For most of us, diversity is experienced at an individual, not group, level. Even self-identifying cultural distinctions do not necessarily tell us much about each other—in fact, sometimes they imply political positions that simply aren’t the case. If pressed, I will tell a new acquaintance that I am Hispanic with an Anglo name, which sometimes requires a brief tour of Western Civ, but even then I am not sure the treatise helps us get any more acquainted, other than by getting us to marvel together at quirks of history.
Recently, though, controversies regarding the continued use of the category “Black, African Am., or Negro” on U.S. census forms and Harry Reid’s comments about President Obama adopting a “Negro dialect” when campaigning, coming as they have so close to Dr. King observances, got me to revisit the history of black self-determination and self-determination in general, at least as it relates to the written word.
I edit cases for Darden Business Publishing. While editing a case recently, the issue was raised whether capitalizing black is sometimes warranted to convey due respect. As I see it, black is a colloquial term and its capitalization, once practiced by a wide range of outlets from advocates of Black Power to mainstream publications like Ebony and Jet, is now neither sought nor expected. (Occasionally, publications with an intended all-black audience capitalize Black to express cultural pride, while some left-leaning political commentary might, for example, characterize President Obama as a corporate sellout of Black ideals.)
So it was with some amusement that, while researching the matter, I found that the data source in question referred to “blacks/African Americans,” as if a shifting coalition needed to be held together with punctuation. Along the same lines, the venerable United Negro College Fund now almost exclusively refers to itself as the UNCF on its Web site. And if you happen to be watching a BBC News telecast, a reference to an “Afro-American playwright” can seem rather quaint, even in light of its parallel construction with, say, “Sino-European relations.” To say nothing of the NAACP: just try talking about colored people and see how you’re received.
Just for the heck of it, I consulted some Gallup data on this. The vast majority of respondents, all, as I say, “black/African American,” when asked about their preference, said it did not matter. Other data showed that, of the roughly 35% to 40% who did have a preference, fewer than a third were bothered or offended by usage of the nonpreferred term. So, give or take, that amounts to about one in ten respondents who cared deeply about which of the standard classifications were used to describe them. (On another front, it’s been running about 70/30, Hispanic over Latino, although apparently we don’t get too bent out of shape about it either.)
For the case in question, as a practical matter, we went with African American as a more appropriately formal way to present data. Other surveys suggest that many embrace African American in the larger culture but tend to use black within the community. When I hear the word Negro, I think less of its proponent, W. E. B. Du Bois—who argued for its use and its capitalization!—than of old textbooks that classified humans into the races of Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid. That seems very long ago, especially now that genetics has taught us that there is about as much variation across ethnic types as between siblings.
Then it occurred to me that what seems antiquated about the census form is not its use of the term Negro in particular but a consequence of its use: the appearance of its data collection as willfully unscientific. In this data-driven age, does our history of dubious three-fifths representation justify such broad classifications when other more descriptive facts—family structure, housing, education, migration patterns—might provide a far more accurate self-portrait for purposes of governance? The primary goal of the census is enumeration. One might argue that de-emphasizing race categories might leave some people underrepresented, but our long history of gerrymandering seems to render that concern moot.
Consider the words of President Obama, in an interview with Gwen Ifill in Essence: “I would say that our popular culture still fastens on race the way it fastens on sex, the way it fastens on violence. There’s a fascination with it that’s not always healthy, and not particularly productive.” Who knows what minorities among us might gain new legitimacy? I am leery of the concept of post-racial, because it seems to threaten a return to disenfranchisement, but with all these computers laying around, you’d think we could form a more perfect something. Does the census present us with an opportunity? And might affirmative action programs actually benefit from what would come next?
by Donald Stevenson
Senior Editor
Darden Business Publishing
stevensond@darden.virginia.edu
