Whats In A Name

A lot of people got uptight after viewing their 2010 Census form recently. On one of the lines for race, there were three names to represent us; Black, African American and Negro.

We the people that are dark skinned in this country with ancestors that were enslaved hundreds of years ago have had the hardest time breaking out of the mental slavery thrust upon us. One of the first steps to solving any problem is to first admit that there is one. Many of us haven't admitted that yet. The Census was proof that there is.

One critical factor of any group to solve any problem is to first come together to form one single unit. Being that we can't even get over the hump of deciding a name for ourselves and sticking to it, this seems to be a problem as well.

What if 5 players from the Atlanta Hawks basketball team referred to themselves as the "Black Birds," while another five preferred "Dark Wing Men," Another three just wanted to be known as "The Sky Team," while the remaining two just called themselves, "Flying Animals." At the same time, what if each group wore a different jersey to represent themselves in the public and refused to answer to the other names, even getting upset if being called the other. How hard would it be for them to come together as one cohesive unit capable of bringing home a championship?

We are originally Africans. Once coming to this country we were given the name Colored. But in many eyes there are so many colors how could we use this one description to describe ourselves. Next came Negro and Nigger. Negro is simply Spanish for black while nigger was a racial slur. During those early years being called black was offensive. Everything in the English dictionary depicting black was negative. But somewhere during the civil rights movement between Malcolm X sparking black pride, James Brown singing, "I'm Black and I'm Proud," and the Black Panther movement, black became the thing to be and Negro was considered a racial slur almost. Shortly after, Blacks embraced Afro American. But it wasn't to long before our afros were being cut down and we wanted more to signify our African heritage so we chose African American.

Nowadays not only have we confused other races but we have also confused ourselves. Although we have several prominent organizations with the word Negro or colored in it, such as the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the United Negro College Fund, if a white person call us Negro or colored, many of us will be highly offended.

But at the same time, many of us have turned Nigger into a term of endearment while others still hate the word with a passion. Because of the love of rap music to younger generations of other races and because it is used so loosely amongst hip hop peers there are suddenly Hispanics, Whites and others referring to us and sometimes themselves as niggers as well which confuses everything even more. Many of the younger generations, including our own, nowadays don't even know the history, pain and misery caused by that word. They just think it sounded cool when the rapper of comedian used it. It is so hard to properly teach heritage to youth when most of them are being influenced so heavily by TV, music and movies.

So what are we? In this months Informer we will explore that topic more, talking to several sources in the black community about which they prefer. We also included two poems. The first, is a poem that was spoken by Smokey Robinson on Def Poetry Jam a few years ago about his love for "Being Black." The other is from Anthony Williams of NYC who went by the name of Poetry as a Brooklyn rapper in the late 80's and early 90's. His rhyme was written in 1986 and recorded in 1991. It is entitled, "What Am I?" and is proof that the question of identity title for blacks in this country has been swirling in our heads for generations. As always, would love to hear your feedback. We may possibly print some of it. Write us at yennek709@yahoo.com to respond.

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