Editor:

President Barack Obama claims he is African-American. But he is half white, so why doesn't he claim to be African-White-American?

Hyphens -- Americans misuse that hyphen to claim that Anglo-Americans discriminate against them and so they should receive extra goodies because this is prejudice.

When Bill Clinton was president, 15,000 African-American farmers claimed some of them were discriminated against in getting government farm loans and they filed a class action lawsuit and divided up a billion dollars from the taxpayers.

Now President Obama says that billion dollars they received was not enough. And he wants to out-do Clinton and give another one-and-a-half billion more dollars to those 15,000 African-American farmers from taxes paid in by all Americans.

And now not to be left out, Mexican-American farmers in Texas were discriminated against in getting government farm loans, saying they should have equal rights as the Afican-Americans in filing a class action lawsuit.

Without that hyphen they would all be just Americans with equal rights. Isn't that what these groups of people claim they want? But then they would get no affirmative action special treatment to jobs and promotions and first in line to acceptance in colleges.

If that hyphen is a magic mark to receive special treatment, then I should claim two hyphens. My mother and dad were both Germans born in Russia and I'm a German-Russian-American, so I want my double special rewards or I will cry I'm being discriminated against.

AL HAMBURG, Torrington