Evolution of Nomenclature: Negro to African-American

As a child in the South, I observantly called black people black people. That is until I was corrected by my mother sometime around 1962. She said, “It’s not nice to call people black, we say “colored.” Mom had joined the NAACP in college and knew about these things. I’d been told that black wasn’t a color, but she assured me that this was the proper nomenclature for dark skinned people, regardless of where exactly they were on the color spectrum. That part made sense.

Dissonance struck me whenever I watched the news and heard the word “negro” in popular use. I was told that either was correct but that colored was more polite, so I stuck with that until about age 13. At that point in history, MLK had been killed in my hometown and my defining experience became having my Bar Mitzvah in Memphis just five weeks after the tragedy.

One day, I was having a thoughtful conversation with a black college student and described someone as a “colored guy.” He quickly responded, “What color?” That dialogue repeated itself a few times until I used “black” to refer to all people of color, regardless of their actual skin tone on the spectrum. So it turned out my childhood perception was correct all along – HA!

White rednecks and Republicans just LOVE the phrase “African-American” because they were never comfortable saying “black” in the first place. So whichever wordy sociologists came up with that in the 80’s did them a huge favor. My primary objection to this usage arises from editorial matters. My #1 editorial guideline for students and clients: “Economy of Phrasing” – that is, say the most you can with as few words as possible. (Just the opposite of most undergraduate writing.) So let’s count the syllables:

African-American: 7
Black: 1

The results are in and the numbers don’t lie. Then there is the matter of actual country of origin. Black people from the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe sometimes find this objectionable and patronizing. Yeah, we all started somewhere and not necessarily the same place.

One night, I overheard a conversation at the next table. A black woman was holding court with friends and family and talking very loudly. She repeatedly referenced herself and others as “African-Americans.” Then the topic turned to someone else and she said, “ . . . the Caucasian woman . . .” I wanted to interrupt and say, “Why don’t you just say ‘white girl’.” But I didn’t. This illustrates that if you can’t say black, you can’t say white.

Black men used to get furious if referred to as “boy” and with good reason. It was used as a demeaning term, implying that black men could never be men. I’ll never forget Ed Sullivan referring to young Cassius Clay as a “fine boy.” Even at age 7, I expected “Cassius” to hit him right there, but he didn’t. So I learned to be careful about that. However, my involvement in high level basketball changed that. In the 80’s black men again began calling each other boy and their friends as boys. They got over it.

Then I wonder: at which point in life does a “miss” become a “maam”? You wouldn’t call a young woman “maam.” Nor would you risk appearing patronizing by calling a matronly woman “miss.” But sometimes it’s a tough call, especially in that 30-40 age group, so be careful.

It’s a Silly Language* we have, and you have to be careful how you use it or it can get you in trouble. But please do not bore me with your gratuitous use of superfluous syllables in silly phrases like AA. There, I cut it down, so sue me!

Now, some full disclosure is in order. I’m a white boy. Shortly after I moved to the Bay Area in 1999, then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown ogot in trouble for calling someone a “white boy.” I sent a letter expressing agreement, applauding the mayor for his candor and direct word choice. I added, “I’m a white boy who’s not ashamed to admit it, and I’m glad you’re willing to call a spade a spade.” As a younger man I was the shortest white boy to dunk. (For real.)

Boy? Man? Girl? Woman? Q: Which is correct? A: Don’t take it so damn seriously! Some females get all in a snit if you say “girl” instead of woman. But some of the best female athletes on the planet always refer to themselves as “girls” in broadcasting, journalism and conversation. Go argue with them if you don’t like it.

H. Scott Prosterman

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Comments

William Hamilton says:

January 26, 2012 at 12:18 pm

Black won’t do. We’ll have to invent something new. Everything accumulated baggage and the language has to move on.

-Nate says:

January 30, 2012 at 12:22 pm

As a Cracker who lives in The Ghetto , I don’t overly mind being called Cracker , White Boy etc. because like Scott says , it’s all just wordplay .

Grow up folks .

-Nate
(who’s 6′ tall but still can’t dunk)

Jim says:

January 30, 2012 at 1:54 pm

I was born in the south east part of the country in the 50′s to where education regarding many areas dealing with the different nationalities were limited due too a lack of knowledge.

We had a mixture of people born from the 20′s though the 60′s living in small areas that couldn’t afford the local newspaper if there was one available.
Therefore children learned what they were taught in schools and from the adults to whom many weren’t educated beyond the 5th grade.
Even today there are many that have never gone outside of a fifty mile radius !
( not meant to sound or be made negative ). They only knew the world as black & white people…

Now the negative side is that those to whom was able to relocate to other states and had more access to the media didn’t make an attempt to inform the one’s that was left behind the truth regarding the different races ( nationalities ) . Often times they returned with negative input because they weren’t equipped to face so much change in a short period of time. So they saw the truth and didn’t attempt to inform others and that made them no better than the ones they left behind..

What does this have to do with being called black or colored ? History teaches us that blacks weren’t called colored and other names until the 19th century ! Then in the 50′s someone got the bright idea that we should be called some other name( NOW NO ONE ASK ME WHAT I WANTED TO BE CALLED) but if i didn’t go along with their ideas i had to be a reject or uncle Tom or some other foolish name.

Once i became old enough to relocate i realized right away that there were other groups of people in the world that simply wanted to call me by the name i was given at birth and it had nothing to do with the color of my skin.

It seems to me that in 2012 we’re worst than the people in the early 1900′s because we refuse to let go on both sides of the table regarding nationality .

As for me ! As long as you call me by my name and treat me with respect that i will have shown you.
I don’t care what you look like, I don’t need your phone number,FB,Church you attend, address or whether you’re democratic or republican.

With all the media outlets, sports, entertainment and everything else that we have in 2012..
These conversations should never be on the table other than to educate each other that when we die depending on where you live the same guys that will be throwing dirt in your face will be smiling while they are picking up their check preparing for the next guy to whom color won’t matter…

Jim

- H. Scott Prosterman says:
  
  January 30, 2012 at 2:40 pm
  
  I appreciate the thoughtful comments and attention to my work. Let’s heal the world . . . I mean try.
  
Joe Weinstein says:

January 30, 2012 at 4:00 pm

I join Scott in protest of today’s gobbledygook result of perpetual change in labels of widely-shared (or ‘racial’) heritages. Like him, I value verbal frugality and brevity: life is short.

Heritage labels have changed for two apparent reasons: pursuit of coolness and pursuit of respect. First, with labels as with other things, people get bored and want to start or conform to new fashions. Second and more important, many people believe that any heritage label inevitably degrades over time into a tool of bigotry. So labels keep changing in order to maybe stay one step ahead of bigotry.

Of course, some labels seem more ‘accurate’ or ‘precise’ than others. Kid-palette colors – like black, brown, red, white and yellow – clearly don’t well describe even actual personal skin color. But by now, though, these agreeably brief terms have fairly-well-understood reference to characteristic widely-shared physical and cultural heritage.

For those who refuse to be satisfied by these simple color labels, big-region labels – like ‘African’ – seem more on-point. However, as yet so few of these labels are in use that big and usually intended distinctions go unregistered – e.g. between Mediterranean North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. And, if we insist on such labels, equity and due respect demands that all our wide-heritage labels be of that kind. If we speak of African Americans, we should also speak of European Americans, Asian Americans, Siberian (or ‘Native’) Americans, etc.

But, precisely because life is short, we should reject the uninformative extra word ‘American’. Why not just ‘African’ or ‘European’? To be sure, if we don’t add SOMETHING, the label might be taken to refer not to your heritage but to your own land of birth or residence. But the 4-syllable suffix ‘American’ is too long.

The single-syllable ‘-am’ might work – especially if used with abbreviated forms of the region-label. That would give us workably short words like ‘Euram’, ‘Afram’, ‘Asiam’, ‘Sibram’. And of course ‘Medam’ – for someone like me who deems his heritage as ‘Mediterranean’ – not really or merely ‘European’ or ‘Asian’ or ‘African’.

Everybody happy now?

Evolution of Nomenclature: Negro to African-American

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