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Why I Use the Word "Negro"
New York Daily News ^ | 6/3/04 | Stanley Crouch

Posted on 06/03/2004 5:17:32 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Some people are particularly disturbed by my use of the word Negro as opposed to the latest fashionable label. I am not bothered by such people, but I am disturbed by the reliance on cosmetic identity that has become so important to black people over the last 35 or 40 years.

More than a few people were actually taken in by the obsession with naming that came out of the Nation of Islam, when Malcolm X, chief heckler for Elijah Muhammad, inspired many to begin responding to the word "Negro" as if it were the dirtiest of insults.

The argument was that "Negro" separated black people from their African identity. It did not acknowledge the greatness of Africa, wonderful Africa, that lost paradise where everything was perfect. It did not recognize that black people had not always been slaves - that they were, in fact, a separate nation descended from kings and queens.

Hmm. No one, of course, ever considered that if most of the millions of black Americans really were descended from kings and queens, one would have needed a lot more land than Africa provided to support all that royalty. Millions of kingdoms definitely present a challenge.

It was, at best, cult thinking. But it was also a way of getting people to think of themselves as perpetual victims who were oppressed at every turn. That seems to me the greatest impact of believing that the history connected to the name Negro was all second-class travail and injustice.

Some 40 years ago, Malcolm X said: "You're not an American, you're a victim of Americanism."

That's too crude and simpleminded. But the crude and simpleminded are not unusual when the subject is the Negro. While such statements might sound good on a podium, they miss a great and substantial truth.

Black Americans have had an enormous impact on American history. Almost every important effort to better the position of people in this nation has its roots in the Negro-American story. Consider the history of the labor movement, for one.

Being called something other than Negro will not better the state of the people who now walk around challenging others to call them African-Americans. They think that to be proud and effective, people with dark skins of a certain pedigree need to know they are connected to the grandeur of Africa, the fountain of civilization. Hogwash.

Clearly, knowing that they are Africans has done nothing special for Africans themselves, as we can see in the massacres in Rwanda during the 1990s, the many brutal African dictatorships and the abundance on the continent of backward ideas about women, slavery and a number of other things.

People can call themselves whatever they want. But the challenges facing this nation and its darker ethnic group will not be solved by anything other than deep thinking and hard work. Pride comes from accomplishment. Cosmetic nonsense will not get it.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; US: New York
KEYWORDS: politicalcorrectness; stanleycrouch
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To: atomicpossum

The two PC racial terms that are the most ridiculous are "Asian" and "Native American." As you pointed out, Asia encompasses many nationalities. An Israeli or a Russian have very little in common with a Korean or a Filipino. Indians and East Asians, the two principal Asian groups in America, are vastly different in race and culture. As for "Native American," the traditional term, American Indian is admittedly inaccurate. However, America as a nation and a concept had its origins in the European, especially British, settlers who came to this nation from 1609 onwards. Calling the mostly Northeast Asians that inhabited this continent prior to the European settlement Native Americans implies that the Europeans were evil interlopers, rather than the noble founders of the greatest nation in today's world.


141 posted on 01/17/2005 7:51:01 AM PST by Wallace T.
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1
Actually, after thinking about it, IMHO the ever-shifting PC label for negro/colored/african/african-american/negro is a carefully calculated ploy to keep the "oppressors" off-balance and to keep the victimhood alive. After all, if you cannot properly apply the term du jour, then you feel guilty when corrected by the n/c/a/aa/n you "offended." I'll bet there are secret minutes somewhere documenting Kwame saying "hey, whitey finally has it right, time for a change." Why, this is worthy of Karl Rove!
142 posted on 01/17/2005 8:27:15 AM PST by NonValueAdded ("We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" HRC 6/28/2004)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

I usually just stick with black, personally. It's never gotten me into trouble. :) Sir or ma'am has also served me well with people of all colors!

If you're polite, you're usually safe. :)


143 posted on 01/17/2005 8:51:01 AM PST by exnavychick (There's too much youth; how about a fountain of smart?)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Like almost all Black -- umm, Negro -- conservatives and near-conservatives, Stanley Crouch knows his own mind and is unafraid to speak it. Good for him, and may they (you) spread freedom of mind and speech so as to reclaim it for all Americans.
144 posted on 01/17/2005 8:54:52 AM PST by Rockingham
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To: TomGuy

So true. No matter what the title, it means the same thing.


145 posted on 01/17/2005 8:55:02 AM PST by television is just wrong (Our sympathies are misguided with illegal aliens)
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To: radiohead
I like to think of myself as Radiohead, the straight, meat eating, colored gal. : )

LOL

146 posted on 01/17/2005 10:58:37 AM PST by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Christine Fraudoire is not my governoire.)
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To: AlexW

"Negro is a legitimate form of "Negroid"....."

Hum, saying a "Negroid in the woodpile" just didn't have the right ring!


147 posted on 01/17/2005 11:06:58 AM PST by TRY ONE (NUKE the unborn gay whales!)
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To: AlexW

"Negro is a legitimate form of "Negroid"....."

Hum, saying a "Negroid in the woodpile" just didn't have the right ring!


148 posted on 01/17/2005 11:07:05 AM PST by TRY ONE (NUKE the unborn gay whales!)
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To: chanty_2001
PSY 490 Counseling Anglo-Saxons

Yeah I remember reading that thread. Though it is rather sad commentary that Martin Luther King would also be sent there today for re-education. ;-)

149 posted on 01/17/2005 11:14:16 AM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1 (Lock-n-load!)
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To: mhking
But the challenges facing this nation and its darker ethnic group will not be solved by anything other than deep thinking and hard work. Pride comes from accomplishment. Cosmetic nonsense will not get it.

I don't mention race when talking about someone, unless I'm asked about it. Sometimes, due to the nature of the conversation I mention his/her nationality, but not the race. It's not important to me. To me an American is just that --without hyphens.

Identity isn't found in hyphenated names, but in ourselves, in our personalities, and our relation with others. Calling oneself African-American or Italian-America or whatever, means limiting one's identity to that specific group, which dictates patterns or behavior to the rest of the ethnic group... i.e. how to think as an African-America or Spanish-Italian-American, or what to feel about such and such thing, etc. Why limit ourselves to a small group?

150 posted on 01/17/2005 7:03:33 PM PST by Victoria Delsoul
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

bttt


151 posted on 01/17/2005 7:15:39 PM PST by nopardons
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Comment #152 Removed by Moderator

To: Hatteras
We prefer the term, "Agro-Americans".

Hehehe...that's good one.

153 posted on 01/17/2005 9:28:31 PM PST by eddie willers
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Hola Negro, soy blanco!


154 posted on 01/17/2005 9:29:01 PM PST by Clemenza (Lonely, I guess that's where I'm from...)
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To: AlexW
William, thank you for pointing out what I was taught in school, that there are three basic race groups.

When I was in school there were 4.

Australoid for the Aboriginies in Australia.

155 posted on 01/17/2005 9:34:55 PM PST by eddie willers
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To: chanty_2001

"Black" is best, because it is more universal. What about a black French West Indian, for example, who is certainly not an African-American (and adamantly dislikes the term because she does not want to be identified as "American" at all, since she ISN'T)? "Black" works for her. It also works for Africans, and there are more and more of them in the states. It works when speaking of white/black issues in South Africa. It works for Jamaicans and Brazilians and Canadian blacks who are not American and don't want to be labelled as such. It works in Europe, where there are plenty of blacks in France and England too, but very few are African-American expatriates.

Black is the more universal and therefore better term.


156 posted on 01/18/2005 8:16:39 AM PST by Vicomte13 (La nuit s'acheve!)
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Comment #157 Removed by Moderator


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