Racial terminology (part 1)
MrDeuce
Illinois
Tuesday, August 11, 2015 7:44 PM
This question is primarily directed at black TUSCLers. Those of you who are melanin-deficient are of course free to chime in, but I don't much care what you have to say on this subject.
In my 60ish years on this planet, the term used by well-intended white people for black people has shifted from "colored people" to "Negroes" to "blacks" and I have personally gone along with these changes -- until the term "African-American" came along in the 1980s, when I refused to change again. It wasn't a case of an old man resistant to change -- I was only about 30 when I first heard "African-American" -- but rather of refusing to replace the perfectly good one-syllable word "black" with the seven-syllable monstrosity "African-American", especially since it was advocated by Jesse Jackson, whom I can't stand.
My question is: Do black people care whether white people call them "black" or "African-American"? My gut feeling is that they don't, but I would like to hear from some actual black people. Note: I live a very white existence, residing in an almost entirely white suburb and employed at an overwhelmingly white workplace, so for long periods of time the only black people I see are strippers (!) -- and I don't treat strippers' opinions as typical.
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion
22 comments