi on that one. She'd said that what Polanski had done wasn't "rape rape." Maybe Rock wants to be "funny funny," not "black funny."

Only African-Americans can make fun of African-Americans, which is why Rush Limbaugh has been excluded from the country club of  National Football League owners. You can't say that thuggish NFL players are like "the Crips and Bloods, only without the guns." Chris Rock could. Rush Limbaugh can't. The social code prohibits comparisons of an ethnic group to itself by someone from another ethnic group. You have to be in the group to make fun of the group. We have no more tolerance for a racial gibe than we do for a whiff of a cigarette from 17 booths away in a restaurant.  Had Limbaugh said that NFL players were like the Corleones and the Tattaglias, only without the machine guns, it would have been all right because the Italians, like Type O blood, are the universal donors of their ethnic identity for a good chuckle. Oy. I meant to say Italian-Americans.

It won't be long, however, before the term African-American falls out of favor. Hyphenated names seem so 20th century. Remember when men and women would hyphenate their names when they got married? It still happens, but does it happen as much? Back in the last century, I had said that females on their birth certificates should have a hyphen placed at the end of their names, like the coupling for a train car, to be used when they got married. But train cars are so 20th, well, actually 19th century.

We shall overcompensate is our mantra. But we are making progress and even have an African-American president. And when children in the next generation are taught American history, they will be taught that he was the first black president.

And I can say that, of course, because I am a Jew, that is, a prophet.