Hello Faithful Reader,
I hope this month's edition of the Black Birdseye View finds you well and in good spirits. I am well. Starting this month, I will begin diving into the question, "What it means to be black in America.
I am the type of person who likes to break things down to their foundations to gain a better perspective of what it is and what it is not. Naturally, the first thing I decided to do was revisit my thoughts on being black.
As a child, I remember hearing grown folk say, "If you black get back, if you brown, you'll stick around, and if ya write, you alright." I remember dark-skinned girls saying, "I ain't going out there in all that sun, I'm already black enough!" It was not uncommon for a little dark-skinned girl to not like the little light-skinned girl because per the little dark-skinned girl, the little light-skinned girl "Think she cute." I remember so many of my classmates proclaiming, "I ain't black. I'm Indian!" as if that made them somehow better than the people who were just black. I remember when it was not popular to be dark-skinned, I remember when "light-skinned" was in style. As an adult, I remember watching little black girls play. They would drape a white sweater on their heads and pretend it was long blond hair. Today, I find it annoying that if I am out and about at any given time, a black man will approach me as ask, "what are you?" or "what are you mixed with?" As if being referred to as anything other than Black is a compliment. As a child, it felt like no one wanted to be black. As an adult, I have had countless people tell me how excited they are after receiving DNA test results that confirm they are less black than they thought they were.
What does it mean to be black? To find the answer, I will interview all types of people to determine what others believe being black is. I will transcribe the interviews and share them in my column to better understand what it means to be black. Be sure to keep up with the Black Birdseye View as we unravel a simple word that is anything but.
So, let us begin with the definition of the word Black:
As an adjective - of the very darkest color owing to the absence of or complete absorption of light; the opposite of white.
As a noun - black color or pigment. "a tray decorated in black and green" a member of a dark-skinned people, especially one of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry. An American having black African ancestors: African American. A person belonging to a race of people having dark skin.
As a verb - make (something) Black; blacken. "the house was pocked with bullet holes and blacked by smoke."
DATED•BRITISH - refuse to handle (goods), undertake (work), or have dealings with (a person or business) as a way of taking industrial action. "the union blacked the film because overtime was not being paid."
In Art - Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, a color without hue.
According to Wikipedia:
“in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
When you look at the timeline and consider all words people have used to refer to a black person (people of color) born in America, it is interesting.”
According to NPR.org
“An Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves into any Port or Place Within the Jurisdiction of the United States" (signed in 1807), which applied to "any negro, mulatto, or person of color" — indicating that the term was well-enough established to be used in the text of the legislation. People who fit this broad category could no longer legally be brought into the country for involuntary servitude. But the precise definition of "person of color" has varied among the states and over time. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest reference for "person of color" is from the French gens (or hommes) de couleur in the late 18th century. A 1797 survey of the population of what is now Haiti described three classes of people, including "The class which, by a strange abuse of language, is called people of color, originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks." "Person" or "people" as a term for human beings, that's pretty much uncontroversial. But color — which can be used as a noun, an adjective, or a verb (transitive and intransitive) — is a word packed with history, prejudice, and confusion when it's used to describe someone's complexion as an indication of race or ethnicity.
Colored was adopted in the United States by emancipated slaves as a term of racial pride after the end of the American Civil War. It was rapidly replaced from the late 1960s as a self-designation by Black and later by African Americans, although it is retained in the name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In Britain, it was the accepted term for black, Asian, or mixed-race people until the 1960s."
Slave, colored, black, African American, and people of color are ways black people have been classified in America. I do not know of any other group of people who have had so many labels. (We will revisit this topic as we dive deeper into our research) I believe this to be a good stopping point. My goal was to introduce the first topic we will research in 2021. Join me next month as I share transcriptions of interviews that will help us continue to unravel the mystery of so many labels and to gain better insight into what it is to be called black in America. Until next time
Always,
Robin
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