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Call me Black. That's with a capital B.
Houston Chronicle ^ | September 19, 2004 | JOHN MCWHORTER

Posted on 09/19/2004 8:28:12 AM PDT by Dog Gone

Not African-American

It's time we descendants of slaves brought to the United States let go of the term "African-American" and go back to calling ourselves Black -- with a capital B.

Modern America is home now to millions of immigrants who were born in Africa. Their cultures and identities are split between Africa and the United States. They have last names like Onwughalu, Nwangwu and Senkofa. They speak languages like Wolof, Twi, Yoruba and Hausa, and speak English with an accent. They were raised on African cuisine, music, dance and dress styles, customs and family dynamics. Their children often speak or at least understand their parents' native language.

Living descendants of slaves in America neither knew their African ancestors nor even have elder relatives who knew them. Most of us worship in Christian churches. Our cuisine is more southern U.S. than Senegalese. Starting with ragtime and jazz, we gave America intoxicating musical beats based on African conceptions of rhythm, but with melody and harmony based on Western traditions.

Also, we speak English. Black Americans' home speech is largely based on local dialects of England and Ireland. Africa echoes in the dialect only as a whisper, in certain aspects of sound and melody. A working-class black man in Cincinnati has more in common with a working-class white man in Providence, R.I., than with a Ghanaian. With the number of African immigrants in the United States nearly tripling since 1990, the use of African American is becoming increasingly strained. For example, Alan Keyes, the Republican Senate candidate in Illinois, has claimed that as a descendant of slaves, he is the ''real'' African American, compared with his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, who has an African father and white mother. And the reason Keyes and others are making arguments such as this is rather small, the idea being that African American should refer only to people with a history of subordination in this country, as if African immigrants -- such as Amadou Diallo, who was killed by police while reaching for his wallet, or Caribbean ones such as torture victim Abner Louima -- have found the United States to be the Land of Oz.

We are not African to any meaningful extent, but we are not white either -- and that is much of why Jesse Jackson's presentation of the term African American caught on so fast. It sets us apart from the mainstream. It carries an air of standing protest, a reminder that our ancestors were brought here against their will, that their descendants were treated like animals for centuries and that we have come a long way since then.

But we need a way of sounding those notes with a term that, first, makes some sense and, second, does not insult the actual African Americans taking their place in our country. And our name must also celebrate our history here, in the only place that will ever be our home. To term ourselves as part African reinforces a sad implication: that our history is basically slave ships, plantations, lynching, fire hoses in Birmingham, Ala., and then South Central, in Los Angeles, and that we need to look back to Mother Africa to feel good about ourselves.

But what about the black business districts that thrived nationwide after slavery was abolished? What about Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright and Thurgood Marshall, none born in Africa and all deeply American people? And while we're on Marshall, what about the civil-rights revolution, a moral awakening that we gave to ourselves and the nation?

My roots trace back to working-class Black people -- Americans, not foreigners -- and I'm proud of it. I am John Hamilton McWhorter the Fifth. Four men with my name and appearance, doing their best in a segregated America, came before me. They and their dearest are the heritage that I can feel in my heart, and they knew the sidewalks of Philadelphia and Atlanta, not Sierra Leone.

So, we will have a name for ourselves -- and it should be Black. Colored and Negro had their good points but carry a whiff of Plessy vs. Ferguson and Bull Connor about them, so we will let them lie. Black isn't perfect, but no term is.

Meanwhile, the special value of Black is that it carries the same potent combination of pride, remembrance and regret that African American was designed for.

I have used African American for the same reason that we throw rice at a bride -- because everybody else was doing it. But no more. From now on, I will be returning to the word I grew up with, which reminds me of my true self and my ancestors who worked here to help make my life possible: Black.

McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: blacks; johnmcwhorter; mcwhorter
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To: Tribune7
I'm part Cherokee. If someone asks me about my heritage, I just say: Irish, Scottish, Norwegian, English, Belarussian, Lithuanian, and Cherokee (I never use the term Native American).
61 posted on 09/19/2004 10:34:51 AM PDT by Born in a Rage
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To: wizr
True, the Indians honored the land they lived on and the creatures they hunted. They only took what they needed to survive. The military tried to wipe out the bison to permanently harm the Indian's ability to survive. I'm glad they failed and the bison are back from the endangered species. I can remember as a kid visiting the zoo in Buffalo, New York. The zoo had one or two buffalo on exhibit. This was in the early 50's when the bison was still endangered. It was always a treat to see them.

My mother was from Canada and always told us that her great-grandmother was a full-blooded Ojibwa. I've never been able to prove or disprove it. She sure looked like an Indian from her pictures, but looking like and actually being are two different things. I'd be honored to have Indian blood running through my veins. As it is, I've got Dutch and English ancestors...probably French too and others I'll never know. I'm proud to be the daughter of immigrants, the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of an American Patriot (on my mother's side), the niece of two WWII soldiers, and the sister of a Vietnam vet. I'm also proud to be an American and a member of the Republican party.

62 posted on 09/19/2004 10:36:45 AM PDT by mass55th (It's the superscript, stupid!!!!)
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To: mass55th

Thanks. That's exactly the point I've been working toward.

Thank God we don't all look alike, sound alike or even think alike.

Let's just hope, that some others will begin the thinking process before they enter the voting booths Nov. 2nd.

Be proud of your family. Be proud to be an American. Be proud we have a man named George W. Bush as our President. And be damned glad, if he is reelected.


63 posted on 09/19/2004 11:09:12 AM PDT by wizr (Without the War on Terror, you only have the Terror. Ask a Russian.)
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To: Born in a Rage

Plenty of us in here from the Cherokee nation. I'm Irish/German/Cherokee. What 'color' am I? Hell, I don't know. Color me American. Same thing went for all of the 'black' guys I served with in the Army. We were all Americans. We didn't use race for any descriptions. We used each other's names and rank. Race or color was meaningless. Why can't the rest of the nation do that?


64 posted on 09/19/2004 11:13:15 AM PDT by datura (Democrat=Communist=America's Enemy Within)
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To: Dog Gone

There are some people who won't like this at all...


65 posted on 09/19/2004 11:18:51 AM PDT by Jewels1091
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To: wizr

Ditto and Amen.


66 posted on 09/19/2004 12:00:08 PM PDT by mass55th (It's the superscript, stupid!!!!)
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To: Dog Gone

I'm Irish American. :)


67 posted on 09/19/2004 12:02:54 PM PDT by diamond6 (Everyone who is for abortion has already been born. Ronald Reagan)
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To: Born in a Rage
I never use the term Native American

I only use it. :-)

68 posted on 09/19/2004 12:03:25 PM PDT by Tribune7
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To: wizr

The problem I have noticed about the telling of ethnic jokes is that the joke teller often thinks his jokes about OTHER groups are hilarious but when someone tells a joke about HIS particular group,he gets really offended.


69 posted on 09/19/2004 12:21:34 PM PDT by Riverman94610
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To: William Terrell

Blacks and Whites are meaningless terms at the fringes of the population. Very many people can't be fit into any enthnic category. Maybe it would help if some absolute authority established the midpoint of Sherwin Williams brown paint color shades. To qualify as Black or White a person's skin tone should fall on either side of that scale.

In truth, No one is truly Black and no one is truly White. We all have varying degrees of the same brown pigment. In terms of genetic characteristics, I'll wager that a European/American like me has more in common with Jesse Jackson than Jesse has with the average inhabitant of Senegal today.

The racial divisions amount to relatively arbitrary lines in the sand that were drawn by anthropologists at least a century ago. They have little scientific merit.

It's mainly libs that want to keep the concept of race alive. Without racism, liberalism would dry up and blow away.

Donning flameproof suit.


70 posted on 09/19/2004 12:26:16 PM PDT by doblin
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To: doblin
Racial characteristics involve much more than skin color.

71 posted on 09/19/2004 12:31:27 PM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: William Terrell

I take issue with that. I am NOT Caucasian. The only Caucasians I know are from Armenia and Georgia. Joseph Stalin and Jerry Tarkanian were/are Caucasians, not THIS Polish-Italian mongrel.


72 posted on 09/19/2004 12:33:21 PM PDT by Clemenza (I LOVE Halliburton, SUVs and Assault Weapons. Any Questions?)
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To: doblin
It's mainly libs that want to keep the concept of race alive. Without racism, liberalism would dry up and blow away.

Certainly without the race card to play, many leftist politicians would be out of work. I will use the term Black, its no different than White. I long to see the day when forms and applications don't even bother to ask what you are. (Nanimo, English, Jewish, but many generations American.)

73 posted on 09/19/2004 12:34:33 PM PDT by KC_for_Freedom (Sailing the highways of America, and loving it.)
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To: genefromjersey

Because the whites had the run of the joint so long that there is a stiff penance to pay, that being a lower case first letter for our skin color?

Now, if I was a white sissie(or White Sissie?)I might find that offensive.

When I refer to a black person as black, or oriental person as oriental,(just means eastern anyway)it's probably going to get the lower case treatment as well. If some black or oriental sissie wants to get hurt feelings over it, he might just want to write his mamma, because it will only lead me to believe I'm dealing with a crybaby.

BTW, all the people of colors other than White that I know don't have a problem with this. It's probably a maturity issue.


74 posted on 09/19/2004 1:05:37 PM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (So "F'n" means "flip-flopping"? ><BCC>)
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To: Riverman94610

Some people should be offended when they look in the mirror.

We all have protective senses. Sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing help protect us.

But, the way that some people put a protective shell around themselves to save their ego is ridiculous.


75 posted on 09/19/2004 1:13:31 PM PDT by wizr (Without the War on Terror, you only have the Terror. Ask a Russian.)
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To: Clemenza
Actually, both Italians and Poles are Caucasian. Sorry.

76 posted on 09/19/2004 1:17:01 PM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: William Terrell
19th Century Anthropologists/"Racial Scientists" attempted to arbitraily define people as "Caucasoid" "Negroid" and "Mongoloid." Any present-day anthropologist will tell you that those categories have little validity and mask complexities among different population types.

I have no problem being called "White," although the average Chinaman is paler than I am.

77 posted on 09/19/2004 1:23:18 PM PDT by Clemenza (I LOVE Halliburton, SUVs and Assault Weapons. Any Questions?)
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To: LibertyAndJusticeForAll
Probably for the same reason we don't go around calling ourselves Caucasians. The forms we fill out ask if we are White (non-Hispanic).

I prefer Ecru to White.

78 posted on 09/19/2004 1:28:01 PM PDT by Rightwing Conspiratr1 (Lock-n-load!)
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To: Clemenza
Anthropologists today have either been pressured into or chosen political correctness. Complexities in race are only around the fringes of each. Racial characteristics involve much more than skin color.

79 posted on 09/19/2004 1:29:08 PM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: All

Sounds good to me. I don't like the term "African-American" at all. I'm an American, a Black American!


80 posted on 09/19/2004 2:58:35 PM PDT by Sister_T (Democrats AND The Partisan Press are the REAL enemies to freedom in the world!)
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