NYDN's Crouch: "Then and Now, I'm a Negro."

[Captain Hilts]

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/columnists/crouch/index.html

As the Census Bureau begins embedding a test in the 2010 census that "will measure the effect of removing the term 'Negro' on reports about a person's racial identity," my preference is not with those who either feel insulted or think "Negro" outdated and derogatory. That actually applies to another N-word.

As a writer, I find the term African-American unwieldy. I use terms like Negro, black, and am sometimes tempted to use colored because that range of skin tones is so undeniably epic. All of them are no more than words, but there is something far from backward about the sound of Negro and the magnificent people who used that word to describe themselves. They gave it majesty; they made it luminous. They inspired, organized and led what amounted to our most recent civil war. They welcomed all comers as they went about removing the teeth from the Grand Dragons of Southern racism.

...

[sui generis]

1. the most embarrassing part about this is that our administration

appears to be defending the term. Talk about ironic.

And the defense: ??!?

"It's been that way for decades . . ."

This is the census morons. It's presumably used to update demographic statistics about Americans and our geopolitical distribution, and that includes how we self-identify.

Imagine the gay question: Are you 1. Married 2. Single 3. Faggot living with someone of the same sex

whaaaaaa? We've been using that term for decades! jeepers. And in the Obama administration, no less.

[Captain Hilts]

2. NAACP, UNCF....they're dated terms, but not perjoratives. nt

[sui generis]

3. Novascotians Are Actually Canadian People?

:P

[Captain Hilts]

4. Good one! Of course they are, it's Newfies they have doubts about....nt

[Winterblues]

7. Does it seem strange the ONLY ones offended are Republicans

Negroes don't seem offended by the term though it is a bit outdated..When did the Republicans get to decide what offends whom, especially those they have spent decades offending at every oportunity?

[sui generis]

10. it's true the republicans are defended on everyone's behalf

it is a bit puzzling though that we're using terms from the fifties and defending it instead of updating to use modern anthropological terms.

[Winterblues]

16. You seem to be suggesting there is something wrong with the term Negro

When the people it describes are not offended, why should you be?

[sui generis]

17. you seem to be putting words in my mouth

and generalizing on behalf of black people everywhere.

It's about not using quaint and archaic terms in modern government.

[Jim__]

5. As far as using "colored" ...

... it seems that "of color" is preferred. "Colored" seems to have a bad connotation.

[seabeyond]

6. i was talking to a 70 yr old black woman and said african american. she was offended

she told me, .... she was not african american. she was black. end of story, no discussing, this is what she felt.

i have to respect that.

another line of blacks from haiti was bothered adn spoke out against african american.

i use black. and if a person refers themselves as african american, i pick up that term

best i can do.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Here in DC there are so many recent immigrants from Africa, the term just doesn't

work anymore. 'Black' is purely descriptive, as is 'white' and neither makes cultural assumptions.

A lot of folks don't like being hypenated, and I understand that. I'm first generation and I don't call myself English-American.

[FarCenter]

9. DNA analysis can be used to locate the individual in a four-dimensional space

where the dimensions correspond to European, East Asian, Sub-saharan African, and Native American genetic contributions to the individual's genome.

There is a high degree if clustering, corresponding to what were once geographically isolated population groups.

[sui generis]

11. Yes BUT there is no currently known phenotype for skin color

regardless of one's continental family of origin.

[FarCenter]

12. Since skin color is an observable trait of the organism, it is by definition a phenotype

[sui generis]

13. agreed on definition

but there is no as-yet known marker that says, hey, this pile of goo comes from a black man.

[FarCenter]

14. It depends on what you mean by "black"?

If you want to know whether the person's ancestry is predominantly sub-Saharan African, you can do principle component analysis of a hundred or so SNPs and establish the percentage of ancestry with a fair degree of confidence.

If you want to know whether the person's skin was black, you would look for the specific alleles of skin-pigmentation genes. I'm not sure how accurately you can predict skin color from known this, but you could rule out fair skin. Some of these genes also predict hair color, but not all.

[sui generis]

18. so it's not at all deterministic

go figure, but that was my point.

It is probable that we're splitting hairs, and I say that with a fairly high degree of non statistically derived confidence. ;-)

[KamaAina]

15. Stanley Crouch belongs to a very exclusive club

the Order of Black Negro Conservatives. Basically, you've got him, Michael Steele, and Armstrong Williams. :eyes: