Is "Negro" a racist term?

I am a little surprised–but not much. Off-hand, I would guess that they are promoting a view of Black Is Beautiful and are using that style in support. Black Americans no more have an equivalent to L’Acadamie française than anyone else in the U.S. and usage is not absolutely uniform.

The discussion carried out in newspaper Op-Ed pieces and speeches and lectures at colleges through the late 1960s followed this line:
[ul][li]Newspapers refer to the majority with a simple lowercase descriptor of hue.[/li][li]Newspapers refer to descendants of slaves with a capitalized word suggestive of scientific terminology as if we are a totally separate group to be studied. [/li][li]To be accepted and included as simply fellow citizens of a different color, we should be identified by a lowercase descriptor of hue.[/ul][/li]I would love to provide the citations of all the discussions I read in that period, but it is rather difficult to find on-line references to 33+ year old Op-Ed newspaper columns.

(The argument used was, incidentally, very similar to the argument that Jesse Jackson used when proposing African American: that blacks should be recognized in the same way as their neighbors. Unfortunately, outside Jackson’s Chicago and the other Rust Belt cities, groups of people are not generally identified as Polish American, Irish American, Italian American, etc. His experience was too limited in that regard. It was the habit of the U.S. news media to treat him as “the” black leader that caused them to change their style books, despite persistent polls over the last ten years, or so, that a majority of blacks still prefer to use black, themselves–again realizing that there is no uniformity of usage.)

References to speeches in 1963 and 1967 do not actually have much bearing on the conclusion of a discussion that only began around 1967 and was not concluded (depending on who and where you were) until 1969 or 1971 or 1973.

Your assertion contradicts my experience. I have never been to Chicago or anywhere near the “rust belt,” but where I grew up, most people seemed to be “hyphenated Americans.” Nearly all of the “hyphenated Americans” were “people of color,” since the white people were at least third generation and couldn’t trace their ancestry to one particular place.

Well, where did you grow up?

I’m also unclear what your statement is. “Hyphentated-American” is hardly limited to whites. In the Rust Belt, the groups I identified are prevalent along with German Americans, Slovenian Americans, and some others–and most are at least third generation.

It would not surprise me to find “hyphenated-Americans” that were “of color” in places such as Southern California, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and Seattle, since the more recent waves of immigrants are from Asia, Central America/Caribbean, and the Pacific islands. However, white “hyphenated-Americans” are still significant political powers in much of the Rust Belt, but are relatively unknown outside that region–hence Jackson’s problem.

Good lord…
It seem that these days, any reference or acknowledgement of someone’s race or descent is automatically considered to be a racist attack. Similarly, there are those who consider any reference to sexor gender as sexist and will work themselves into a lather. For those calm, rational types who take no offense, there are people who will get indignant of their behalf. I think that people who make these over-the-top accusations have racism/sexism on the brain, and will try to see it wherever they can.

-bizz

tomndebb, I have a feeling that if we pursued this we’d discover we agreed on “hyphenated Americans” and we’re just misunderstanding each other. But since it’s not relevant to the thread I"m not going to bother. Unless you can point out why it’s important.

I think Tom’s point is, Jackson popularized the term “African-American”, because he was from an area where you’d talk about “German-Americans” or “Irish-Americans” or “Italian-Americans”, so for Jackson, the use of “African-American” was a way for blacks to stress their heritage, while at the same time proclaiming their Americanness, the same way that other ethnic groups did.

However, outside the industrial midwest (and the cities of upstate New York, btw), people didn’t tend to identify themselves as “Irish-American”, or “Polish-American”, so “African-American”, instead of being one more ethnic/racial group identification, stood out like a sore thumb.

And, btw, the same way that white ethnic groups did.

I prefer Knee Grow. Or better yet, Incognegro. Of course, it sounds more dignified if you stretch out the syllables, as in Knee Gar Row (think Figaro, from the Barber of Seville). It sounds even cooler when you say it with a Boris Karloff accent.

I wasn’t aware until recently that the word “Negroid” (formerly the race from which the word “Negro” derives) was now obsolete. The race of those from Africa or with African descent is now termed “Congoid”. This in mind, would “Congo” be a racist term if applied to a black person?

(For the record, I’m not a refrigerator repairman, nor have I ever kissed one full and lingering on the lips.)

Unless, of course, you’re dealing with pygmies, in which case the race is “Capoid”, though if you offered to introduce somebody to your Capo friend they’d probably be expecting Abe Vigoda as Sal Tessio rather than Gary Coleman.

My lord people, I can’t believe this is the 21st !! century. How long is this bullshit going to last. My ancestors came from somewhere else in the 1700’s. They were enslaved, as were ALL of our ancestors, at some time in history. The fact that your ancestors were mistreated does not give you special treatment or considerations over the rest of humanity. Nor does the color of your skin.

What color am I? hint - I am some shade of tan

I am an American, and that’s it.

In response to the OP. Negro is not a racist remark, as matter of fact it is being used more frequently in some parts of the U.S.

Granted to some people, practically anything could be taken as racist in some circumstances. Right babe?

If anyone has read Ivan Van Sertima’s book They Came Before Columbus, about ancient African travelers to America… remember in the introduction he discusses archeological methods in the New World? And he explains why he talks about “Negro skeletons”? Because if he wrote “black skeletons” it would sound like he’s talking about the color of the bones, not the color of the ancient people’s skin that once covered those bones, so, like it or not, the only way to be clear is to say “Negro skeletons”. Dr. Van Sertima is himself a member of that ethnic group whose designation is the subject of this debate, whatever you want to call it.

I agree that, at least in most contexts, the word Negro probably is not racist. But what about Negress? Many years ago, when I read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer I was a little shocked by that term, which he used as if it were common in the 1930’s. I was struck, because it seemed a word befitting a subhuman species, as in lioness or tigress. Around that time, the
same type of locution was used to describe a female Jew (Jewess). It seemed to me then (when I read the book – not in the 1930’s) and now that these usages could only be pejorative, because of the similarity to words used to describe something less than human. For that reason I have always avoided the term Negro in favor of black.

I’m a fan of a US TV series Called Oz. It’s about life in a maximum security prison. Anyway, there’s this one (white) character who’s name escapes me but he’s on death row with a black inmate in the cell next to him. A speech from last weeks episode ran thusly:

Anyway, it was something like that, I can’t remember. Point being, Procacious was absolutely right when he said it was intent which determined whether Negro is racist or not. You can’t say for definite one way or the other. The only way to go is to play it by ear and judge on a case by case basis. Of course, the same is not true of words like nigger or coon because they were intended as racist insults from the get go.

Well, leaving aside that Van Sertima’s evidence is not yet persuasive, he could have said “skeletons of African origin” and then shortened it to “African skeletons” just as easily.

On the other hand, I agree that Negro is not racist in that context (or in any contexts that are not deliberate insults).

[hijack dealing with culture clashes]
When I was in high school, a kid from Belize came to stay with us for about a month. He was sort of an odd kid: he hated chocolate, for one thing, and he swore up and down that WWF wrestling was genuine.

Anyway, one day we were talking about action movies, and I mentioned one star who’s grunted and punched his way through too many movies. And when I said his name, the Belize kid stared at me, shocked and angry, and corrected me.

“Excuse me!” he said. “You mean Arnold Schwarzenegro!”

It’s an enduring memory.

Daniel

Amusing anecdote:

I’ve been told before that “Person of Color” is a correct and appropriate term; however, “Colored Person” is exceedingly racist.

Hmm… why is it okay (theoretically, at least) to call a black person “black”, but if you call a chinese person “yellow”, it’s racist? I would say the average black person looks as black as the average Chinese person does yellow. Curious.

Another anecdote: I remember, while watching the Olympics this year, political correctness biting some poor announcer in the ass. I’m forget the exact details on this, but it can be summarized as follows. A black person from some African country (I think) won a medal in some event. He was the first black person from that country to do so. Not the first person, just the first black person. But of course, the announcer couldn’t say he was the first black person, that would not be PC. He ended up saying something to the effect of “The first non-American African-American from the country of […] won a medal…” It was priceless.
Jeff

The answer to your first point is that language is not rigorously logical in either its development or its expression. This is hardly news to those who study language. There were social and political reasons for the black community to embrace the word black in the mid-1960s that have never pertained to Asian immigrants–thus the words have not been given equivalent meanings and connotations.

As to the announcer: these people are hired for their ability to comb their hair and speak distinctly into a microphone. Some of them are not all that bright. Nevertheless, there is no “PC” rule agains the word black. The perception that black might violate some rule of PC (even if anyone chooses to live their life directed by Political Correctness) is simply a notion fostered by people who are ignorant.

In college among the black community at an elite university, late 80s:

Negro was considered unacceptable as it was chosen by white people to describe black people. “People of color” was in vogue (as was En Vogue), Afro-American was OK, black was OK, at least among black people, and African-American was being explored.

I would hazard a guess that Negro might have been OK for black people to use amongst themselves for effect but was unacceptable used in reference to them, as were a number of other terms which non-black people probably weren’t aware of.

Things have changed since then and I guess will continue to evolve.

And during his class at said university, I don’t remember hearing van Sertima mention “Negro”.

I’m going to paraphrase Neal Stephenson and one or two posts.
“Jap”, as an abbreviation for Japanese, is racist. “Yank” and “Brit” rarely are. If a word is meant to be racist, it is, and vice versa.