| Subject: Re: "The blacks" |
Author:
Raisinmom
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Date Posted: 07:09:04 09/25/02 Wed
In reply to:
Astrid
's message, ""The blacks"" on 10:07:41 09/24/02 Tue
I thought I would add a little on my understanding of why the term "the blacks," but not "black people," may be offensive to some.
I think the problem is that the word "black" is a general descriptive word that could apply to anything from a teapot to a tile, while "Chinese," for example, could only refer to the people or civilization of China. "The Chinese" could only mean the people of China, but "the blacks" could, in the proper context, mean the black napkins next to the good silverware or the pens on the counter. I think it's
this difference that bothers some people: because "blacks" is a word that is not anchored to a people or a civilization, but is merely descriptive of a color, it is sort of dehumanizing. On the other hand, "black people" gives the term back some humanity by tying it to "people" and making "the blacks" less object-like and nonhuman.
As for "African-Americans," I think some black people find it to be one more way of lumping them all together instead of recognizing that some are from Haiti, some from Trinidad, some from Ethiopia, etc. Although they are all "of African descent" at some far-ago time (as indeed we all were), there have been black people in the West Indies for a couple of centuries, for example -- long enough for those people to consider their allegience as pledged to the West
Indies. So my understanding is that some black people don't like "African-American" because it neutralizes the
hundreds of years their families spent elsewhere and (perhaps) unduly emphasizes the former slave association over the we-just-live-here association. (It's worth noting that the same sort of dislike for overgeneralizations had
already done in "Asian-American" even when I was in college and -- it had become more fragmented to recognize Korean, Japanese, Pacific Islander, Chinese, Vietnamese etc. origin. Nevertheless, I think AA is still the term preferred by most.
I have heard other people voice dislike for "African-American," "Chinese-American" and the like on the ground that people living in the US are "just American" and they've had it with the prefixes. This to me fails to recognize that America is not, after all, a "melting pot," but a "fruit salad" -- a country where each "ingredient" keeps its distinctive features rather than losing them in the whole. Part of the beauty of America and its lure to others is the fact that people *don't* need to renounce their origin/race/religion in order to be American. Being openly proud of one's heritage, and doing things that show it (marching in parades, "Kiss Me I'm Irish" pins, opening an ethnic restaurant, etc.) is very American and (my opinion) a good thing. So I think the hyphenation thing is just indicative of this, and while it's semantically unwieldy, I think it is ultimately less bad by being divisive than good by preserving the multi-ethnicity of America. I also think it's natural for people to want to associate with a smaller, more defined community when they live in such a large and pluralistic country -- it's a way of feeling less lost in the hustle and bustle.
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