Waterboy

Actually, Black was not a term that started to be used until around the late 50's. And it is a term the population used for themselves, not one that was assigned to them by the whites. Like I said, "colored" and "negroe" were the terms used by whites when Blacks started identifying themselves as Black.

Yellow is offensive because Asians did not use that term to refer to themselves. It is something white people used and meant it in an offensive way. Negroe and colored the same thing. Black was used by Blacks as a sense of pride for their race and their culture.

Deafness

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naisho

Yellow offensive?
Not exactly, if you read the news, haven't you heard of the Yellow Mamba these days?

It's just not a widely accepted term, compared to blacks accepting it. The point I'm trying to make is both groups that dislike being called yellow or black, dislike being called it for the same reason(s). It's factual.

Waterboy

Biracial people and people of Creole descent were also called "High Yellow" at one point. It wasn't a compliment.

Waterboy

I don't know any Blacks that dislike being called Black. And I know a lot of Blacks.

Do you mean the snake?

naisho

Well, either you don't know black history or you don't know who Jesse Jackson is. That's a pretty good indicator of what you know.

From Negro to Black to African American: The Power of Names and Naming
Ben L. Martin
Political Science Quarterly
Vol. 106, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 83-107

Waterboy

That was in 1988, and was more of a political move from Jackson than anything else. All that happened was white people started using African American, and Black people kept using Black. Kind of like hearing people using hearing impaired and deaf people using deaf.

You can't use an article from that long ago to determine what is actually happening IRL today. Its good for history. Its good to show the journey Blacks have actually had to make here. But it doesn't have anything to do with what is happening today in Black culture.

Waterboy

The labels used to describe Americans of African descent mark the movement of a
people from the slave house to the White House. Today, many are resisting this
progression by holding on to a name from the past: "black."


For this group — some descended from U.S. slaves, some immigrants with a separate
history — "African-American" is not the sign of progress hailed when the term was
popularized in the late 1980s. Instead, it's a misleading connection to a distant culture.


The debate has waxed and waned since African-American went mainstream, and gained
new significance after the son of a black Kenyan and a white American moved into the White
House. President Barack Obama's identity has been contested from all sides, renewing
questions that have followed millions of darker Americans:


What are you? Where are you from? And how do you fit into this country?


"I prefer to be called black," said Shawn Smith, an accountant from Houston. "How I really
feel is, I'm American."


"I don't like African-American. It denotes something else to me than who I am," said
Smith, whose parents are from Mississippi and North Carolina. "I can't recall any of them
telling me anything about Africa. They told me a whole lot about where they grew up in
Macomb County and Shelby, N.C."


Gibre George, an entrepreneur from Miami, started a Facebook page called "Don't Call
Me African-American" on a whim. It now has about 300 "likes."


"We respect our African heritage, but that term is not really us," George said. "We're
several generations down the line. If anyone were to ship us back to Africa, we'd be like
fish out of water."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is widely credited with taking African-American mainstream in
1988, before his second presidential run.

Blacks do not like to be called "African-Americans" - alt.activism.death-penalty | Google Groups

Like I said about Jesse, it was a political move on his part.

naisho

I would not trust the information I found on another message board (or google group, for that mater). Jackson's statement is published via accredited sources. You can find them in JSTOR, LexisNexis, etc other various scholarly sources. If you are with an educational institution, you should be able to view them free of charge.

Do you have access?

kokonut

Mulatto is a term accepted by many of those whose parents are black and white. There was even a website Mulatto.org (and here) of those proud as being biracial people. Many don't like the term, either. Same goes for the preference on using the term black or African American, or for many would rather call themselves as American, instead without the need to point out their ethnicity.

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"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Waterboy

That information comes from Black people IRL themselves. Jackson's statement is published, but he made it in 1988. Before a run for president.

No, I don't have access, but I would be glad to read anything you want to post about Black history. After all, it is called "Black History Month", not "African American History Month".

Waterboy

So, AD has a lot of biracial members?

naisho

Here's a tip if you are new to debating on the internet. When you want to debate on something tantamount to levels of research methodology, sociology and educational intellect, it is only common sense to utilize scholarly resources. This is an accepted standard of any intellectual debate. Using opinion/blog/news sites is just a step down and frowned upon.

I still have yet to find any published information that they prefer to be called blacks over African-American, but we do have intellectual information here stating Jackson preferred African-American over blacks.

You're welcome to bring surpassing material on equating scholarly grounds that proves your statements otherwise.

If you do not have access to them, then I cannot help you there.

CrazyPaul

You are right about that. It doesn't make sense to call a black person who was born in America and grew up in America an "African-American".

My father was Italian and my mother was Irish. I am American, not Irish-American or Italian-American.

kokonut

Dunno. Certainly tons more members than any other deaf/hh forums out there.

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Waterboy

In the past few weeks, presidential candidate Herman Cain has not backed away from talking about his racial identity and how it influences his politics, and today on Meet The Press, Cain explained that he personally would rather be referred to as a “black American” than an “African American.”

Herman Cain Black | Herman Cain Obama | Video | Mediaite

Then there is the Black Caucus, the Black Business Association, The Black Association of Social Workers, The Black Association of Realtors, The National Association of Black Journalists, National Black Republican Association, The National Black Nurses Association, National Association of Black Accountants, National Black Law Students Association, National Black MBA Association, The Black Graduate Students Association, The Association of Black Psychologists, National Association of Black Law Enforcement, The Association of Black Professional Firefighters.......

All organizations for Blacks using the term Black in their title. Not a single one using African American. These are organizatios of for and by Black people. What does that tell you?

Waterboy

Okay. Just wondered because of something that was said about a lot of "mulattos" here.

Waterboy

Why use a scholarly resource written by a white person when you have the Black people's words right in front of you?

kokonut

There's the National Black Republican Association, too.
National Black Republican Association | National Black Republican Association

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

naisho

Because in the end, using "Black people's words" is just an opinion. There are also Jamaicans, Ethiopians, Sierra Leonians who do methodological research too, you know.

kokonut

No clue. Must be imagining something there.

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Waterboy

That was included in my list already.

Waterboy

A lot of us have mixed blood or "mulatto" despite our appearances.

Nope. No imagination.

Waterboy

So Black people don't know what they would prefer to be called? Whose opinion really matters on what they prefer to called if it is not the Black people themselves?

I thought we were talking about Black people in America.

kokonut

Mixed blood, sure, certainly a lot of us have that. Mulatto, I don't know how many, if any.

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

naisho

You seem to have a preference of lumping them all together as one. Jesse Jackson didn't lump, he encouraged what became a movement for ethnic diversity. If it wasn't for the term African-American, there likely wouldn't be any of the diverseness we have today. "Why not just call Jamaicans, blacks?" well, they're Jamaican for a reason, DUH!

Still waiting on better sources other than your opinion, it's only a fair debate.

Waterboy

How does the term "African American" not lump? It lumps all Blacks, regardless if they have African heritage or not, into the same group. I do call Jamaican's Black. If they live in Jamaica, I just call them Jamaican's. If I need to refer to their heritage, and they have come to American from Jamaican, and are Black, then I would call them Black Jamaicans, or just Black.

You have the opinion of other Black Americans than Jesse Jackson already posted here. And also an explanation of why, in 1988, what Jesse said might have been useful, but why, today, it isn't. And what the purpose of him making that statement was in 1988.

So Black people's opinion on what they prefer to be called, the fact that the organizations they form and belong to use the word "Black", the fact that they call the celebration of their own history Black History Month, and the fact that they have said they don't find Black offensive means nothing? Who should get to decide what Black people should be called then?

The diversity was already here. Labeling it with the term African American didn't create diversity. And it didn't create acceptance or less racism, either.

naisho

Can you show me something from 2012 then? From the same sources.

Reba

Neither "black" nor "white" is a race. They are both descriptive adjectives. That's why they should not be used without accompanying nouns.

EX:

black students, white voters, black drivers, white patients

That's why when dispatchers ask for a description of a suspect generic terms like white and black are used. They aren't asking for someone's ancestry ("Does he look like he's descended from Norway or from Korea?")

Also, appearances can be deceiving, so we can't always say, "The guy is white" but we can say "The guy looks white."

One race--human race.

Many ethnicities and countries of origin.

I think it's safe to say that one who is born in the USA is of xxxx descent but can hardly be referred to as xxxx-American when that person has never even touched a foot on that xxxx country's soil.

Waterboy

I just did. Try the list of organizations created by Black people for Black people using the word Black in their title. Why would the call their own organizations The Black Association of .... if they found being called Black offensive?

Herman Cain's statement was from 2012.

The Blacks do not want to be called African American webpage was statements from Black people in 2012.

naisho

If you're going to argue this low then... Ever heard of the NAACP?
Why don't they call themselves... NAABP?