‘Post-Racial’ America Takes a Look at Itself in the Mirror

The last week has been a strange one in that land where language, politics and society all come together.

It began when MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported that the U.S. Census Bureau included the term “Negro” on their forms for the 2010 count as an “acceptable” alternative term for “Black” or “African American.”

According to the Census Bureau, the reason for the addition of term, which last appeared on their forms in 1970, was that “many older African Americans,” in their 60s or above, continue to use the term “Negro” when referring to themselves or others.

A few days later, we found out that it was not only “older African Americans” — or shameless racists like Rush Limbaugh — that continue to use the term “Negro” these days.

In the soon-to-be-released book Game Change, all about the 2008 presidential sweepstakes, it has been revealed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, commented to others during the contest that Barack Obama had a good chance of being elected because he was “light-skinned” and spoke “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Reid has spent much of his time since attempting to apologize for his comments, while other Democrats, civil rights activists, opportunistic Republicans and ratings-seeking media commentators have squared off in the Roman arena of “public opinion.”

While the spectacle on the television has been fascinating, it is designed more to keep people from thinking about the issue than to provide any insight on exactly what is wrong about using the term “Negro” these days.

It is true that some organizations, including civil rights organizations, that have been around for decades continue to use terms like “Colored People” and “Negro” in their names, and that a genre of music, “Negro spirituals,” still uses the obsolete term.

But this is not an acceptable argument.

From the 1700s until the late 1960s, the term “Negro” was considered acceptable. But that “acceptability” was established, conditioned and perpetuated by a society that was dominated primarily by Europeans and descendants of Europeans who brought Africans to North and South America as slaves.

It was, to put it simply, the kindest word that the masters had to describe their slaves.
And for hundreds of years, the Africans and their descendants accepted the term as their own, using it to define themselves.

But that changed beginning in 1968. The rise of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s challenged the use of the term “Negro” by both Black and white. The term was placed in its historical context — as the “civil” version of “n*gger” — and rejected.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, Black, Afro-American and African American became terms that were both self-identifying and, more importantly, self-deriving. That is, they came from the community itself.

As for “Negro,” it quickly fell away as a term created by a dominating ethnicity to describe those they considered a dominated “minority” (terms like “Hispanic,” “Oriental” and “Eskimo” met a similar fate over time).

It can be argued that the reappearance of “Negro,” both in a government census form and in the private musings of a top politician, are a matter of generational difference.

But by this line or argument, one can justify the not-so-civil terminology used in the past in reference to African Americans, Latinos, Asians or indigenous peoples.

It is more accurate and truthful to point out that what we’re seeing is where the myth of “post-racial America” runs into its reality.

While the more overt and shameful expressions of racism may have been pushed back into the dark corners of society, the institutional, generational and class-driven manifestations continue almost unimpeded.

In fact, Reid’s comments, when viewed in the context of the discussion he was having (Obama’s chances of being elected president), are more damning of this society than of himself. He let slip America’s dirty little secret: racism is still a dominant force here.

The question is: Will this be a “teaching moment,” or will it get swept under the rug?