Yes, if the term is being used to suggest that they are the same ethnic group.
Your argument really comes down to slavish literalism. Do you think “Native American” is misleading? Afterall, any one born on US soil is a native American. Is it messed up that we reserve this term for only the Cherokee, Siox, Apache, etc., but a little white kid born in Marietta, Georgia will only laughed at if they go around calling themselves Native American?
I use some terms that are toponyms and some that aren’t. I use “American” to identify my nationality, “Southern” to identify my culture, “Cherokee” to identify my heritage, and “Indian” to identify my race. In the spirit of the OP, I am 75% proud to use the terms.
Stoid writes:
> I am not “weight-challenged” or “a person of size” - I’m fat. I have lots of
> genuine, real adipose tissue on my body. I am a fat person. This is not rude, it
> is true. Now, mocking me with other terms, taking “fat” and turning it
> to “fatass”, “fatso” etc IS rude, because it is not merely descriptive and is not
> intended to be merely descriptive.
I’m not sure, but I believe that no one has ever used the terms “weight-challenged” or “a person of size” except as a joke. I don’t think these are real politically correct terms, just parodies of them. In their book The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook, Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf made up a bunch of terms as parodies of politically correct terminologies. You will frequently find anti-politically correct rants in which people claim that some of those are actually used as PC terminology. They aren’t. One of the terms that Beard and Cerf made up, for instance, is “vertically challenged” as a PC term for “short.” In fact, no one has ever seriously used that word.
Right. A little white kid born in Marietta, Georgia will only laughed at if he goes around calling himself Native American. But the same can’t be said of someone calling a black person an African-American even though he wasn’t descended from slaves. AFAIK, most people use and understand “African-American” to be an updated term for black (in the U.S.).
I don’t know why you’re arguing with me about that point, since I’ve already said that most Americans use the terms interchangeably. In fact, there’s the old joke about Americans calling Black people in Africa, African-Americans.
I didn’t call you uptight. It was the “generic you”, since that seems to be a common problem for a lot of people. Sorry if that was confusing.
Think whatever you like.
I just can’t think of a situation where a simple: “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what ethnic group you consider yourself to be a part of, if any” would be a problem saying. Except, of course, if you (the generic you) felt some need to insert the person’s ethnic group into a context where it didn’t matter or didn’t belong.
A few points:
I have no issue with changing my speech if someone finds my description of THEM offensive. I DO mind being prompted to change my speech by a third party. My mailman has no issue with being referred to as a mailman, yet my sister seems to think I should refer to him as a letter carrier. I have one female friend who delivers mail, and she seems to find being referred to as a mail-maid mildly flattering. And all the female pilots I know (probably 10 or so) seem to enjoy the term archaic term “aviatrix” as well, yet some women who don’t fly airplanes or deliver mail seem to find these terms offensively sexist. If the people to whom I am referring are not offended by the term, then sorry, the term is not offensive.
Next,
People need to consider intent when taking offense…and especially cut the elderly some slack. I know your kid has Down’s syndrome, but my mom (RIP) would have meant no offense at all when referring to her as Mongoloid, and indeed felt she was being respectful by not using the term retarded.
Next,
pretending not to notice distinguishing physical characteristics isn’t PC, it’s just stupid. I’m pretty tall, and if a clerk told another customer that the item he wanted was “over by that tall guy” I’d take no offense. I have seen a lady create a full on scene when when one clerk told another that “the black lady over there needs X”. If I’m standing up I’m the tall guy, If I’m sitting down, I’m the guy with the beard,…I guess if I am in a room full of NBA players, I’m the short guy and if I am in a room full of black people, I 'm the white guy.
Finally,
Niggardly isn’t a word I’d use, just because few people I talk to would be aware of it’s meaning. That Al Sharpton finds the word offensive proves he is an idiot. Sorry, but when you Latinos take offense when I use “Mexican” as an adjective meaning “of Mexico” or a noun meaning “citizen of the country to our south” you just look stupid. I GET that you are not a Mexican and that the word has been derogatorily misapplied to people with your skin color…I was talking about people who ARE Mexican, and I don’t say “Canadian nationals”, Italian nationals" or “Irish nationals” when I talk about those nationalities, so please get over the fact that I refer to Mexicans as Mexicans.
Why do you have to call him anything other than “a guy who has Kenyan, Ethiopian, Zimbabwean, or Nigerian heritage”?
When you meet a white person who’s a recent immigrant from, say, France, do you have to come up with a special word to describe him? To describe such people, don’t you just say, “French guy”? Or maybe “European guy?” So what’s wrong with saying, “You know my friend Mbutu. The African guy.”
When talking about people of the African diaspora, regardless of nationality, “black” is the convention. You have heard of “black”, right?
It’s not a problem for intelligent people. I know that when I’m talking about African immigrants, I say “African immigrants”. Or if I’m speaking about a particular nationality, I say “Ethiopians” or “Nigerians” or “Sudanese”. What do you use?
This is just strange. You’re treating words like they’re variables in an equation rather than words.
First of all, are you saying that black people had no reason for rejecting the n-word?
Second of all, it’s being assumed that it was black people who did all the name-changing, but white people were the ones coming up with all the names in the first place. “Nigra”, “Negro”, “blacks” and “colored”…these words were manufactured by whites. If white people don’t like that black people have a multitude of names to describe them, they only have themselves to blame (tongue-in-cheek).
Third, I dare you to come up with a cite supporting that only some black people prefer “black” over African American. From my experience, only some blacks prefer African American. But maybe you know more about black people than I do.
I like you a lot, elucidator and your story about your pa was interesting, but if I heard you refer to me as “colored”, I would think you mighty mighty strange, indeed. Kinda like the 40-year-old dude I used to know who still sported the same hairstyle he had as a teenager.
You didn’t answer my question.
You expressed a problem with A-A being reserved for the descendants of slaves, as monstro said it is (and I agree with her…if you pay attention to the way it is used in formal discussions, it’s clear that the term is used to refer to a subset of black people, not all black people residing in America).
I asked if you have a problem with Native American.
You rejoin with a non-answer.
So I ask again, do you have a problem with the restrictions placed on Native American? Yes or no.
Cite. Sharpton is a very intelligent man, and I would be shocked if he didn’t know the meaning of the word.
FYI, back when we had that long discussion in GQ, I pulled up this cite, which gave these statistics:
Seems like the trend has been moving in favor of African-American instead of Black. But I’ve never heard of people being “offended” by the term “Black”. It’s one thing to prefer one term over the other, and quite another thing to be offended by one of the terms.
True.
I think of all the new PC terminology, only Native American makes sense - they were, after all, the first to be here so it is only fair they get the honor of being called Native (as in the original) Americans to define their status in this country.
However, the rest of the PC titles seems to be well-meaning, but ridiculous attempts at turning simple descriptive phrases into an insult.
If a salesclerk asks me to describe the person who forgot their purchase at the counter, I would say “the black woman over there” or the “Asian guy in the corner” or the"Hispanic man by the doorway" or the “hefty white dude in the next aisle”.
I know the woman is black, but I have no idea if she is from Panama or Nigeria or Compton - ergo, no idea if she is indeed African American. The man who has features from Asia could be Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese or from San Francisco - again, I haven’t a clue and am defining racial features common to Asian countries. Hispanic is a bit problematic but is a nice cover-all for someone from Spain, South America or East LA. Hefty is a nice way of saying fat…and the point is made without being rude.
I did spend a lot of time in Germany teaching Germans to use the phrase “schwarz” (black) instead of “Neger” (pronounce Nay-gur meaning Negro) to help them avoid problems with people overhearing their conversation and mistaking the word to mean nigger.
To be honest, it depends how you use the word and who is saying what…there are some racist assholes out there who can use the politically correct word and still have it come out as a slur. “Well, looky here boys - we got us one a them Afro Americans drinkin’ in our bar and talkin’ to our wimin folk…” I’ll bet that black guy at the bar feels much better knowing he is being referred to in a politically correct manner.
Bolding mine.
I am actually curious as to why you would not feel that this person was white. Do you feel that he should not have been identified as white because of his racial background? If so, what was it?
SSG Schwartz
I’m not only talking about situations where you’re singling out one person. There are situations where you group the French and other Europeans as “white guys”. Frequently we do the same with blacks but when using the updated term “African Americans”, I don’t see why it would be inappropriate to include Americans from Africa that are black.
See above.
Re-read what I wrote if you misunderstood me. NO WHERE did I say such a thing!!
You asked why so many white people have a problem with the term African-American and I answered with what I’ve heard from more than a couple of white people which may help in answering your question.
Do we need cites for these sort of things? If so, you start by providing a cite that only some blacks prefer African American.
And I guess you think that’s out of the question?
John Mace took care of that for me.
Well, I didn’t say that he wasn’t white. “He was under the impression that he is white” just means that.
But I will say that his insistence on being white and not black earned him a round of guffaws in my junior high pre-algebra class. The guy was kinky haired with brown skin, and came from Africa. “But I’m from Egypt!” was why it was wrong to call him black.
What’s wrong with “Black American”?
Maybe you’ve missed all the references to “black people” being made it this thread. The fact that we’re saying “black people” indicates that it is ALRIGHT TO SAY BLACK PEOPLE.
Note that when I said that African American is useful in that it distinguishes the descendants of American slaves from other “Negroes”, I did not say anything about throwing “black” as a term away. It is useful for describing members of the African diaspora. "African American"is useful for describing a subset of the diaspora. It is context specific–when talking about things like culture. If you’re talking about racial descriptions of people, “African American” is inferior to “black”.
I feel like I and others could say this a million times, and yet you’d find another reason to be confused.
But they are wrong. All that frustration and fatigue they’ll feeling is completely self-imposed, because 1) the name changes are more generational than annual, which means most people have plenty of time to get used to new names 2) there’s good reason why some words should be discarded, 3) it’s not more difficult to say “black” rather “colored” unless you have some kind of strange speech impediment, and 4) most importantly, no one is forcing anyone to do a damn thing. If you don’t want to use “African American”, the vast majority of people will not look at you askance. It is becoming more acceptable to use “African American” in formal language, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get labeled a racist by calling someone a “black guy”
If your premise is that it’s becoming unacceptable to say “black”, then yes, you need a cite to support that. And while I appreciate John for providing a cite, it doesn’t convince me that there’s this mass movement of people who are against “black” as a descriptor. According to the poll he cited, 52% of black people either don’t prefer “AA” or they don’t care one way or the other. And that the other half prefer “AA” doesn’t mean that they become enraged when you call them “black”.
I think this argument, and OP (sorry) is among the dumbest discussions we have on the SDMB. It belongs in mini-rants, maybe, but who is seriously put out because someone on occasion might say, “I prefer to be called ‘x’?”
It’s the Golden Rule, people. If you were traveling and someone called you Canadian when you are in fact American, you might not feel the need to correct them every time. But perhaps you would on occasion, and it wouldn’t be a big deal, if the person simply heard your request and complied.
I don’t care what you call me when I’m not around, but I find the term “African American” and “Black” equally fine. Nor do I know anyone - and I know a lot of Black people, from all political views - who would be offended if you referred to them as either of these if you were pointing them out in a crowd or meeting them for the first time. That doesn’t mean that they won’t correct you and say, “I’m Cape Verdean,” “I’m Haitian,” and so forth. But offended? Not so much.
If you know me well, you know that I am half West Indian (Jamaican) and folks on that side of my family are Jamaican, not African American. My gramps who lives in Canada is of course no way African American, but in the most liberal use of the term. But again, no offense taken if you are describing them phenotypically and are using the ethnic descriptor. If we’re associates or friends then you should know better, but again, I wouldn’t get offended, and I daresay nor would any other reasonable person. Now if you respond with some variant of “I don’t give a shit,” then I can see why people might give you attitude.
Bottom line, how hard is it to call people by what they wish to be called, realizing that you will encounter the occasional learning moment when you make an assumption that’s incorrect, and move on? It sounds as if some people would like an algorithm for interacting with human beings that are different, and that’s a little lazy and ridiculous.
And just because there’s people out there who don’t mind being called “fat,” “skinny,” midget," “beanpole,” or “homo” does not mean that everyone feels the same way.
I have no idea whether it is becoming unacceptable to say “black”, but I don’t believe that I’m the only one who has become increasingly uncomfortable saying it. Maybe this is my problem, I don’t know.