Pastor Marc A. Tibbs
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in college admissions was unconstitutional, I wrote in this space about Justice Clarence Thomas, who concurred with the 6-3 majority opinion that now makes it more difficult for Blacks and others to break through centuries of white privilege and preference in higher education.
As a child growing up in rural Georgia, Thomas was ridiculed by his friends and neighbors who as an insult called him “ABC – America’s Blackest Child.” The name calling referred to his extremely dark skin complexion. I explained in a previous column that calling a person “Black” in the 1950s and 1960s was tantamount to calling them the N-word. The only thing worse than calling someone “black” back then was to call them “black with nappy hair.”
I also surmised that Thomas’ childhood trauma back then might have been the impetus for his perverted outlook on affirmative action today. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the through line running from such a tortured childhood to a deep-seated negative self-image. In this respect, Thomas is not alone.
Sociologists call what Thomas experienced as a child “colorism” – an intra-ethnic stereotyping which involves Black people themselves engaging in racism of a sort based on the hue of one’s complexion.
Justice Thomas is also married to a white woman. Not that anything is wrong with marrying outside of one’s race – they say love is blind. But when you exhibit a negative self-image as a Black person, AND you marry outside of your race, it’s bound to raise a few eyebrows.
During Thomas’ childhood, the preferred term to describe Black people was “colored,” which was a term used in polite society to refer to Negro people.
Yeah. You read that correctly – Negro people. During Justice Thomas’ day the word “Negro” had been an acceptable term, but the term “colored” came into fashion because the word Negro sounded too much like that derogatory N-word we now so completely want to avoid.
We so want to avoid it that we dare not say it out loud. We’re so afraid of the word that we resort to the most juvenile means of even referring to it – “the N-word.” We say it like toddlers telling their parents it’s time to go to the bathroom: “I need to go number one, or number two.”
All this made me wonder about the power of the names we call each other and names we call ourselves. I mean, who was this Georgia kid who came up with such a hurtful and despicable name to refer to the young Justice Thomas. The name “ABC” was hurtful and despicable in the 1950s and ‘60s, but later, not so much.
The term “Black” was transformed from a pejorative term into a term we learned to embrace: “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” the Godfather of Soul James Brown encouraged us to proclaim. And say it loud, we did. “I’m Black and I’m beautiful” became our mantra. Our nappy hair blossomed into an Afro, and today dreadlocks have become as acceptable as the old French Collegian, close-cropped haircut we all used to wear.
We took what had been an insult and turned it into a point of pride.
A similar thing happened with the N-word. There are white people still today who resent how hip-hop artists bandied about the term in their music. What some white people never realized is that young people had co-opted the N-word and transformed it from an insult into a term of endearment. There’s some white person in Firestone Park and Ellet right now reading this column and saying to themselves: “If they can say (the N-word), why do they get so mad when we say it.”
So, what’s in a name? Everything. The N-word on a white person’s lips is often an invective – a term solely used to insult someone in a highly critical way. Those of us in Black culture, on the other hand, have heard the word used to describe Black males – “Those (N-words) are looking for women.” We’ve heard it used to describe random, unidentifiable people – “There were a thousand (N-words) at the festival.”
We’ve even heard the word used to describe best friends: “Man, that dude is alright with me. That’s my (N-word).”
Now comes the latest iteration of name calling which erupted on the floor of Congress a few weeks ago when Arizona Representative Eli Crane took to the floor to support an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill which would eliminate the teaching of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the military.
“My amendment has nothing to do with whether or not colored people or Black people or anybody can serve,” said Crane, and immediately the media were aghast. Some called it a racial slur; others said it was derogatory and demeaning. Crane himself apologized, and by unanimous consent the House of Representatives voted to strike Crane’s comments from the record.
How much different was Crane’s comment from the more politically correct term “people of color?” Is a person of color not, grammatically speaking at least, also a colored person? There’s even a more inclusive term that has been coined to identify minority people: BIPOC – Black and Indigenous People of Color. This term is designed to include Black people and Native Americans, and brown or Hispanic people.Who can tell the players without a scorecard. All I can say is “the more things change; the more things change.” What’s in a name? Apparently, everything.
