"You can be a Polish American, or an Arab…" — Christopher Hitchens

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Meaning

This reads as a challenge to the idea that some identities are straightforward while others need hyphens. It points to Englishness as something treated as the default, so the question exposes how national identity can be oddly invisible to itself and unevenly available to different groups. It lands in debates about who gets to be called what without explanation.

When It Was Said

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Who It Was Said To

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Historical Context

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Source

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Original Language & Translation

Originally said in English.

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About Christopher Hitchens

British and American author and journalist

Christopher Eric Hitchens was a British and American author and journalist. He was a public intellectual of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, known for his work as a columnist and speaker, and for his role among the so-called “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism. He became widely noticed for sharp, argumentative writing and for the principle often linked to him that claims without evidence need not be accepted. That idea, sometimes called Hitchens’s razor, is cited in philosophy and law, and it reflects the evidential style associated with his work.