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.
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.
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. :)
So true. No matter what the title, it means the same thing.
LOL
"Negro is a legitimate form of "Negroid"....."
Hum, saying a "Negroid in the woodpile" just didn't have the right ring!
"Negro is a legitimate form of "Negroid"....."
Hum, saying a "Negroid in the woodpile" just didn't have the right ring!
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. ;-)
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?
bttt
Hehehe...that's good one.
Hola Negro, soy blanco!
When I was in school there were 4.
Australoid for the Aboriginies in Australia.
"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.
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