Fad, tradition - neither one increases your say in the matter, the why the semantics?
Everyone except for the people that name their kids that. I have heard many black people say the same thing.
Are you talking about white culture? Dare I invoke the name that summarizes this type of comment?
I was referring to a type of stereotyping. It is arrogance because many people have loft opinions of their culture and what what the qualities that define success are. Fathers may not mind if their daughter has a date with a black guy named Mike but freak out if she wants to go out with Jeringer. They automatically think that “she’s to good for that”.
I said.
Which little part of that isn’t true? Trendy - it’s supposed to be. Uneducated - correlates quite well. Ghetto - some are supposed to be. I didn’t make up the term “Keepin’ it real”
Some time ago there was poster on this board that claimed to be a recruiter or something similar, and flatly stated he or she avoided the black-sounding names. There was quite flaming pile-on, IIRC.
Why the semantics? Well, you claimed that people were “ripping on the quality of a groups naming traditions.” I would agree that criticizing long held traditions is rude. Traditions imply that a thing has found long and valued use to that community, and to criticize a tradition is to criticize the basic aspects of that group.
But a fad? A fad is by definition ephemeral. It is not an entrenched part of a group, and has not been show to be valuable to that group for ages. A fad may very well be rejected by the very next generation of that group, just as poodle skirts were ditched once we left the 50’s. Ripping on a fad is perfectly acceptable.
And really, nothing that happens on this board increases our say in any of these matters, so if that’s your argument, why are you posting?
It’s pretty obvious why it’s a racist sentiment. It’s because it doesn’t condemn the societal racism (“I prefer people with white-sounding names”); instead it condemns naming one’s child with a black-sounding name.
Also, you can say it’s just a fad, but it’s a black “fad,” and the reason people discriminate on the basis of this “fad” is because blacks do it. And…the reason people think it’s “uneducated” is also because blacks do it. If it were a preppy fad people might call it “pretentious,” but they wouldn’t call it uneducated, and they wouldn’t not hire someone on the basis of it.
I would if I were you; those bats would really stink up the place.
The sad fact of the matter is that you very well may be starting your child off with an unecessary disadvantage if you name her OmUniq’a. Hopefully, things will change. There’s a kids’ show that comes on Nick called The Backyardigans. It’s a positively annoying show that makes me want to climb a bell tower every time it comes on. Anyway, one of the characters is named Uniqua (sp?). The characters aren’t people, so there’s no race assigned to them. I think such shows, in addition to making me want to impale my brain on a Q-tip or three, introduces suburban kids to such names so they sound commonplace and not so alarming, I guess would be a good word.
I disagree. People think it’s uneducated because uneducated people do it. It’s an unfortunate reality that in some places of the United States, most of the local uneducated people happen to be black. I can see why people make the connection: uneducated people, most of whom are black, do it, so it is associated with blacks.
You’re right that if it were associated with preps (many of whom are wealthier, and thus, better-educated), it wouldn’t be criticised for being uneducated. That wouldn’t make sense. But it wouldn’t be because the people were white–I assume the preppy people would be white because you seem to make the same assumption.
There is no question that refusing to hire someone based on a name is racist and wrong.
But are you saying that it is racist to recognize that a child named with a sterotypical name will be disadvantaged because racism exists? That it is racist to acknowledge the painful reality of racism, and suggest that parents should perhaps not follow a fad that increases their children’s vulnerability to this social evil?
If having an unusual, “black-sounding” name holds you back, I’m sure that’s news to Condoleeza Rice. You know, the Secretary of State?
Are you kidding me? There’s nothing racist in saying that preps are mostly white. Or that blacks get a crappier education than whites. What’s completely racist is assuming that black people name their kids LaTanya* because * they’re uneducated and not because they’re asserting a cultural identity.
But worse than that, what you’re saying is if black people do *anything * differently, “people” (i.e. white people) will associate it with being uneducated (because we all know blacks are uneducated) and will discriminate against anyone who does it…i.e. blacks…And it’s black people’s fault for not recognizing how they’re contributing to their own oppression by not being more white.
Which is the most racist part of this whole damn thread. Black people should compensate for racism by not being so black. And if they’re discriminated against for being different it’s their own damn fault because they should “acknowledge the reality”. Talk about blaming the victim.
See above. Yes. Racist.
Condoleezza is SO not a Republican name. Think what she could have accomplished if her parents had named her Elizabeth (and she could then have some cool nickname like Liddy).
I always thought that “Condoleeza” sounded more Latin than Black, but I can see how it might go either way.
I had it explained to me by one of my teachers at Texas A&M (and a former member of the A&M Corps of Cadets) that a Tradition is any fad that has continued for at least 5 years (in the case of the Corps of Cadets, this would mean there are no cadets left that remember doing a particular thing differently, thus “It has allways been done this way” :rolleyes: )
In the case of things like naming, I would mark it at 3 generations or longer to be a tradition. My first name is my dad’s middle name, my brother’s first name is my middle name. This is hardly a naming tradition since my dad first thought it up when I was born. I’m probably going to give my brother’s middle name to my hypothetical future son, since I like his middle name more than mine.
Anyhow, my family name has only been in existence for about 4 generations, my Great Grandfather having changed it from whatever it used to be to a name that sounds Scottish, though the closest we’ve ever been to Scotland was switching boats in Ireland. One of my uncles dug around and found the original name, and he says he’s glad it got changed. :dubious:
What uglybeech said. Discrimination against those with ‘black names’ is a result of the fact that those names are associated with blackness. Certain phoneme strings being inherently ‘uneducated’ is not a truth; people’s quickness to cover up racism with arguments of alleged inherency is.
My understanding is that Dr. Rice’s mother chose the italian musical designation condoleeza for her daughter.
Names are neither educated nor uneducated. Only people are. Would you say that the nameCassandra is educated and the nameLasandra is not? Was Tyrone educated in the 1940’s and 1950’s, but uneducated now?
Here’s a question for you all, what ethnicity are the parents two girls named Shona and Aeris? (I know the parents and kids.) What would you say their parent’s educational and financial status are? The names are pronounced Shawna and Air-iss.
I am completely shocked by this thread.
We took these people’s ancestors away from their homes. We broke up their families. We forbid them from speaking their languages. We outlawed their religions. We bred them like cattle. This went on for hundreds of years. And then we spent another hundred years treating them like second class citizens. And then the sixties comes about. The civil rights movement gets underway. And we expect them to name their children after us?!? So that we’ll be nice enough wait until we see their faces to begin discriminating against them??
The reason why this is cropping up in the seventies is because it was not until the early sixties that black people were given the freedom to assert their identity, their freedom, and their culture. The reason why these names are new is because we took their family’s names away. We orchestrated a specific and concentrated plan to destroy whatever bits of African culture made it’s way over with the slave ships. We renamed them “Nero” and “Athena” like they were toy dolls. When they were mated and bore children, we named those children whatever names went best with our household’s decor at the time.
African Americans are Americans. Their names are as American as “Emily” and probably more American than “McKyla.” Their culture is intertwined with white America, but not identical. Few countries have had the chance to have a new minority culture created out of whole cloth. But thats what we’ve got. In the best of situations I’m against the idea of immigrants “Americanizing” their names unless that is their true desire. But that isn’t even a close analogy. We, in part, made these names. They, in part, are our culture as well. If these names are a hinderence it’s because we make it a hinderence. If these names are child abuse, it’s because we are child abusers.
I went to school with a kid named “Long Yang” and a kid named “Ho”. I never once heard a peep from anyone about their names. Certainly nothing as intense as allegations of uncaring parents, miseducation and child abuse. If I didn’t already know, it woud make me wonder.
My gut instinct would say rich white kids, mainly based on the name “Aeris.” But I have no race or class I associate those names with.
My guess is that the parents are white, have at least some college, but that they are the first generation in their families to have gone to college, and that they are comfortably middle-class. (I also predict that Shona will have some trouble, from which she will develop attitude.)
The parents are poor, and white. The father is very intelligent, and SHOULD have gone to college. He grew up in the poor side of town. He works very hard to make ends meet, but this area is very poor in the first place. The mother is a military brat, who didn’t graduate high school, and is spoiled to say the least. She named the girls. So, uneducated middle class background. (The name Aeris is from Final Fantasy I believe… That, or VG Cats.) Her grandparents finished raising her in this town, before she got pregnant at 17 and got married before the child was born, she’d have been near graduation when she got pregnant, she played hooky to be with him. He couldn’t convince her to stay in school, he tried. She doesn’t listen to anyone, she knows it all. Shona takes after her dad, and if she can learn to keep her temper in check she’ll be ok. As long as she takes her mother’s example as “What not to do”.