A week ago was Martin Luther King Day, a day that always provokes a lot of thought and discussion about color, race, and ethnicity. There’s a bit of irony in that, since Dr. King dreamed--as do most of us, I think--of a society in which those things don’t matter. Of course, despite the progress we’ve made since the beginning of the civil rights movement, we’re not even close to having such a society, and so we continue to talk about race. Depending on the context, sometimes that’s a bad thing and sometimes it’s a good thing.
In addition to MLK Day, a couple of other things have had me thinking about race. I finally got around to watching a PBS documentary about Los Angeles that I taped weeks ago, and it had a lot to say about that city’s ever-changing mosaic of ethnicities and the relationships among them. (Strange thing: when I was younger I had nothing but contempt for L.A.; as I’ve gotten older I’ve become deeply fascinated by and even enamored of it.) Then there was Jamie Foxx’s win at the Golden Globes for Ray, along with Don Cheadle’s nomination for Hotel Rwanda. (Judging by the audience, Cheadle was the popular favorite, and I kept imagining that if he’d won as well as Foxx, Julia Roberts would have popped up out of the stage to tell us that she loves her life.) There was also a recent experience with my bank, an erroneously bounced check, and white privilege. Actually, I was going to write something about that, but it seemed too serious, and as serious a subject as race can be, I’m not in the mood to be all that serious about it right now.
So, there was also the 20 minutes or so of The Big Lebowski that I watched as I was eating breakfast on Sunday. I’d seen it before (underrated movie, by the way) and was on my way out so I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it was near the beginning where Jeff Bridges refers to the guy who peed on his rug as a “Chinaman”, and then John Goodman says something to the effect of the “preferred nomenclature” being “Asian-American”. In our politically correct age we often have to negotiate the pitfalls of preferred nomenclature, and even when you’re sensitive to it, the nuances can be tricky. I’m not entirely sure, for instance, why some people seem to prefer “African American” over “African-American” (i.e., non-hypenated versus hyphenated). To me, they connote different things: an African-American is an American of (black) African ancestry (which is generally what we’re talking about when we use the phrase), while an African American is an American who emigrated from Africa. This is obviously a grey area, though, which is why Snoop Dogg can make a joke about how Charlize Theron should give him a call, because they have so much in common: they’re both African American.
Since moving to the Southwest, I’ve noted that while the American Indians I knew in the Northeast seemed universally to disdain the term “Native American” (and to prefer “Indian”), out here it’s “Native American” that takes preference (so far as I can tell). I’ve also gotten straight on the fact that “Hispanic” and “Latino” are not interchangeable, since “Hispanic” includes natives of Spain and those of immediate Spanish descent, while “Latino” refers only to emigrants from Latin America and their descendants.
None of those terms applies to me, so I don’t really feel entitled to an opinion about them. (Note that I didn’t say I don’t have one, just that I don’t feel entitled to it.) But I’d like to talk about a term that does apply to me: Caucasian. I’ve heard it on numerous occasions recently (which is what got me thinking about it), in various contexts, from the playful (like Jamie Foxx’s acceptance speech) to the serious (like the L.A. documentary). And here’s what I think: it’s a doofy-ass word, and it’s time we got rid of it. It’s a holdover from a time when scientists believed that all humans could be categorized as one of 3 races, which they termed Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid. They’ve since realized that things are far more complex than that, and indeed have begun to question whether race is even a viable scientific construct. Plus, “Caucasoid” and the sibling that replaced it in popular speech, “Caucasian”, were never accurate terms to begin with, since the theory that the peoples they described originated in the Caucasus region of Eurasia proved false.
In modern American English, of course, “Caucasian” is a synonym for “white”. It would surprise the scientists who coined it to learn that it was being used in this way, and it would surprise most people who use it nowadays to learn that it originally included a lot of folks who aren’t considered white, including the peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. (It would no doubt surprise a lot of white Americans to know that whiteness itself is a flexible concept, and that if their ancestors came from places like Italy, Ireland, and Poland, they weren’t considered white when they got here.)
But anyway, the fact that “Caucasian” and “white” are synonymous obviates the need for both, so I’m voting we dump Caucasian. To me, it’s like “Negro” or “Oriental”: not offensive, exactly, but clunky, anachronistic, and weird. It just grates when I hear it in a sentence. If it’s being employed for comedic effect, that’s different, but no one should use it seriously.
Another synonym for “white” as it’s used in Present-Day English is “European” (or “of European ancestry”). I’m hardly going to be offended if someone refers to me as white, but I like the term “European-American” better. “African(-)American” came into use as a means of identifying people by their ethnic ancestry rather than the color of their skin, which--as long as we have to keep sticking people into categories--I think is a good idea. So I started using “European-American” to describe myself some time ago, but people always kind of looked at me funny…in many cases I think they thought I was making some sort of sardonic comment on “African-American”, which was totally not the case. Lately, though, I’ve started to see “European-American” or variations thereof popping up on forms and stuff. Usually it’s something like “White/European”. I’m trying to encourage it.
At the very least, though, let’s get people to quit with “Caucasian”.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Various thoughts re: your entry...
I don't know if you saw the PBS documentary on the black boxer Jack Johnson, but it was excellent. The most jaw-dropping thing was the utter terror & dread white America felt at the prospect that Johnson could (and eventually did) become the first black heavyweight champion. It was seen as a crushing blow to notions of white supremacy. And while it was almost comical from our vantage point watching the program, it was a deadly serious matter at the time (around 1910).
Yeah, 'black'. I refuse to give up the word, and I have never once used the term 'African American' (unless, as here, to comment that I don't use the term). For what it's worth, I live in one of the most integrated big cities in the country, and I've not once been asked to use it by someone black, nor been told that 'black' is in any way objectionable. I should add that if the day comes when I do start hearing such objections, I will no doubt accede to the request. But only then. I'm sure this is largely a function of age. I grew up w/ 'black' being the accepted term, so my brain is hardwired to that. (Just as those a few decades older might think, what's wrong w/ 'negro'?) But also, 'African American' has never stopped sounding awkward & arbitrary & unwieldy. And in a way, you make my point for me--it would sound silly to me to call myself Swedish-American or European-American. Mind you, I respect your difference of opinion, and see where you're coming from. But another factor is, it seems part of a broader American inferiority complex. Yeah, we're a young-ish country, but not *that* young. And other countries don't do this. If they did, Mary-Jane would call herself 'Russian-British'. But she doesn't.
You're correct about 'Native American', I'd say for the entire West, not just the Southwest. 'Indian' isn't quite as outdated as 'Oriental' (and probably never will be, for various reasons), but it's definitely a distant second in usage. I'm of two minds about this, but I am accustomed to 'Native American'. To muddy it further, I think I sometimes will say 'American Indian' but never just 'Indian'. B/c when I hear the latter, I think of India.
I mostly say 'Hispanic' rather than 'Latino'. Oh, and that reminds me that in high school, my Spanish teacher, Miss Ramirez, told us once she didn't like the term 'Chicano' and called herself 'Mexican-American'.
Now I agree with you re: 'Caucasian', which seems overly technical or something (and now thanks to you I can add, inaccurate). But I prefer simply 'white', same as 'black'. Another reason I resist your boosting of 'European-American' is geography. I've never lived in Europe, nor my parents, nor three out of four grandparents (the fourth, my dad's father, was English, specifically Cornish). Most blacks would say the same re: not having lived in Africa. So grafting these countries we've never lived in onto our identities seems odd, especially when your family is a few generations removed from whichever old country, like mine.
Another thing I've noticed. The ones who insist on saying 'homosexual' (a clunky & unwieldy word if ever there was one) rather than 'gay' are invariably those who just plain don't like gays.
Christ, this was my longest comment ever.
-nkl
I thought caucasians were in Russia somewhere, no? I am enjoying your site. I haven't read it since it was a baby, and now it's a healthy, smelly, opinionated teen with a large vocabulary. Good work, JKT.
The Caucasus Mountains are indeed located in southwest Russia, between the Black and Caspian seas. They form the practical barrier between Europe and Asia. My retention of geography has served me well.
I'm all over the place on this issue. I agree with you and I agree with Mr. Lucas. One thing I can definitely say is that only in this country would we have this problem.
One the one hand, I like "European-American." According to my own personal recollection, "Asian-American" has only recently become the vogue nomenclature for the people it describes. If I ever heard "something-American" it was either "African" or "Some European country." This bothered me because I have issues with Africa being treated as a single entity instead of the continent comprised of many nations that it is. Of course, I realize that this is a seperate and unrelated issue and the real reason "African-American" came into use was because most people of African descent have no idea what specific country their ancestors came from, whereas most people of European descent would. You'll never hear anyone claim to be a "Côte d'Ivoirien-American" or anything. Anyway.
"Asian-American" made me feel better about the whole thing somehow. Because I never really learned the terms "Oriental" and certainly not "Chinaman." I knew "Chinese" and "Japanese" and, you know, other Asian nationalities. So the term "Asian-American" sort of made me think, "Huh." And given the context of this post, it does seem like "European-American" is due for its arrival. And I agree, Caucasian is out. It's time to retire it.
On the other hand (I almost forgot I was doing hands!) people who aren't American always seem to be desperately confused by the whole "-American" business. In an effort not to make this reply ridiculously long, I'll just say: I'm fine with it. I did, at one point, though, try to combat this by being completely detailed about my ancestry. Irish-American and Italian-American just weren't working. My cultural legacy didn't begin and end with the Atlantic. That got tiresome quite fast.
So, either I'm sticking with my claim of being a Irish-Scottish-Norman-Frankish-Celtic-Gaulish-Turkish-Italian-Germanic-
Ostrogothic-Visigothic-Roman-Estruscan-Trojan-Indo-European-American (and that's not the half of it), or I'll settle with being a European-American.
In an only slightly related but amusing closing note, somewhere on the internet I read a claim that J.R.R. Tolkien was obviously a racist because there were no African-Americans in the Lord of the Rings.
Post a Comment