TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/030689/03068900.032

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 5KB | 85 lines

NATION, Page 32

In Search of a Good Name

The debate over whether blacks should be called African

Americans is about more than just a label


    According to the Bible, a good name is worth more than a
precious ointment -- and choosing one can be just as sticky. Since
December, when Jesse Jackson proposed that the group now called
blacks (formerly known as Negroes, and prior to that as colored
people) should adopt the designation African American, the idea has
been catching on. In a recent poll conducted for TIME by
Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 61% preferred to be called black, vs.
26% who supported African American. (Though the survey was too
small to be statistically valid, it indicated that the name change
has made some headway.) The name has also found favor with
soul-station disk jockeys and college students, who are quick to
correct those who refer to the group by any other term.
Politicians, prompt as ever to respond to popular opinion, have
concocted their own variations. When he was elected chairman of the
Democratic National Committee, Ron Brown referred to himself as an
"American of African descent."

    For groups, as for individuals, taking a new name is a
quintessential American act, a supreme gesture of self-creation in
the land where Norma Jean Baker became Marilyn Monroe, homosexuals
became gays, and Esso became Exxon. But for many blacks, the choice
of a word by which others will know them has a special
significance. During their centuries of bondage, slaves had names
that were often chosen by their masters. Booker T. Washington wrote
in his autobiography Up from Slavery that there was one point on
which former slaves were generally agreed: "that they must change
their names." This process of shucking off so-called slave names,
commonly in favor of names with an African or Islamic flavor,
persists. Malcolm Little became Malcolm X and then Malik
al-Shabazz. Cassius Clay transformed himself into Muhammad Ali. Lew
Alcindor became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Civil rights activist Stokely
Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture. The writer LeRoi Jones
converted to Amiri Baraka.

    Similarly, for more than a century the descendants of the
freedmen have debated what name they should bear as a people. In
every instance, a shift in appellation coincided with a new stage
in the struggle for equality. In the years after the Civil War, the
terms black and negro, favored by slaveholders gave way to the
gentler designation colored. Early in this century, when the legal
battle against Jim Crow laws was being pressed by the N.A.A.C.P.,
Negro returned, but with a respectful uppercase N. That gave way
to black during the militant days of sit-ins and mass
demonstrations during the 1960s. Blunt, proud and unequivocal,
black embodied the sheer racial confidence that the civil rights
movement had engendered.

    Now, with a growing black middle class, the enormous expansion
of political power epitomized by Jackson's presidential campaigns,
and a burgeoning sympathy with the struggle against South African
apartheid, yet another shift may be taking place. Jackson argues
that "black tells you about skin color and what side of town you
live on. African American evokes a discussion of the world." It was
Ramona H. Edelin, president of the National Urban Coalition, who
actually proposed the switch in December at a Chicago meeting of
black leaders, including Jackson, that was held to plan a summit
to set a black agenda for the next century. Edelin says she hoped
that encouraging the use of African American "would establish a
cultural context for the new agenda we plan to set" at the summit,
scheduled for April in New Orleans.

    As persuasive as the arguments in favor of a change may be, to
some they represent a diversion from more important matters. "This
undue concern with our name is a reflection of our powerlessness,"
says Cornell University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., a leading
literary theorist. "I don't really care what we call ourselves. I
just want us to get economic and social equality."

    Others contend that African American comes no closer to
capturing a unique heritage than the word it would replace. S.
Allen Counter, a Harvard University professor of neurology, has
coined the term Afrindeur Americans to reflect the mingling of
African, Indian and European bloodlines. "Historical, biological
and cultural integrity is what's in a name," says Counter. "We must
be true to all of those."  In Los Angeles entertainer John KaSondra
has embarked on his own crusade in favor of "Dobanians" -- short
for descendants of black African natives in the American North.

    The verdict on a new group designation will ultimately be
delivered by common usage. But KaSondra's concoction is an idea
whose time will probably never come. Just think of it: The National
Association for the Advancement of Dobanians?