Youneverknow: "half-black"

[Michael Newman]

Except there is very little if not nothing that is "just a fact" in US constructions of race which have been so malleable because they are tied to varying and unstable social constructions.  When I was teaching 9th grade in NYC, the subject of Jews and race came up and about half the kids felt that Jews weren't White. This, I think, was related in part to their familiarity and affection for various Jewish teachers and an understanding of Jews as oppressed. However, it echoes less sympathetic discourses from before WW2.




Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu



On Dec 10, 2011, at 3:06 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Youneverknow: "half-black"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's parallel to half-Japanese or hapa. If you have to talk about someone's racial heritage, I just don't understand why you would call someone who is half-black just black. Maybe to emphasize that Obama is our first black president as a form of ethnic pride or disdain, and maybe certain situations where categorizing that way is convenient, but a fact is a fact.
>
> Because the most common mix in the US is white with another ethnicity/racial group, then saying "half-X" and leaving out the "half-white" part makes sense.
>
> I have a friend half-Japanese and half-Chinese, and I might refer to him as one or the other if we are in a Japanese or Chinese restaurant, etc., so maybe something along those lines makes sense, too...
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
> On Dec 9, 2011, at 4:57 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>> Isn't that pretty common to say?
>>
>> If those people who commonly say that a white individual is
>> "half-black," "half-African-American," or whatever accept such a
>> person as wholly white to the same extent that those people who
>> commonly say that a black individual is "half-white" accept such a
>> person as wholly black, then, clearly, a difference that makes no
>> difference is no difference and my previous remarks on this point are
>> nothing but reverse-racist nonsense and I apologize.
>
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