Question 9: Black, African Am., or Negro?
On Tuesday night, friend of mine posted the following question to her twitter: “What’s the difference between African-American, Black or Negro?” I jokingly replied: “About 60 years”. She, of course, was speaking about Negro being included as one of the racial options on the 2010 Census. When the story first broke, there was quite a bit of backlash and conversation. Most seemed to be of the opinion that the term is at best outdated and maybe even offensive or dare we say…racist. I was one of the people who were upset about it. How dare we be classified as Negro? Not in “Post-Racial” America.
The more I consider the term, the less I react to its inclusion as an option. Especially when I consider the aversion my great-grandmother had toward the term “Black”. She thought that being called “Black” was insulting and even racist. And don’t even get me started on how she felt about the term “African-American”. Black didn’t become beautiful until the ideological shift of the 1960s and 70s when the term was imbued with power.
For people, like my great grandmother, who grew up describing themselves as Colored or Negro and trying to survive the tough racial climate in the Deep South, the term Black is simply not the way that they’d choose to describe their race. In that way, I understand the argument from the Census Bureau that the term is meant to be inclusive. In the same way that “Negro” is offensive to some of us, “Black” may be offensive to some older generations.
Negro was once (and apparently still is :/ ) an appropriate term to describe Black people. Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King Jr. have all, at one point, used the word to describe our great and mighty race. I understand classifying the term obsolete but is it racist?
Well Tamara,
I am glad you decided to write on this topic. I work at a local high school and one of my students in my African American Studies class asked me how I felt about it just a couple weeks ago. I explained to her that it didn’t bother me and I thought it was appropriate given that there are probably some people in our very rural community that self identify as Negro. I reached this conclusion myself while completing the census form for my own household which consists of myself (23) and my grandfather(78). With time the census to shall change, everything has its season. When the season of those that still self identify as Negro is over (perhaps in the next 20 or 30 years) then maybe this term may only remain in our history books.
Well Tamara,
I am glad you decided to write on this topic. I work at a local high school and one of my students in my African American Studies class asked me how I felt about it just a couple weeks ago. I explained to her that it didn’t bother me and I thought it was appropriate given that there are probably some people in our very rural community that self identify as Negro. I reached this conclusion myself while completing the census form for my own household which consists of myself (23) and my grandfather(78). With time the census to shall change, everything has its season. When the season of those that still self identify as Negro is over (perhaps in the next 20 or 30 years) then maybe this term may only remain in our history books.
LaKee, I completely agree with you. Thanks for reading and commenting!
LaKee, I completely agree with you. Thanks for reading and commenting!
I have no problems with the term “Negro”, but I just don’t use it because I was born in 1972 and it has never been in the collective vocabulary of my generation. I prefer to use the term “Black” because I think “African-American” is a misnomer. In this country, we have a habit of hyphenating a label based on one’s country of origin (folks born in China but emigrate to the U.S. are called Chinese-Americans. There are Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc, etc).
If a white person was born in South Africa, and then later became a U.S. citizen (like musician Dave Matthews, for example), shouldn’t he be labeled an African-American? And how should I be labeled if I were to move permanently to another country? If I moved to England and became an official British resident, would I no longer be African-American? Would I be considered African-British?
I refuse to use the term African-American when referring to myself (a Black man born here in the U.S.) and then use the same term African-American when referring to Charlize Theron (a White actress born in South Africa who became a U.S. citizen three years ago).
I majored in English as an undergraduate, and this reply of mine is probably due to my being very careful about my word choice.
–Robert (robertdaylin.wordpress.com)
I have no problems with the term “Negro”, but I just don’t use it because I was born in 1972 and it has never been in the collective vocabulary of my generation. I prefer to use the term “Black” because I think “African-American” is a misnomer. In this country, we have a habit of hyphenating a label based on one’s country of origin (folks born in China but emigrate to the U.S. are called Chinese-Americans. There are Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc, etc).
If a white person was born in South Africa, and then later became a U.S. citizen (like musician Dave Matthews, for example), shouldn’t he be labeled an African-American? And how should I be labeled if I were to move permanently to another country? If I moved to England and became an official British resident, would I no longer be African-American? Would I be considered African-British?
I refuse to use the term African-American when referring to myself (a Black man born here in the U.S.) and then use the same term African-American when referring to Charlize Theron (a White actress born in South Africa who became a U.S. citizen three years ago).
I majored in English as an undergraduate, and this reply of mine is probably due to my being very careful about my word choice.
–Robert (robertdaylin.wordpress.com)