What will replace "African-American"?

Great Debates
21

Well, Jesse Jackson wants to be identified as African-American so that his constituency is more easily identified as “like” the Polish-American, Irish-American, Italian-American, and similar hyphenated-American groups that dominate Chicago politics, and the media, perhaps [speculating] led by the Chicago Manual of Style, has accommodated him. On the other hand, the last time I saw a poll of people whose ancestors had been imported to the U.S. from Africa, roughly 60% preferred black and barely 30% preferred African-American and, since every member of that community whom I know, personally, uses black, I feel quite comfortable continuing that usage.

(And, outside a limited number of college campuses, there are no “PC police,” so I choose to not run around in fear of non-existent bogeymen.)

22

The connotation of these words have changed over the years. In my childhood, colored was considered the polite term, soon followed by Negroes. In the South, we are not inclined to pronounce final o’s distinctly and so many of us spoke of the “Negras.” When I see it on old film, I shudder now, but we weren’t considered rude when we used it then.

I used to like the word Negress because of its connotations of elegance and strength. But by the mid-1970’s I began to resent diminutive forms used for women. (I still use actress and hostess without thinking.)

I find the need to distinguish people by “race” to be less and less useful. I used to bristle when asked to designate the racial composition of my classrooms. It was all very sloppy.

23

I suspect that it is much simpler than that. Colored was, as Zoe notes, actually the polite word used through much of the 20th century. I can remember elderly people in the late 1960s who used colored self-referentially, (while Negro was the “newspaper” word–somewhat in the way that black and African-American are used, today).

However, when the discussion arose that resulted in the adoption of black, one strong argument against colored was that it was the typical term used to enforce Jim Crow. Drinking fountains, rest rooms, and the back entrances to public facilities were not labeled nigger, or even Negro, they were identified as colored.

24

Calm down. Actor/actress, heir/heiress, duke/duchess, count/countess, waiter/waitress, steward/strewardess, headmaster/headmistress.

25

I guess I should explain my dislike of “colored” and “negress” for those of you who think I am over-excitable (which, now that I think of it, I may be). Many years ago my mother made the remark that “negress” sounded to her like comparing a person with a beast. I was struck by that remark and it stayed with me. I know the form “actress”, “waitress”, “songstress”, etc. are common, but they don’t seem to have the same negative connotation (unless you’re a radical feminist) as “negress” or, for that matter “Jewess”. I’ve never heard a white woman referred to as a “Caucess”, or a Baptist woman as a “Baptess”.

As for “colored”, I heard Sammy Davis, Jr. say in an interview back in the sixties something like, “they call us colored, like they think we’re filled in or something.” I don’t have access to the quote. That’s just how I remember it. I never used the term subsequently because that’s how I thought black people in general saw it. I was in my twenties then and still pretty naive. Maybe the naievte hasn’t worn off entirely yet.

Anyway, I just stick to “black”. As always, YMMV.

26

Will, it might be passe now, but I do remember seeing the word “negroid” used in reference books published as late as the '70s. As for the concept of “race,” it might be scientifically meaningless, but it remains culturally and politically relevant – you know it does, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all. As the word is commonly used, there is an identifiable “negro race” or “negroid race,” which (like several other races) originated in sub-Saharan Africa, and which can be conceived of an included many persons whose “racial” extraction is not purely “negro” (i.e., most African-Americans, who also have whites and Indians in their family trees). We can’t simply dismiss these terms as meaningless, because they relate to very real and often intractable problems in our history and society, and if we get rid of the terms, the problems remain. We must have serious discussion of these problems to solve them. I merely contend that we can discuss them more intelligently and meaningfully if we refine our terminology, to distinguish the older group African-Americans (“Old African-Americans”? “Slave-Descended-Americans”? something) from the newcomers. The latter might have problems adjusting here, but it is an entirely different set of problems from the former’s.

27

Not passe, disproven and baseless- like Lamarkian inheritance or geocentric cosmology

I never denied that.

28

Here is a cite related to the term “Negro” being exchaned for “Black.”

I found it hard to find other cites, but my understanding (which other posters have put forth too) is that “colored” was the polite, unoffensive term until the 1940s or so, at which point “Negro” was introduced. This term, in turn, started to fall out of popularity at the end of the 1950s (as per the cite), and the term “Black” was adopted. Note that the terms “Negro” and “Black” were endorsed by black people themselves (at least the latter term, for certain). Then, in the early 90s, “African-American” was introduced.

Personally, I can’t see why “Black” wasn’t good enough. Most black people I have known seem satisfied with it. It’s simple, and everone understands what it means.

Re the OP, I don’t think we need any more terms to divide us up into categories: black and having slaves as ancestors, black and having sub-Saharan Africans as ancestors. No thanks.

First, the color issue is meaningless. The race thing. Especially in America, we need to rise above this. And we are, slowly but surely. The fact that someone is black but from Africa or not isn’t all that relevent.

The cultural issue IS more relevent, but this is not connected to race directly. Sure, there’s a high correlation there, but it’s not definite. Anything you can point to as “black culture” in the US is related to “white culture” and European/Asian/African culture; and anything you think of as “white” is still going to have that Southern/Black/African influence. “Black culture” is open to whites (Eminem) and “white culture” is open to Blacks (Charley Pride, and country music has a huge black influence anyway). And for that matter American culture is open to the whole world.

The great thing about America is that anyone can join. Africans coming now certainly do not need to be labeled “a different kind of black people.” Really, it’s time to rise above this primitive way of thinking.

29

The magazine Ebony was using “Negro” (always capitalized) well into the 1960s. I don’t think “black” predominated until about 1968.

My mother was bemused a few years ago by her mostly black kindergarten class who after watching a tape of Martin Luther King speak, asked what a “negro” was.

30

No, there is such a term, and that term is “African-American”. As my old Jamaican roommate and her friends used to say, “We’re all black, but they are African-American and we are Jamaican!” The American population often called “black” has very little in common with other “black” populations around the world. While I don’t think many people actually consider the term “black” offensive, it is so broad that it’s not always useful. “White” of course is similarly broad, but within the US there are many more specific terms in use for various subpopulations – “WASPs”, “Italians”, “Southerners”, etc.

Only the very confused use “African-American” to refer to black people regardless of nationality. Properly used, it means the (often multi-ethnic) descendants of pre-Civil War slaves whose homeland cannot be identified more specificaly than by continent. Most of the black people living in America who are not the descendants of pre-Civil War slaves are recent immigrants and, like other recent immigrants, are commonly referred to by country of origin. But as the OP points out, as the population of black Americans descended from post-Civil War African immigrants increases, it may be necessary to further refine terms. However, I think it’s likely the descendants of, say, Nigerian immigrants will be known as “Nigerians” or “Nigerian-Americans” rather than “New African-Americans”.

31

I kind of like the idea of the term ‘people’ replacing all of them. You know, instead of inventing new labels that mean the same thing.

You may call me a dreamer…

32

Exactly. Without slavery or segregation, what’s the point of a label at all?

33

Because it’s hard to talk without words.

There’s nothing wrong with recognizing that different people come from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds, or with having labels to describe these groups. You run into problems when you have a system in which people to whom certain of these labels apply are considered better than others, or when the labels become more important than the people themselves, but that’s not the fault of the words. I’m all for abandoning the use of labels that are actually hurtful or offensive, but if we had no labels at all we’d have no language.

34

I think folks are way overcomplicating this, looking at why one term was rejected after a time in favor of another.

IMHO, the reason the term for a person of color with probable ancestors at some point in Africa (i.e. with or without stops in various other portions of the Western Hemisphere) has changed is because some people have/had negative attitudes about such people, the negative attitudes were associated with whatever term was in use, and people changed the term in hopes that the negative attitudes would be left behind - just as the term for people with some sort of physical disability has gone from invalid to handicapped to disabled to challenged or disadvantaged. Unfortunately, very few people who hold the negative attitudes actually change them with the term, and so the new term becomes as freighted as the old.

THe problem with changing terminology as a way of engineering social change is that it doesn’t change any underlying reality; people of black African descent are still people of black African descent and those who are bigots don’t really care what the term du jour for them is; they’re still going to be bigots. Similary, people in wheelchairs are still going to be in wheelchairs, regardless of what they are called, and some others are still going to therefore view them as stupid, deaf, or otherwise incapable regardless of the term used to refer to them.

Please note: I am not equating being of African descent with being physically disabled, except in the sense that some people who are neither hold unwarranted beliefs about or attitudes toward one group or the other or both, and that the politically correct terminology changes over time have largely (IMO) failed to change those attitudes. (I think attitudes have changed over time to some extent, but not due to the terminology).

35

Hello! Do you remember why these labels were invented in the first place? Soley to simplify and justify slavery. After that, the labels were necessary for segregation to make sense. They’re not cultural identifiers (there is no black or white culture. And it’s telling that when a previous poster tried to give examples of black and white culture, he mentioned nothing more than commercial products. The latest record album isn’t culture. Black people aren’t passing down Ice T generation to generation. N Sync doesn’t represent white mores and traditions.), they’re political titles. The reasons for their birth are dead - the labels should die with them. Just like Patriots and Loyalists died with the Revolutionary War, and Whigs with the Civil War. They served their political purpose, now why can’t the lables just fade away? Give me one reason why the U.S. still needs racial classification that serves a positive purpose?

36

I don’t know, we manage pretty well without a collective label for people with small ear-lobes (Minilobers?). Or people who are right-handed (Rightdexes?). Or people who prefer to spend Tuesday nights in (Homotuesdayites?). Or even people with brown eyes. (Brownoptos?) *

The whole classification by race/skin colour doesn’t have any scientific justification, is culturally on shaky and diminishing ground and comes with a whole lot of unhelpful baggage.

Of course, we’re certainly nowhere near there yet, but I’d like to see a point when the need and use of the label fades away. That won’t stop you being able to describe the colour of a person’s skin when and if the need arises.

*I run the risk here, naturally, of being cited collective nouns for all the above. :slight_smile:

37

pizzabrat, I disagree with a lot of this. First of all, there’s nothing wrong with a “racial” label in and of itself. Distinguishing a black person from a white person does not have to be any more political than distinguishing a blonde from a brunette.

Also, there is such thing as black culture, even if it’s hard to define. The descendants of African slaves have no less of a shared culture than Southern whites or Chinese Americans. If anything, we have more of a pronounced culture since we’ve been isolated from mainstream culture for so long. Perhaps you meant that there is no culture shared by all of those in the African Diaspora. One could argue that point well, but one can’t argue that there is no such thing as black American culture. Doing so is not only wrong, but it’s also demeaning to black Americans and their rich heritage.

Race exists. It doesn’t exist biologically, but it exists socially. I don’t think discarding racial labels will do a damn thing except save ink on census forms. It won’t stop people from grouping others (or themselves) based on appearance and ethnicty, and it won’t stop people from being prejudiced and hateful. So what would be the point?

38

How about a necessary, if unfortunate, purpose?

When a person discovers that they cannot get a job or a house, while many people with fewer qualifications or poorer credit are finding employment or housing, and the successful applicants are of a distinctively different ethnic background, how should the unsuccessful applicant seek redress? If the unsuccessful applicant says that he or she was denied opportunities because he or she was black, are you going to tell that person that it was only their imagination because there is no such group?

The government does not create ethnic or racial categories. It attempts to identify categories that are already recognized (and acted upon) within the larger society (although the attempt is clearly clumsy and is not always successful).

39

by Lamia

I agree. Why are still people having problems with this? I don’t get it when people keep pointing out that some white people are technically “African-American”, as if that makes the term meaningless. If a white person hails from Africa, odds are they come from a particular country in Africa, and therefore the identifier that would make the most sense would be something like Nigerian-American or South African-American. Not “African-American”, which is a broader description typically applied to descendants of American slaves because these folks don’t know what nation their ancestors were from. So the whole continent is used to describe what they are, rather than a nation or tribe.

And if there’s still some confused people out there, consider this: there are black people in Poland. If these black Poles were to move to the states and become American, they could then call themselves Polish-Americans. Just the same as their white compatriots. That doesn’t mean “Polish-American” is meaningless and should be discarded? Right? Does everyone agree? Now apply that logic to African-American.

40

If they could apply that logic, this thread wouldn’t even exist. Geez…who’d thunk this fight would be this hard…?