the comments mostly tended toward just simply american (utopia at best)...here's my post after several responses...
"..i appreciate the discourse...a lot of points but i think this is a multilayered concept that goes far beyond any of our experiences...
for the record...on the census my race is black and my passport is american. i refuse to qualify what type of american i am. voluntarily or not, the roots of my family tree were planted in this continent's soil long before a great many other “americans” but not the original americans. i think that qualifies.
i agree with @ron. it is an insult to those of true african descent. i've seen africa from off shore...that being said, the africa medallion i brought back in the early 90s still hangs from my rear view mirror...talk to me chuck d!
the concept, for me, resides in the history a people who were forced here against their will and then had any proud identity systematically (and violently) stripped away. 1 jan 1863 began the long road to actually being seen as americans. since then, those of original slave descent have struggled to be seen as just americans and not of lesser citizenship. while at the same time witnessing those of <pick an ethnic background> achieving simple “american” status within a generation or two.
so every couple decades or so, we look to further qualify our status as belonging. while we didn't designate the original classifications thrust upon us, we have since taken the task of reclassification to make us feel more american. at some point we will realize the utopia is being identified as american (as we ALL are overseas) by those who carry the same passport we do.
until then, i'll be a proud american that checks the black box on the census. maybe we should ask the NATIVE americans what they would be comfortable with the rest of us being called. hopefully one day they can say something other that invaders."
thoughts?
As an American of European descent, maybe the only way this topic affects me directly is a net effort of +/- five syllables. But, while my emotionally charged opinions may be nearly non-existent on this topic, I feel I can offer a few observations.
ReplyDeleteThe first person to get me thinking about this topic was a woman I worked with at a television station in Indianapolis. She was born to Jamaican immigrants and grew up in a Brooklyn neighborhood of people from the Caribbean. She told me she and the people of her neighborhood hated the term African-American. She said she couldn’t deny the color of her skin. She is black. But she considered herself a Jamaican-American. She did not want to be associated with other black Americans, African-Americans, descendents of slaves. Her words: “African-Americans are lazy and slovenly. I am Jamaican! We are a hard-working people!”
On the one hand I was shocked to hear such prejudicial statements against blacks come out of a black mouth. But it did get me thinking about the many ways we can divide and label ourselves. Living in Indiana, a state that is no stranger to Sundown Towns, she was perceived by the locals as one in the same with all blacks. But she considered herself separate.
How does that relate to the topic at hand? Whenever I hear someone who is adamant that “African-American” needs to replace “Black” I think about her. I think about anyone who, as a black skinned person, rejects the label African-American. I think about people who have emigrated from African countries after the abolition of slavery. Don’t they have more of a claim on the title than native-born Black Americans? Do the descendents of slaves and more recent immigrants have enough in common to be lumped in together or should they be considered different in some cases? Perhaps that’s petty. I think about Charlize Theron. Born in South Africa. First language is Afrikaans. White. Blonde. Didn’t become a citizen of the U.S. until 2007. Is she not an African-American? It seems to me the term is inadequate in describing all the people in the group it is meant to describe and includes others that it is not meant to describe. Black is undeniable.
Or is it? If a black person and a white person have a child is the child black? Some would say yes, the child is black, not white. If a black person and a Japanese person have a child is the child black, but not Japanese? Why does the child’s “white-ness” get forgotten in the first example but the child’s “Asian-ness” not get forgotten in the second. Is black and white so diametrically opposed that a child can’t be both black and white? And if the child of a black person and a white person has a child with a white person, is that child black. Mathematically they are only one-quarter black. But by some standards they are still considered black, just as black as any other black person. How many generations does it take until the child is not considered black? I dated a girl in college who was blonde and had blue-grey eyes. But to look at her grandfather you could see that several generations back she had a black ancestor. (I’m not assuming this. She told me it was true.) Yet, no one looking at her assumed she was black. Her grandfather on the other hand, people might have questioned.
Well, sorry to leave a comment longer than the blog itself! Especially since I have nothing to offer in the way of a definitive answer. It seems to me that both labels are inadequate. So many people fall into a gray area with both. And isn’t that the beautiful thing about America?
I do wish we could get to a point in this country where any label is unnecessary. But I recognize we have a long way to go to get there. And although we seem to be heading in that general direction we cannot assume we will eventually coast to that conclusion. Forces are at work opposing that outcome and a greater force needs to be applied to get us there. We can’t stop fighting that fight. And it’s only through open discussion and enlightenment that we will see that day.
well said, josh...we do have a ways to go before labels are obsolete - here and around the world. in a lot of ways its the only thing that global commons have in common...
ReplyDeleteagreed on the mixing of the races...my kids were taught from the beginning "to choose one is to deny the other". and that is unacceptable. ask them today and they will proudly (and sometimes defiantly) they are mixed...and that's as it should be....