On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 6:24 AM, Nithya Sambasivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > why not just eliminate the term "Black"? > Why is it black music, black cuisine, it's-a-black-thing-to-do? Or do we > need a Shakespeare to coin a new word?
The term 'black', despite its ugly past, serves as a useful short hand to refer to a pretty diverse group of people in the US. For example, Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson are both considered to be black when they come from very different backgrounds. Black is a term that has become short hand for the a certain kind of other. Similarly, Hispanic, though less derogatory than black, has also come to be used to cover a large group of people. As for the continued use of the term Black by both European-Americans and African-Americans... I suspect it is partly a matter of taking an insult and wearing it as a badge and transforming it into an Identity. Somewhat like what I did with my nickname from college. Thaths -- "I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'." -- Homer J. Simpson
