Re: Can you call someone "Black" these days ?


"Eddie Wall" <eddie@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:a19ur3941nf38mn7t5pdj7pofp3doaa1rp@xxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:48:47 -0000, "Hal Ó Mearadhaigh."
<homestud@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eddie Wall wrote:
Can you call someone "Black" these days ?

Of course, why ever not?

I have seen it many times in the US where someone is told that they
cannot refer to someone as Black but "African American" or where a
dark skinned person has insisted as being described as "African
American". I remember, at a conference, where a marketeer was
introduced ( I thought as being quite peculiar ) as a "Leading African
American" ..... I hesitate to think what you would call a Caucasian
markeeter or why the race mattered that much.

Not having been in the situation where I would have a need to refer to
race I have no idea what is politically correct, but "Black" would not
have been top of my list and I just cannot see "African Irish"
working!

We can get along with Anglo-Irish, Scottish Irish, I'm sure there's lots of Polish-Irish now, so I wonder why should we not be getting used to Nigerian Irish, Moroccan Irish, Somalian Irish? African nationalities are just as distinctive, and you'd think we'd know that by now.

You'd have to wonder just how useful it is anymore to refer to a person in Ireland as 'black'. Two decades ago that would have narrowed the field down to 10 people, but what useful information does it give anymore?

On the census form there was a section about ethnicity and there was a box to tick marked 'black'; but again what useful information is gained from this? Was the person from France, USA, UK - who knows?

Even to say African wouldn't be enough - most of us in Ireland now know that a Nigerian is as distinctive from a Somalian as a Pole from a Spaniard, so why can't people refer to them by their nationality - do they really still think that they 'all look the same' when the average African village reputedly contains more genetic variation than the whole of Europe?

Descendants of those people in the USA who were forcibly shipped there as slaves don't have the luxury of knowing exactly where their ancestors originated from and so largely have no choice but to refer to themselves by an entire continent rather than any particular area, can you imagine people referring to themselves as Euro-Americans instead of Irish-American?

So while not entirely wrong, depending on who you ask or who you're talking to, it's not terribly helpful in this day and age in Ireland to say that the missing girl is black, it's just too broad a term really and a sad relic of times when people thought that human beings could be divided into neat little 'races' like breeds of dogs.

I think you're right and we should stop using it as a means to describe people, no matter what they might have to make do with in the USA.

.

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