Last week, entertainer Raven-Symone appeared on Oprah: Where Are They Now? and explained that she didn’t want to be labeled as any thing other than a human, she doesn’t want to be labeled as lesbian because of her relationship with a woman or African-American because of her skin.

I agree. I’m tired of labels as well, but particularly tired of being referred to as a “hyphenated-American.” I am not an African-American.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had people ask me what I’ve wanted to be referred to as, black or African-American. Personally, I’d rather just be referred to as my name, but if one must apply a label to me based on my skin tone, then black would suffice.

Before anyone “sets Twitter on fire,” as Oprah told Raven, let me explain. I was born in Louisiana. I’ve never been outside of the Deep South region of the United States, and I have very little to no connection to the African continent. Sure, my ancestors were likely African slaves, but let’s be honest with ourselves here, they don’t call the United States “a melting pot” for nothing. I likely also have ancestors of European descent. Louisiana was, after all, colonized by the French, transferred to the Spanish and back to the French then purchased by the United States. All the while, other Europeans settled along the bayous. Des Allemands and the Irish Channel are called what they are because of the people who settled there: Germans and Irish.

But my aversion to being referred to as African-American has nothing to do with my ancestry. No, I have a problem with being a “hyphenated-American” because it puts something before my being an American. It implies that yes, I am an American but first I’m African, which is not true. Hyphens also implies either word can be used to describe me, again not true.

As far as I’m concerned, my ancestry is a muddled mess up until modern history, and that begins in the United States. Therefore, I can only trace my ancestry back as far as is recorded, which, again, makes me American, and only American.

I also feel as if it creates an unnecessary separation between hyphenated Americans and Americans who do not have their ancestry clearly labeled in description of their race or ethnicity. Have you ever heard of a European-American? Me either. Going back to African-American putting my American, heritage second to something I don’t identify with, it also makes it sound like I’m less of an American than someone who is only referred to as “American.”

It also begs the question of what do you call a naturalized citizen of the United States who is from Africa? Most people would immediately say “African-American.” What if that person was from South Africa and was white or from North Africa and Arabic? This is when people get confused. No one wants to call a white person African-American, even if that’s what they technically are.

It may be politically correct, but to me, referring to me as African-American is as offensive as any racial slur. I’m an American. Nothing more, nothing less.

Besides, if that National Geographic piece about what Americans will look like in the future is anything to go by, it’s going to be hard to refer to people as African-Chinese-Japanese-Korean-French-German-English-Australian-Brazilian-Colombian-American, so we might as well do ourselves a favor and drop the words we like to slap in front of American.