Hey ladies,
I have been giving a bit of thought to this topic for a few days now, and I just wanted to offer my opinion (it's newly formulated, so if it's a little sketchy... and long, bear with me). I started thinking about this the other day because of another incident that happened at work, and I think that I can tie the two together. I work with this young lady (who happens to be white), she's a couple of years younger than me, but since she's started working there, she has completely bonded with me, and she's very nice. One reason why I like her is because she's completely cool, and "multi-cultural", but she's not one of those type of people who are just "trying to be black", that's just who she is, and on top of that her name is Keysha...(maybe it's just me, but I have never met a white girl named kisha, then she spells it kinda funky, LOL). So I always say, "there's my favorite little white girl", and she always laughs about it.
THe other day, one of the other girls who works with me kinda got offended, she was like well, you shouldn't say that because what if she decided to say there's my "favorite little black girl", you wouldn't like that too much. I never thought about it like that, but I guess that would be kind of awkward, if not for me, for maybe someone who may have overheard like a co-worker or patient. THen she went on to say that we, as black/african-american/afro-americans, we have it too good, because we can say things that other races may not be able to say in a public setting. Just like we may be able to say the "n" word and SOME of us wouldn't get offended, white folks have no option of whether or not to say the word. Have you ever watched ComicView on BET, how they pick on white people in the audience, and the joke about how white people always fall in horror movies, or how white people can't dance, what if you were watching Improv, and they were making Black-people jokes, we'd demand that the show be terminated!
I know this isn't exactly tied in with the original post, but these are some of my thoughts on it. I don't really have a preference between the terms "Black", or "African-american", but it also depends on who the speaker is, and their context in saying it.
I know my great-grandmother( she's 81), still uses the term "colored", and no one would think anything of it because she doesn't mean any harm...but a few months ago, this gentleman came into my workplace, and in speaking he asked me was I saved, and I said yes. So he then asked me "Well, I don't suppose you have a church home, do you?" I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact I do" And he goes, well I am the Pastor of 'such and such', and we have a great number of coloreds in attendance in our congregation, we have career programs, and single-parent ministries, and ...." so he goes on to say that I should come visit his church sometimes...I said no, thank you, as I said before, I have a church home, I attend...where Senator ___ ____ is pastor" Which just happens to be one of the largest churches in the city, (black, caucasian or otherwise). And then I guess he got offended, and was like "well you don't have to start name dropping!"
That comment in itself showed me that his intentions weren't well-meaning, and I didn't appreciate his ASS-uming that I, 1) didn't have a church home, or that I, 2) didn't have a clue in what I was gonna do with the rest of my life (I have a good job now, although I am in school), 3) that I may be a single parent (although there is nothing wrong with it, why ASS-ume!) , and 4) that if I did have a church home, it was probably some hole-in-the-wall store front church (not that there's anything wrong with a storefront church, but why ASS-ume)
So I guess this is where I mean, it depends on who the speaker is, if it were my grandmother or another older person, or someone who didn't mean it in a condescending fashion, then I wouldnt take it to heart. But some people's tone and meaning give words a whole new (or archaic) meaning that IS to me, patronizing and out of date.
Anyway, I have taken up more that enough space in this topic, but hope ya'll get my point. Thanks for listening...well reading!
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