Politically Correct Language to Describe People is 70% Stupid.

Great Debates
61

As one White guy to another, I think it is your problem. :slight_smile:

Until we had this discussion on this board, and thanks to participants who are actually Black themselves, I had thought the same thing. Somehow saying “Black” sounded like you were focusing only on skin color, instead of geographic origin. But you learn new things around here all the time, and since “Black” is so much easier to say, I tend to use that term more these days.

I’m still confused about whether it’s Black or black, White or white, so I just usually capitalize and let it go at that. I think it’s more common not to, but I figure as long as I’m consistent with both words, that’s all that matters.

62

Two anecdotes that show why I find the terms very mildly frustrating.

First, in college, I was writing a paper about the history of education, and in it, I referred to black students and white students. My professor corrected these to “children of African American descent” and “Causasian children.” What on earth? I thought. Referring to a kid with Irish grandparents as “Caucasian” makes about as much sense as referring to a kid with Maori grandparents as “African American.” And how would I refer to my friend whose mom is Kenyan, and therefore is not of African American descent?

The professor was white, which points to something that you may not have encountered: white people correcting your use of the term “black” or “African American.” I could be wrong, but I suspect that were I black myself, the professor wouldn’t have dared to correct my terminology.

The whole thing really irritated me, but I ended up making the change to the paper.

Second, awhile ago I was shooting the shit about politics with my friend with the Kenyan mom. When we got around to talking about race, I found myself really nervous, and was fumbling over which term to use. If I said “African American,” would he think me a PC twit? If I said “black,” would he think me racially insensitive? (The fact that I had this dilemma in the first place shows that I’m a PC twit, I figure). I mimicked his usage, which turned out to be that he used the terms in a way that appeared interchangeable to me. He may have been making the distinction you suggest between AA and black, but at the time I was unfamiliar with the idea.

I think a lot of white people are nervous about the terms because they don’t want to be suspected of subtle racism–not only suspected by black people, but also by white people like my professor.

Daniel

63

A different professor corrected me on capitalizing “black” and “white” as racial descriptors. She got a variety of other grammatical corrections wrong, and I opened a can of Strunk&White whupass on her about those, but turned out she was right about this one: according to every style guide I looked at, these terms should not be capitalized. I don’t understand why not, but then, I also think seasons oughta be capitalized, so there you go.

Daniel

64

I’ll try to phrase this as best I can without reading like a thread-shitter, but isn’t this argument just, like, so 1998? I mean, if you’d told me this was a zombie thread from nine years ago, I’d be more inclined to think this discussion fit that time, as opposed to a few days before 2008.

Are we really still babbling about how “politically correct” terms are silly? Aren’t we post-post-post that part of the discussion?

65

There doesn’t seem to be any single, useful guideline in all of this, unless you simply sort people by skin color. Even that is unreliable. I know some folks who’d be called white in the winter and black in the summer.

Sorting folks into continents of origin is barely useful. “My people” came from Europe (Scotland, England, I think) at roughly the same time as the ancestors of most dark-skinned Americans came from places in Africa. Nobody ever calls me European-American, and I’ve never heard anyone call me “that English guy.” Yet, at a glance, my neighbor down the street is dropped into the African-American file folder.

If we call people European-Americans, I will guess there will be some resentment from Italian-Americans who’d rather not be mooshed into the same meatball as Swedish-Americans and Irish-Americans. It might seem sensible to draw an arc on the map, to corral Asian-Americans, until you realize you’ve lassoed the Siberians and the folks in the subcontinent. Until I get to know them, I can’t tell the Indians, Pakistanis, and the Bangladeshis apart, can you? In short, Asian-American is a nearly useless phrase.

How far back should we go in nailing a woman to her roots? This gets complicated. At two or three centuries, it makes no sense to call me an Englishman. At the same range, a black woman is an American, just like me. No hyphens, no distant roots.

Add a few more centuries. If you are still hyphenating, I might be a Viking-American or a Franco-American. The folks we now call Native Americans are Asian-Americans. Not all of them, though. Anthropological evidence based on shapes of flint spear points suggests some of them are European-Americans, from what is now France.

According to genetic evidence, though, we are all African-Americans. Every genetic line can be traced back to Africa. I know, I know. That’s not what the Bible says. Well, it’s not what the creation stories of the Native Americans say either. The Bible says Adam and Eve were in the Middle East. The Native American traditions say we all sprang from someplace in the Americas. Scientifically, that’s incorrect. We all came from Africa.

There is no excuse for all this pigeonholing, my friends. We are people. (I make allowances, of course, for the fact that, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.)

66

I capitalize Black and White as they are racial descriptors, like Caucasian and so forth. I also edited a journal that capitalized racial and ethnic descriptors, so it’s a carry over from there. That’s my stylistic preference and I would never impose it on anyone else.

The prof who changed black and white is an idiot. Assuming the data comes from NCES or other large datasets, black and white actually mean something. Not to mention Census Bureau data.

Perhaps the ethnic bogeyman is actually White… again, I’m about as fired up as they come on issues of race, and students submitting papers in my course used “black,” “African American,” “Hispanic,” and “Latino” in their papers… I did not challenge their use of any of those terms… as long as they defined them in the paper.

67

Nope.

68

Hey, don’t be trashing Samuel K. Native, he was a product of his time!

69

We’re all people until one fateful night and suddenly it’s “THAT BLACK GUY ROBBED ME!!!”

:frowning:

:slight_smile:

We’re people, but we’re different. I actually think it’s more “politically correct” to downplay our differences and make it seem as if one has to be colorblind to be non-racist. There’s nothing wrong with distinguishing one culture from another, or talking about national origins in a land of immigrants. I’m an American, but I’m also a member of the world. Shouldn’t I call myself an Earthling before an American? Well no. American is specific and it means something important to my identity. I kind of view ethnicity in the same way. There’s nothing wrong with a person saying “I’m a black American” or “I’m an African American”, just like there’s nothing wrong with them saying “I’m a woman/man” or “I’m a Christian/Jew/Muslim/atheist” or “I’m a scientist/zookeeper/cashier/prostitute”. They’re all just descriptions. People can make them into major things if they want to, but they don’t have to be.

I’d rather have someone say, “I like all people, regardless of color” rather than “I don’t see color.” Seeing color isn’t the problem.

70

just to add to monstro’s post, I would argue that one can’t really know and appreciate me without knowing how central my racial and ethnic identity is to me. I think about it, I joke about it, I get angry about it… so to say to me “I see Hippy Hollow, not a Black guy” is actually saying you don’t see me completely.

I love how Stephen Colbert handles the “colorblind” concept on his show. That’s exactly how most “colorblind” people sound to me.

71

Isn’t intent the only thing that matters? If someone uses a term that you disagree with, but you can tell from context that he means no bad intent by it, I think you would be wrong for getting upset about it.

I can imagine scenarios where “black” or “African American” or “fat” or “Mexican” can all be used as either pejoratives or not depending on context and tone of voice.

72

I think anyone who flies off the handle just because they got called the “wrong” name should be given the finger.

But intent isn’t the only thing that matters. If you know a word–even one you judge as “perfectly fine”–has fallen out of favor and you continue to use it, you only have yourself to blame if someone assumes you have ill-intentions. We don’t have our intentions scrawled out on our foreheads. We only have the words to go by.

You make your life much harder than it has to by intentionally using words that have negative connotations.

73

I agree completely.

And if one has a positive intent, being informed that there is a preferred terminology is certainly not a bother. I’ve mentioned that I’ve actually been in a conversation with someone who used the term “colored.” She was an older woman from East Texas who had never had an extended conversation with a Black person, particularly one about race. I did tell her that “colored” was somewhat archaic in the U.S. nowadays (sure, it was in the early 1990s, but it was archaic back then!) and that “Black” or “African American” was probably a better choice… and she was wonderful about it. Conversely, I’ve been told by LGBTQ and deaf friends about better terms to refer to members of their respective communities… and appreciated their effort to educate me.

74

I was thinking that, too. Hehehe.

75

It’s no joke. My freshman year roommate was a kid from Zimbabwe. One time someone asked me who my roommate was, and I told them his name. "Oh, the African-American guy!’ they replied. Um, no, he’s African, and a black one at that (as opposed to the many white and Arab Africans).

I’m sure there are good reasons and times to use the term “African-American”, but in cases where one is referring to race, the term does nothing but muddy the meaning one is trying to convey. “Black” works fine, and describes someone regardless of whether they are from Africa, the US, France, Canada or Haiti.

76

Laugh all you want, but a few years ago, I was discussing a Celluloid Entertainment Event (CEE) with a Male-Challenged Individual in a Alcohol Distribution Establishment. I innocently remarked that the CEE was part of a new wave of Hispanic film-making. At which point, she politely remarked that she preferred to term “Latino.”

I swore up and down that I would never, ever use the term “Latino.” We started throwing punches and were thrown out of the Alcohol Distribution Establishment. I was so mad that I stalked–I mean, Vigourosly Pursued–her and then I burnt her Residence to the ground. I was Incarcerated for five years.

See how much trouble all this PC-nonsense causes?

77

I heard that 76.239%of all statistics used in arguments/debates were made up on the spot.

Also why aren’t there any English/Welsh/Scottish Americans?

78

He was a bastid, I tells ya. A tyrant. :stuck_out_tongue:

79

All that labelling is fine and dandy until you run out of Post-it® notes, and you put somebody’s eye out!

You, monstro, and I, and all the other humans have African roots. “My people” came from Africa, and so did yours. I am your brother.

80

Cool. Got $20 I can borrow?