The subtlest way African-Amricans have endured racism has been in the traditionally and inescapably framed identification of the people by race and only race, color, if we will, although everyone knows that neither black nor white are colors. Negro, colored, black; all of them preferable to using the term nigger, unless one were a Klansman, then the latter would always be preferable. Calling oneself African-American and not black is an attempt to side step the marker of race, thus asserting an ethnic identification in its place and as the principal means of identifying the people we used to call black. Black is a term of color, a racial marker. All markers and markings have too much to do with stigmas; the connotation we give to the word ‘stigma’ herein applies. The practice of branding slaves might come too mind, probably always remains residual in all talk about the blackness of black people. African-American, like Italian-American, is an ethnic identifier. Yes, the term African-Aemrican is an ethnic identification as would be Irish-American or Swedish-American. The fore mentioned identities of Italian-American and Irish-American are identities for me to claim, each in variation on the nationality theme, mine principally being American, at least in my home, the way I was raised to identify with my native land more than with the lands of my ancestors. The idea that I was white was something that could only have sustained itself in racist dialogue; in fact, there was very little discussion of whiteness where I grew up that didn’t have something to do with a general or more traditionally framed racist conversation. The sociology of whiteness in America had little to do with who was caucasian, something we understood as having validity paleontologically, even if it has lost the credibility it once had in academic discourse. This has everything to do with how endemically racist we were, are, continue to be–even to the point that most dialogue from African American communities also cannot escape the endemically racist rhetoric American underbellies have been famous for.
Whiteness was not the principal way I identified myself–even at a time of heightened race consciousness. The principal way I identified myself was through ethnicity, any one or all of the ethinicites, as we identify them in America, being part of what I called myself–what are you? I’, Italian, Irish, French and Swiss. Nationality in America’s bureaucratic systematization is a synonym with ethnicity, although we know that these are often not the same. Nonetheless, Ashkenazi from the former republics of the Soviet Union are called Russians, as are many of the non-Russian Russian speakers, no matter how badly they speak Russian. In my place of work, any non-Russian speaker is called a Russian, and for years this has included many Ukranians, some of whom might actually be ethnic Russians. An African-American most likely identified himself within the notions of blackness he grew up with, unable to escape the markings of race, whether they be of stereotypical blackness, or of the racist’s definitions of blackness, or of how these racistly drawn stereotypes of negative blackness were extrapolated through theme and variation interplay by African-Americans themselves, or how blackness might be positively asserted as in the black franco-phone socio-political idea of Negritude [please reference Aimee Cesaire]. Blackness also took upon itself a growing militant flavor in the late sixties; this sense of black power was more assertive, more aggressive, more beligerent, even; these themselves typically American in our more overtly aggressive and violent social nature, that is, interactively among ourselves. However blackness was defined, identifying oneself racially was significantly other than defining oneself ethnically. The categories were understood as mutually exclusive.
The categorical distinction of African American has likeness with that of Italian American and all other ethno-centric, nationality rooted variations in being American. This idea that a people can manage how racist dialogue affects them by changing the name we use to reference them is not a naive one. It’s not that prejudices cannot arise for or about ethnicity, or that a conflation of racist rhetoric and hatred can not happen to an ethnicity; what is important to note is that by asserting ethnicity as the chief identifying marker, African Americans are mutually identified in a way white people principally identify themselves, lessening the otherness of racial identity either when placed against the traditionally mutually exclusive whiteness or when the ethnic identities of Europeans are placed against, as in counter-distinction with, a mutually exclusive category of blackness.
It is integral to understand that the term African-American is a rhetorical attempt to side-step the rhetoric of racism; in managing the rhetoric of race and racism in such a subtle yet effective way, the psychology of racism is also addressed positively and proactively. The effects on psychology based on language use and choice is tangible and definable. It is true that the only people who focus on the whiteness of white people are themselves racists, or are either overtly or inadvertently engaging in racist dialogue. In fact, no one has ever referred to me as white except white people entering or nearing racist argument or African-Americans, who themselves might not see ethnicity before they see color, that is, race. African-Americans, hoping to side step dialogues or diatribes caught in the vice of race–and yes, race is a vice, if you will–refuse to call themselves black. Naming themselves black, if not in carefully orchestrated contexts of communication, puts African-Americans in a diametric position with whiteness, which is always in one way or another racistly drawn. Among the many ethnic groups in America, African-Americans are one. Race just might become incidental; if incidental, then it cannot be overarching, either in negative or positive stereotyping, neither of which handles the reality of the simple separate African-American very well.
The Falling Leaf Review 