4 ms·
they’re not negroes, they’re colored they’re not colored, they’re African-American they’re not African-American, they’re black they’re not black, they’re Bla
by daseiner1 2y ago
they’re not negroes, they’re colored
they’re not colored, they’re African-American
they’re not African-American, they’re black
they’re not black, they’re Black
they’re not Black, they’re People of Color
they’re not People of Color, they’re BIPOC
I wonder what the next twist of the pretzel will look like
- JohnMakin 2y agoWhat, IYO, is being twisted here? What should people be called?
- daseiner1 2y agoTruthfully I think that it is a dialectic process that counterintuitively perpetuates a mentality of victimhood and otherness. The neverending process of being othered//feeling othered//trying to empower oneself in one's otherness is entirely futile. To assimilate, you must assimilate. I'm well-aware that I'm being rather evasive and I certainly don't think anyone is fooled by what I'm really saying.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jvandreae 2y agoYep, just the age-old trick of creating a problem and then selling an ineffective solution. Unbounded profit!
- drdec 2y agoPersonally, I took the comment to imply that we are not really solving the root issue behind what is driving the change in terminology and thus we are doomed to continue to apply the same (ineffective) solution.
- potatoman22 2y agoWhy is the changing terminology something that needs to be stopped? Does the language used to describe an identity need to be frozen in time?
- drdec 2y ago> Why is the changing terminology something that needs to be stopped? It does not. If we were merely talking about the current young person slang word for something good (e.g. rad, sick, amazeballs, etc. (don't ask me for the current one)) no one cares that the terminology changes. But in this case each change comes with the same reasoning behind it. This indicates that the change has been ineffective and people ought to consider why that is and if there is something else that could be done instead or in addition to be more effective.
- 650REDHAIR 2y agoI imagine they look similar to the gymnastics you did to come up with this comment.
- rottencupcakes 2y agoI think this just demonstrates that changes to language are not sufficient to erase racism.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- layer8 2y agoIt can even have the opposite effect.
- paulv 2y agoWhy'd you leave the most notable one out of your list?
- dmonitor 2y agoI don't think that one was ever "acceptable". That being said, literally every term after/including "African-American" in that list is socially acceptable. Not sure what they're going on about.
- kstrauser 2y agoI'm not so sure. It sure gets used a lot in "Huckleberry Finn", even by people who aren't being malicious. (From my recollection, anyway. It's been ages since I read it.)
- blast 2y agoThe current norm is that it mustn't be said, even in a discussion of that class of words.
- jrm4 2y agoSeems like you're pointing to a singular imaginary boogeyman out to annoy you? You should try the better thing of actually considering the history of each of these. I won't deny that it can be annoying, but considering the specific why of each one is important. Necessary even.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- anal_reactor 2y agoYes exactly. The whole debate doesn't change the fact that certain people form the lower class, and those people tend to also have certain physical characteristics, and people don't like lower social class, which makes them dislike those characteristics.
- dowager_dan99 2y agoIf you're truly mystified, and believe this is nothing more than PC linguistic gymnastics, I wonder why you started with "negroes"?
- runlevel1 2y agoMost of those are terms for different things. Not all people who are black are African American. Not all people of color are black.
- mugwumprk 2y agoLooking at Elon Musk, some African Americans are white.
- pfg_ 2y agobipoc means a different thing than black. you should use the word that has the meaning you want.
- DonHopkins 2y agoBut using the word he really wanted to use would totally undermine his point, not to mention getting his post flagged.
- BobaFloutist 2y ago90% of this list is less the slur treadmill and more the MLA/AP Stylebook version treadmill. Nobody's going to get mad at you for writing African American, unless you work for a newspaper, it's largely motivated by MLA and AP wanting to sell new books every year or two, same as how titles were underlined when I was in grade school and now they're italicized.
- spokaneplumb 2y agoI thought the underlining thing had more to do with practical limitations of (most people's) handwriting and of common typewriters. Italics, when available, have been preferred for titles as far back as I'm aware.
- hwillis 2y agoAbsolutely insane equivocation. "Negro" has always been associated with slavery and that's why it was used up until even recently by people like Malcom X. "Colored" is associated with apartheid America in the same way. African American was a term used around return-to-africa movements and was always heavily associated with non-americanness. > they’re not black, they’re Black Somebody has never heard of proper nouns > they’re not Black, they’re People of Color Yes... nobody ever called indigenous people negroes. It's not the same thing as black. People use the phrase to talk about more than just black people. > they’re not People of Color, they’re BIPOC The I stands for indigenous.
- potatoman22 2y agoI think we should respect someone's preferred language for their identity. It's not that hard.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mock-possum 2y agoAs long as assholes finds ways to ruin words for the rest of us, there will always be a new more sensitive / caring way to refer to traditionally oppressed people. I know it sucks to keep up with things, but what sucks even works is not keeping up, and finding you and the neo nazis using the same language to mean different things. If you care, then you put the work in. That’s all anyone can do.