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As much as we may dislike them, people can't help placing themselves and each other in categories. As time passes, we also often feel the need to change their names
I recently spent time with the superstar philosopher Professor Cornel West and saw him elicit raucous laughter with an anecdote. A fellow black American and he were in conflict. Accusations were flying. The prof fired off a zinger. "I told him," he said with a chuckle, "I'm the negro you want to be."
A putdown of high quality: but negro? No one says negro. Unless, as here, the term is served with lashings of irony.
Negro is long gone. Black, its successor label, might not be long for this world. We're confused, some say. It could get worse. Earlier this year, one campaigner fired a shot with an e-petition to Number 10. "Africans are the only race called in a negative adjective, the word black in its definition says it all; dark, gloomy obscure, dusky, murky, dim and etc. 'Black' is often associated with catastrophic events such as Black Monday which refers to Monday 19 October, 1987, when stock markets around the world crashed. Black Tuesday, Black Wednesday, Black Thursday, Black Friday, and etc (sic)." Black "is derogatory to people of African origin," it said. "African British is more acceptable. Britain should stop calling her citizens Black."
The petition itself didn't fly, but the notion has some traction. "Are people from China still called yellow people," asks the bLack of Respect campaign? "Are Arabs and Mediterranean people called beige or brown? And Sri Lankans black people? When did you last hear a Native American called a red Indian? This is inconsistent – all other races are described by heritage."
I'm fascinated. Who decides when a descriptive term has outlived its usefulness? How do we reach consensus on the next one? Should we have them at all? I can hear the argument; why do we do this to ourselves: people are just people.
Widespread disgruntlement. Just the other day the actor Riz Ahmed and writer Hardeep Singh locked horns in court over an article the latter wrote headlined: "It's time to stop using the word 'Asians". Head for Google; another debate. "It's time to stop saying 'Caucasian'." We love to label, we hate the labels – especially our own – and every so often, to feel better, we have to change them. Things change, things stay the same.
