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.
No, but if you live in a trailer park and drive an El Camino with an astro-turf bed liner and you lined your driveway with old tires cut in half and painted white I guess you could be referred to as "Euro-American Trash".
"White Trash" is so guache...
The Soul Patrol criticizes me for viewing myself as conservative every damn day.
But you won't tackle that one.If I want to call myself African American then what is the problem to you. Some of you who oppose this term make it seem like I am downplaying myself for wanting to be addressed as such.
You want to lie to yourself, that's your business. But don't expect me to be complicent in your self-delusion.
I was born in Indiana. Are some of my ancestors from Africa? Yes. Actually, as best as my research can determine, north Africa, most likely Morocco. But some of my ancestors are from Ireland, some from Scotland, some from France, and some from Spain. And, unlike those who toss out the "we came from kings" line like some kind of badge of honor, I have determined that I am a direct descendant of an Indian Chieftain that ruled over most of what is now the southeastern portion of the United States (Chief Tuskaloosa of the Chocktaw) more than 500 years ago.
Does that mean that I have to fit Jesse Jackson's pigeon-holed description of an "African" American? Considering that he coined the term, and force-fed it down the mouths of the American public, and considering the miniscule amount of respect I have for the man, I'm sure you'll excuse me if I don't buy into the delusion.
You just made my morning.
I refuse to check the box for "white." It's absolutely unacceptable for those of us with light skin to be lumped into one generic, vanilla-ice cream mold. I always check "other." After all, what continent/nation is known as "White?"
"No, but if you live in a trailer park and drive an El Camino with an astro-turf bed liner and you lined your driveway with old tires cut in half and painted white I guess you could be referred to as "Euro-American Trash".
Well, I guess that DOES describe Bill Clinton.
We prefer the term, "Agro-Americans".
This man's take is nothing short of brilliant, an inspiration to all, and an example of America at its finest.
...now watch 'em be excoriated.
Back in Alabama, Mamma always said we was "Colored". I think then you leave some stuff to the imagination, cause besides "Negro" other colored folks, red Indian-Yellow chicken, Green-Al Gore, Pinko Commie, well you see what I mean.
You obviously don't know who I am and what I've experienced.
I'm a black man who has experienced far more in this lifetime of vindictive BS than I care to elucidate.
You call my points hypocritical, yet you neglect to refute a single one of them.
You talk about my tracing my roots as if there is a problem with that.
You imply that I'm trying to "force feed" you. I am doing no such thing; on the contrary, it is you who is trying to force feed me with comments like your last.
"...until you step in my shoes..." Please. Expand your mind beyond your self-righteous victimhood. You might find that there are far more people who have ideological things in common with you above and beyond the "gimme, gimme, gimme" mentality that black America has been infected with over the past thirty-plus years.
I don't expect you will though. It'll be far easier for you, as others before and yet more in the future, to call me names (ready for the "Uncle Tom" or "Oreo" epithets yet?) and to say that I've sold out my birthright.
No challenge in that. No extra thought in that.
Negro was used by masters to separate the "Negros" from the "humans"(whites). Read the diaries of the time. The "Negro" was essentially a beast.
"When we all tear down walls of bigotry and prejudice and live in real harmony with ourselves and others, then we'll all say "I am an American," pure and simple. And "The Hyphen" will no longer apply to any of us. When that day comes, the world can count on us for another ten thousand years, for we'll be a brighter, a stronger and an undivided America."John Wayne, The Hyphen
Don't let the past hold you from the future, friend.
The word you are looking for is African which is more like Frenchman. Negro was a way to separate blacks from "our race".
I prefer black to the other names, not only because I was born after words like Negro, Colored, and even Afro-American went out of fashion, but because and black and white are equivalent words. Negro and Colored both seem like being black is some sort of birth defect to be whispered about. On previous discussions, I have seen some posters mention that colored was the word they used to be "polite" as if it was some sort of disease. African-American, on the other hand, is too wordly, and separates blacks from the rest of Americans. It is not equal to white, IMO, it attempts to place itself above it. Black and white gives a sense of equality, and is the best term, IMO.
"Negro is a legitimate form of "Negroid", a anthropological term, like "Caucasian" and "Mongoloid"."
William, thank you for pointing out what I was taught in school, that there are three basic race groups.
Now that I spend a lot of time in Europe, I have noted how much Nationalism is confused with Racism.
If Americans think race relations are bad here, they should spend time in Europe and see how much hate there is between
people of different countries, and these are all Caucasians.
My apologies for assuming.
I will clearly lay it out for you:
I refute you downplaying the usage of the term “African American”.
I'm glad you admit you are at least black if nothing else.
Exactly.
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