* In my lifetime, the politically correct term for black people has changed maybe four or five times, from colored people to Negroes to black to African-American to people of color (which is good but colored people is bad – go figure). I may have missed a couple in there – I think there may have been a short period where it was Afro-American instead of African-American. A lot of this is just shit testing for loyalty to the party line – the powers that be change the acceptable name and you have to signal your virtue and hipness by following the party line that is current this week. Maybe next week the correct term for blacks will be “sun people”. If you don’t follow along with this, you can be accused of being racis’, not to mention “childish, passive aggressive, and effeminate”. Maybe some people don’t want to play this game anymore.
* The reason these names keep changing is because a word designates an object, and if an object accrues bad associations, then by re-naming the object, it is thought that you remove the bad associations. But the bad associations always come right back, because it is the object, not the word, that is creating the problem. The first person I know to point this out was Schopenhauer, 150 years ago (Section 285a in the Parerga and Paralipomena).
All social justice re-naming (including the current jihad against “oriental”) is similarly motivated and will require similar re-naming every cycle.
There’s an amusing anecdote from the Falkland Island War that recaps this: Supposedly the British troops began referring to Falkland Island natives as “Bennies”, which was a way of calling them idiots, and the high command got word of this and commanded that they stop using that word. So they started calling them “NB’s” with the same disparaging tone. A commander asked, “what does NB stand for?” “Not Bennies” replied the soldier.
* Liberal love blacks, browns and Muslims so long as they act just like white liberals. Otherwise, liberals get very frustrated and, most often, move to a less diverse neighborhood. Funny that.
* One of Fox News Channel’s token liberals is one of its celebrity Blacks, Juan Williams. He is actually an immigrant from Panama! Nonetheless, he is usually referred to as “African American”– as are people like Colin Powell, whose parents were from the Caribbean. Juan Williams is actually a Black Hispanic, or an Hispanic Black, but I never have heard anyone refer to him as such.
My problem, however, is not with immigrants who are naturalized, much less the native-born children of immigrants, being called “African American” (i.e., despite their not having any ancestors who were slaves in America). My problem is primarily with people exchanging two words with seven syllables for a single, monosyllabic word– even though they call the majority “White” instead of “European American.” In the words of ‘Judas Iscariot’: “It doesn’t help us if you’re inconsistent!”
Actually, I find “African American” more objectionable than its mere length: It also is inaccurate, in that the natives of northern Africa are not black (negroid), and are (for the moment, at least) classified as “White or Caucasian” by the government itself. Even worse, of course, is the moronic use of “Asian” as a “racial” designator, as if Afghanis and Japanese were of the same race. Sigh….
* During the Winter Olympics a few years back when a Jamaican won a medal in some sport the NBC commentator described her as being “the first African American, from any country, to win a medal”.
* African American is a treadmill euphemism. When a group can’t meet societal norms they simply change their name hoping that will alleviate the stigma of belonging to the group. There is no use examining the term “African American” because it will soon fall out of favor and some other term will take its place. The New York Times now asks people, or blacks at least, how they describe themselves. In one article five people of African descent are described as black, African American, Afro Caribbean, Tunisian and Egyptian, or mother from Barbados. LINK.
The terms idiot, imbecile, and moron changed to mentally retarded which changed to special needs and in many places is now called exceptional.
* RE the group of a thousand names, I think the main thing is connotation. They want to keep the name a moving target, so the negative connotations can be ditched for a while. It’s like if Chipotle (was having much bigger problems and) changed their name and brand. It wouldn’t really promise anything new of substance, but a lot of people would fall for it. Eventually, every name given to blacks becomes a word a certain type of non-black spits. When that type hits a certain critical mass, it’s time for a brand change. African American might have staying power, because it’s long enough to appeal to blacks’ grandiose tendencies.
* Lots of interracial marriage among powerful families in America in the latest generation.
John Boehner’s daughter – black man
John McCain’s son – black woman
Al Gore’s daughter – Asian man
Barbara Bush – brown guy from Panama
