[poll] 'Negro' as an option on a form

[SandEagle]

what if we combined all three options and used blafricanegro? is that offensive?

 

[Rakehellion]

as someone who's married to a nicaraguan and who's best friend is 1/2 mexican and 1/2 spanish, this is 100% false.

You mean the word wasn't phased out? What a time to live in!

 

[OCGuy]

The US Census had "Negro" as an option in 2010......nobody other than white-guilters complained.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

"Negro" is used to refer to black objects, not people, which is why that term fell out of use in the 1960's.

lol, wrong color. You're thinking of "oriental".

 

[ch33zw1z]

indifferent.

 

[mikeford]

Seems like some look for things to be offended about.

 

[Vapid Cabal]

meh

x2

 

[pcgeek11]

Black, Negro, Colored, African American. The only one of those terms that are false for most is African American. Most of the black / colored / negro people in America have never been to africa.

 

[Geosurface]

I find it bizarre, though, that African Americans, in particular, have gone through so many iterations of the politically correct term for their ethnicity, even during my lifetime, and how the outmoded terms then become "offensive."

I find this interesting too and I've considered why this might be. I think I may have figured it out.

I think there is perpetual dissatisfaction with any term, no matter what it is, among the black community because of deep insecurities within that community. You're probably aware that traditionally there has been a preference within the black community for straighter hair in children, talking about "the good hair" etc. There's a lot of hair straightener used... there's certainly insecurity among black women about how common and popular it is among black men to date white women, and to prefer lighter skinned black women.

There was a whole movie on this I watched recently, it came out last year I think, it was a documentary called "Dark Girls"

There's also the fact that other racial groups throughout history have always had a particular problem with their racial group, and that even within the US they've faced racism from whites, Jews, Arabs, Hispanics, Asians, etc. All of these groups have their own issues with one another, but the highest level of disdain and "my daughter's dating WHO?" has always been reserved for blacks, by all other groups (to my knowledge.)

There's insecurity about the associations people have with blacks and crime, etc. I think it's hard to look at the condition of black communities around the country and around the world, and to feel pride as a black person. I think this just piles on more insecurity. Of course there's insecurity about the history of slavery and segregation and all that too.

So when there's that much insecurity and a belief that everyone else dislikes you, I think no matter what term is used and no matter how carefully chosen it is to try to avoid offense, eventually it is associated with those negative stereotypes and negative feelings, and it gets "toxified" like all the previous ones did, and has to be changed out again.

Btw I'm merely theorizing what might explain what you noticed as a "oh that's a fascinating cultural thing" type of perspective, certainly not arguing that any of those stereotypes and associations are right, they are just merely historical facts.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Don't the PC crowd ever have better things to do other than protecting their small tiny feelin's.

 

[SandEagle]

I find this interesting too and I've considered why this might be. I think I may have figured it out.

I think there is perpetual dissatisfaction with any term, no matter what it is, among the black community because of deep insecurities within that community. You're probably aware that traditionally there has been a preference within the black community for straighter hair in children, talking about "the good hair" etc. There's a lot of hair straightener used... there's certainly insecurity among black women about how common and popular it is among black men to date white women, and to prefer lighter skinned black women.

There was a whole movie on this I watched recently, it came out last year I think, it was a documentary called "Dark Girls"

There's also the fact that other racial groups throughout history have always had a particular problem with their racial group, and that even within the US they've faced racism from whites, Jews, Arabs, Hispanics, Asians, etc. All of these groups have their own issues with one another, but the highest level of disdain and "my daughter's dating WHO?" has always been reserved for blacks, by all other groups (to my knowledge.)

There's insecurity about the associations people have with blacks and crime, etc. I think it's hard to look at the condition of black communities around the country and around the world, and to feel pride as a black person. I think this just piles on more insecurity. Of course there's insecurity about the history of slavery and segregation and all that too.

So when there's that much insecurity and a belief that everyone else dislikes you, I think no matter what term is used and no matter how carefully chosen it is to try to avoid offense, eventually it is associated with those negative stereotypes and negative feelings, and it gets "toxified" like all the previous ones did, and has to be changed out again.

Btw I'm merely theorizing what might explain what you noticed as a "oh that's a fascinating cultural thing" type of perspective, certainly not arguing that any of those stereotypes and associations are right, they are just merely historical facts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_IXzU-lnLU

 

[Linflas]

Didn't most people stop using Negro around the 80's?

Actually I think the switch to black from negro took place in the 1970's although negro was not considered to be offensive rather it was outdated much like colored had become outdated in the 1960's. Funny thing is that neither term was ever meant to be offensive rather they were terms meant to be polite rather than using the n word slur everyone is familiar with.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Words created to soften the blow of something taboo quickly absorb any negative connotations they were meant to avoid in the first place. Steven Pinker, a linguist at Harvard University, calls this the “euphemism treadmill,” also known as pejoration.

As stated by Pinker in his article The Game of the Name, "the euphemism treadmill shows that concepts, not words, are in charge: give a concept a new name, and the name becomes colored by the concept; the concept does not become freshened by the name." [5]

 

[UncleWai]

I call my black google nexus "The Negroid"

 

[Anubis]

my mothers maiden name is Negro

shes Italian

zero fucks given about this

 

[nehalem256]

my mothers maiden name is Negro

shes Italian

zero fucks given about this

What did you grandparents say when they found out your dad was marrying a Negro? :biggrin:

 

[jhu]

Black people being called "African-American" makes as much sense as calling white people "European-American."

 

[Anubis]

What did you grandparents say when they found out your dad was marrying a Negro? :biggrin:

my grandfather didnt really care. my grandmother once asked my dad why he didnt date any "normal white american girls"

she was pretty raceist up until her death. She had us put up xmass lights at her house when she was going to be away so that "people didnt think she was jewish"

she lived in the same house for like 70 years....

 

[Craig234]

Not offensive.

If memory serves, the word "negro" was included in the 2010 census because in a prior year, the word had been omitted, and a significant number of black people had then written in "negro" to describe their ethnicity. For at least some black people, then, this is their term of choice. I'm sure it was included in this jury questionnaire for the same reason. In any case it is not and never has been a racial slur, and I think it's silly for anyone to be offended by it.

I don't want to be inconsiderate, and I will call people whatever they want to be called. I find it bizarre, though, that African Americans, in particular, have gone through so many iterations of the politically correct term for their ethnicity, even during my lifetime, and how the outmoded terms then become "offensive."

That's a generally reasonable post; but I've thought about this some and I think a reason is that those different names have histories linked to prejudice. There are real histories that go along with white prejudice against black people when names of 'coloreds' and 'negro' were very widely used in a negative sense. As equality improves, the name can change to try to avoid the stigma with the previous word, and then bigotry can pollute again.

I think it all comes down to there being two basic uses of whatever name - one is meant to be diminutive, pejorative, said with contempt - the N word being the classic case - and the desire to use a word that is neutral and respectful. The people wanting to do the latter - like you - get caught up in the word having to change periodically.

Even with all that, then there's the occasional effort to 'rehabilitate' a word. One author wrote a book arguing for blacks to reclaim the N word to remove the venom from it.

Those effort usually don't go well - the desire to make the word defanged instead result more in the freedom for bigots to enjoy getting to use it again.

It all comes down to the basic attitudes people have about race - the issue is the venom behind whatever word is used. But picking a respectful phrase helps a bit with that.

It's awkward - the 'most neutral' phrase currently is probably 'African American', but there's almost no use of any '-American' for whites, like 'Caucasian-American' or 'European-American', so there's still an implied superiority that a group needing a suffix isn't a 'real American' to some. This is why I prefer the phrase 'black', neutral and matches 'white' - though of course it's kind of limited to them, you don't want to refer to Native Americans as 'reds' and Hispanics as 'browns'.

One last bit of rambling on this, we are even further behind on the growing number of 'mixed race' people the human race is slowly and presumably permanently moving to.

'Mixed' seems to be about as far as we've gotten for that group for a label.

As for this form - I'm open to the use of previous terms like 'Negro' where there's a need for historical reasons and no slight meant - like your census example - but generally it's come to be offensive because of previous usage.

 

[DougK62]

I had a funny "race" incident a few years ago. Was out with a friend at a bar (both of us white) and he was going to meet up with another friend of mine later but he had never met the guy before. So I was describing him - he's a black guy. I said he was black, this tall, yada yada build, etc. He was meeting him at a place that had a lot of black customers, so he asked me what shade his skin was. I thought about it for a bit and said that his skin is the color of my couch. Some older white lady sitting next to us just lost it and started calling us racists. It was really funny to both of us. Some people are just super sensitive.

 

[skimple]

Negro is just spanish for black, and in typical American fashion we need to include spanish on forms

Ha!

When I first read OP's title, my first thought was "Negro Modelo? I could really go for one of those right now!"

Only after did I realize it was race trolling.

Disappoint.

 

[alzan]

I would have had such super high respect for her had she crossed everything out and wrote in HUMAN.

This +1

 

[MiniDoom]

I'm married to a spanish woman so she's always dropping the N word as in frijoles negros!

 

[jhu]

I'm married to a spanish woman so she's always dropping the N word as in frijoles negros!

Why did you marry such a blatant racist? That must mean you are one too.

 

[HeXen]

Why did you marry such a blatant racist? That must mean you are one too.

It must also mean he's Mexican since according to you, who people marry must mean something in return.