6 ms·

It's a question I've been asking, as a black man for a very, very, very long time. Couldn't count on two hands, even a third if I had one the number of differe

by iamdave 12y ago

It's a question I've been asking, as a black man for a very, very, very long time. Couldn't count on two hands, even a third if I had one the number of different answers I've gotten, and not a single one of them-no matter the rationality or validity behind the history of it, has yet to answer why we still use it. That said, "Person of Color" seems to be the new trendy thing and that baffles me even more (well, to be succinctly snarky about it: other people's reactions to that phrase are what baffle me. That's an entirely different conundrum not fit for HackerNews, though.)

vacri 12y ago
I remember seeing an article talking about a black British model, born and raised in the UK, in a French fashion shoot, described as African-American. Her own country would refer to her as British, not African-British... Here in Australia we're getting infected with this compound term, to reassert that heritage doesn't mean non-citizen. It's really annoying, because I grew up in a suburb of Greeks and Italians, who were also Australians... and now (from some corners) it's Greek-Australian and Italian-Australian. It wasn't perfect - the stereotypical Australian is still seen as a WASP - but this compound noun system isn't the answer to fixing the problem.
- iamdave 12y ago
  Agreed. John McWhorter brought up a lot of decent and salient points about the words we use to describe individuals, and how simply substituting one for another doesn't really solve the problem (http://time.com/2369/richard-sherman-thug-n-word/ http://time.com/2369/richard-sherman-thug-n-word/). That can be said about a lot of social ailments in swiftly moving, developed civilizations, if I must offer a caveat. There's a lot of bluster that goes on among certain "progressive" crowds that ultimately sums the solutions up to policing of rhetoric; and while I have to admit they're somewhat onto something with the notions that "language informs impressions", a lot of their approaches seem deeply misguided if only because there's a vacuum of nuance. I personally don't have the answers to how to remediate the baggage that comes with cultural nomenclature... I do however believe rather sternly, that demanding a change of vernacular is not a silver bullet.
  - philip1209 12y ago
    I'm in favor of saying "ethnically African." It says nothing about nationality. In the context of a statistical analysis, like the OkCupid analysis, it's completely correct to segment people by ethnicity and by nationality separately, and it makes a lot more sense in that context to say "Americans of African ethnicity." "African Americans" is an equivocal phrase in an analytical context because people use it to refer to ethnicity, when it actually refers to both nationality and ethnicity.
    - iamdave 12y ago
      Yup 100%. You would not believe the amount of fire I got responding to the writings of another black writer who touched this topic: Ta-Nehisi Coates when I expressed the exact same point. I think the troubling aspect is the disconnect in the area you highlighted: necessity in context. Sadly there is so much demagogy taking place in the larger conversation of "race" that not even natural sciences like the study of statistics are safe from mindsets that want to rule conversation with politics over pragmatism. Nomenclature exists to easily quantify and reference, not necssiarily objectify.
    - vacri 12y ago
      Ethnicity also includes culture - a black person in the US sharing the same phenotype as a black person in Africa is not ethnically African, no more than an English white is ethnically French. It's difficult in that there isn't a clean solution, otherwise it would already have been found.
      - selimthegrim 12y ago
        Do people not say "of X extraction" anymore?
    - shawabawa3 12y ago
      > I'm in favor of saying "ethnically African." It says nothing about nationality. It does however make assumptions about ethnicity. How about just saying what you mean and using "black" I have a friend who is ethnically African, and he's as white as it gets (ancestors from South Africa). I also have a friend who is black but not ethnically African (ancestors from Trinidad)

by iamdave 12y ago

vacri 12y ago

I remember seeing an article talking about a black British model, born and raised in the UK, in a French fashion shoot, described as African-American. Her own country would refer to her as British, not African-British... Here in Australia we're getting infected with this compound term, to reassert that heritage doesn't mean non-citizen. It's really annoying, because I grew up in a suburb of Greeks and Italians, who were also Australians... and now (from some corners) it's Greek-Australian and Italian-Australian. It wasn't perfect - the stereotypical Australian is still seen as a WASP - but this compound noun system isn't the answer to fixing the problem.

iamdave 12y ago
Agreed. John McWhorter brought up a lot of decent and salient points about the words we use to describe individuals, and how simply substituting one for another doesn't really solve the problem (http://time.com/2369/richard-sherman-thug-n-word/ http://time.com/2369/richard-sherman-thug-n-word/). That can be said about a lot of social ailments in swiftly moving, developed civilizations, if I must offer a caveat. There's a lot of bluster that goes on among certain "progressive" crowds that ultimately sums the solutions up to policing of rhetoric; and while I have to admit they're somewhat onto something with the notions that "language informs impressions", a lot of their approaches seem deeply misguided if only because there's a vacuum of nuance. I personally don't have the answers to how to remediate the baggage that comes with cultural nomenclature... I do however believe rather sternly, that demanding a change of vernacular is not a silver bullet.
- philip1209 12y ago
  I'm in favor of saying "ethnically African." It says nothing about nationality. In the context of a statistical analysis, like the OkCupid analysis, it's completely correct to segment people by ethnicity and by nationality separately, and it makes a lot more sense in that context to say "Americans of African ethnicity." "African Americans" is an equivocal phrase in an analytical context because people use it to refer to ethnicity, when it actually refers to both nationality and ethnicity.
  - iamdave 12y ago
    Yup 100%. You would not believe the amount of fire I got responding to the writings of another black writer who touched this topic: Ta-Nehisi Coates when I expressed the exact same point. I think the troubling aspect is the disconnect in the area you highlighted: necessity in context. Sadly there is so much demagogy taking place in the larger conversation of "race" that not even natural sciences like the study of statistics are safe from mindsets that want to rule conversation with politics over pragmatism. Nomenclature exists to easily quantify and reference, not necssiarily objectify.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Ethnicity also includes culture - a black person in the US sharing the same phenotype as a black person in Africa is not ethnically African, no more than an English white is ethnically French. It's difficult in that there isn't a clean solution, otherwise it would already have been found.
    - selimthegrim 12y ago
      Do people not say "of X extraction" anymore?
  - shawabawa3 12y ago
    > I'm in favor of saying "ethnically African." It says nothing about nationality. It does however make assumptions about ethnicity. How about just saying what you mean and using "black" I have a friend who is ethnically African, and he's as white as it gets (ancestors from South Africa). I also have a friend who is black but not ethnically African (ancestors from Trinidad)