Dear finler-ga;
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your very
interesting question. Customs change in very much the same way that
grass grows; slowly, steadily and without much ado. Over time,
surviving customs become so engrained in our society that when someone
asks when they first began, the answer is often “It’s always been that
way”. While this is not true with most things, it is very difficult to
pin down a specific time or date with regard to the introduction of
some customs, or to attribute the adoption of a custom to a single
event because frankly, the thing that brought it on probably didn’t
seem to have much historical significance at the time or wasn’t very
eventful at all. Having said that, I think the best anyone can do it
to narrow the practice and subsequent changes over the years down to
specific periods of social and/or political change.
The world has historically trudged through centuries of prejudice that
has affected many societies, many civilizations, and many ethnicities
dating all the way back to the beginning of recorded time. American
society has not escaped this fate. From a time dating back to long
before our nation’s birth until the late 1800’s, when former slaves,
now free, began exercising their right to free speech under the
assumption that they were protected by the constitution,
African-American people were called a variety of names, many of which
are now considered vulgar slurs. By the end of the civil war, they had
become less tolerant of the vulgarities used against them and began
insisting upon being referred to as “Negroes” rather than less
respectful names. This mentality probably began on a much smaller
scale many years before the civil war ended in the mid 1800’s, in
fact. In areas of the northern United States where slavery had been
abolished long before it ended in the south, some African-Americans
had already become teachers, physicians, land-owners and even people
of wealth; the majority of the Caucasian northern public supported
abolition thought of it as normal to offer respect to any person,
regardless of color, whose position warranted such respect and were
eager to use a term more conventional than the ones they knew were
socially unacceptable. By the turn of the century, however the
greater majority of African-Americans had been born outside of the
institution of slavery and many were educated to such a degree as to
use their influence to their advantage. Many of them, wanting to
disassociate themselves from that of the stereotypically, uneducated
farm hand, and some, having either visited the northern US or came
south from the northern states, were aware of the practice of white
people calling African-Americans “Negroes”. A certain amount of pride
associated with being “a Negro” even began to develop as a generation
of African-Americans started to re-discover their rich heritage and
history.
Up until the time World War II broke out, the term “Negro” was common
and deemed socially acceptable by both African-Americans and
Caucasians. Because segregation was the order of the time, many
African-Americans were restricted from using the same facilities as
“whites”. Special, albeit lesser, facilities were built for their
exclusive use. Over time, African-Americans were integrated into the
Armed services along with their “white” counterparts and, in the
military at least, many of the signs designating facilities “Negro” or
“White” only began to disappear. This was not the case, however, in
civilian life and would not become so for quite some time after the
war. Eventually, those who experienced the rare (and constitutional)
sense of equality that their brief integration (out of the necessity
in the interest of the war effort) provided during the war filtered
back into a strongly biased society where they were still restricted
by segregation laws and separatist signage. Everywhere they turned
they were reminded that they were “Negroes”, and as such were
perceived as people of lesser value. Some more conservative “whites”,
sympathetic to the feelings of the African-Americans (and some who
simply didn’t want to risk losing their African-American customers)
began to meet these needs by changing their signs and their references
to a more friendly term: “colored”. Presumably this came from their
assumption that they, as cuacasians, were perceived as white, or
color-“less”, so logically the logical opposite must be “colored”.
Many African-Americans found this term sufficient, at best (certainly
preferable to the term “Negro”) and initially at least viewed these
signs as a friendly invitation. This feeling would not last long. It
should also be noted here that there was no sense of pride associated
with being labeled “colored” as there once was with being identified
as a Negro.
A generation later, as the social climate changed yet again, states
were ordered by the government to permit the integration of
African-American students into their formerly “all white” public
schools. A great deal of civil disobedience occurred in American
during this time, primarily in the south where African-Americans
dominated the manual labor force and rivaled white citizens in terms
of population. Following the eventual deployment of US Army troops in
Little Rock, Arkansas in the summer of 1957 integration became an
American way of life. By now, there was a sense of need on the part of
the post-war/post-integration generation of African-Americans to
remove themselves from the past perception that “Negroes” are
inferior.
By the 1960’s, student unions were developing and American youth
groups of all races began to exercise their voice collective voice in
matters of politics, philosophy, sociology, economics and more. At the
same time a parallel youth movement was underway in California
encouraging people to love and accept one another and to celebrate our
differences rather than reject or evade them. On a third front, the
United States was at war again, this time in Vietnam. Men of all races
were once again thrust into a lifestyle where equality by necessity
was in the best interest of the greater good. Many of the students and
most of the American youth involved in the changes taking place in
California opposed the war ad both spoken out opening against it. In
time the war ended and the soldiers returned. The youth movements had
not only make a powerful name for themselves but their insistence that
our differences should be a source of pride lingered well beyond the
sounds of their protests of America’s involvement in what they
considered an internal political matter in Vietnam. African-American
soldiers came back from the war much stronger politically and were
accepted back into a society in which their race had become empowered
and deeply committed to being recognized as “black”, but otherwise no
different. There was a great deal of pride associated with this
concept, and rightfully so.
By the 1970’s, the term “black” HAD begun to be perceived by some as
“different”. Some more radical and militant African-American groups
made unpopular names for themselves by openly airing their resentment
about slavery and centuries of violence, discrimination and rights
violations that had been committed against them and their ancestors. A
few even publicly incited others to join them in their anger and
demanded equality under threat of violence. Even fewer actually
participated in organized criminal activities and geurilla style
vigilantism, oddly reminiscent of organizations such as the white
supremascist group Ku Klux Klan which had previously terrorized
African-Americans in the south for decades. These incidents were
relatively few and isolated but received a great deal of media
coverage from the predominantly “white” publications, radio and
television stations. The term “black” in some areas became a fearful
term, especially to some “whites” that bought into the embellished
propaganda.
By the 1980’s the social scene had calmed dramatically and people
began to become more intellectual in their approach to race labels.
The social norm was to be fair and “politically correct” wherever
possible. While the term “black” was still in use (and continues to
this day to some extent) society was all too ready to put these issues
away. The term “African-American” emerged, not as a means of
distinguishing superficial differences in our skins, but as a means of
indicating a person’s ethnicity while emphasizing our shared heritage.
The model for this concept was established long ago by the common use
of such labels as Irish-American and Italian-American to distinguish
between the generations of Native American descendants of Irish and
Italian immigrants and their immigrant/foreign born ancestors, when
they, like African-Americans struggled to overcome the same kind of
discrimination.
Below you will find that I have carefully defined my search strategy
for you in the event that you need to search for more information. By
following the same type of searches that I did you may be able to
enhance the research I have provided even further. I hope you find
that that my research exceeds your expectations. If you have any
questions about my research please post a clarification request prior
to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating and your final
comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near
future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga
INFORMATION SOURCES
URBAN LEGENDS
http://www.urbanlegends.com/language/back_in_the_african_american.html
NAANI’S INTERNATIONAL CORNER
http://www.naani.com/naanifam_sounds_off_on__african__american.htm
AMERICANS OF AFRICAN DESCENT: NAMES AND IDENTITIES
http://www.africultures.com/anglais/articles_anglais/41cremieux.htm
SEARCH STRATEGY
SEARCH ENGINE USED:
Google ://www.google.com
SEARCH TERMS USED:
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
AFRICAN NEGRO
ORIGIN “AFRICAN-AMERICAN”
RACE NAMES ORIGINS |
