His meditation on race -- and humanity's relatively recent preoccupation with race, and how it determines identity -- is worth reading in full.
In America, attitudes and prejudices about race concern mostly blacks, and mostly black males, in negative ways. Ironically,
When Africans were gathered on the shores of that continent to be packed into the reeking holds of slave ships for the voyage to this country, they saw themselves as Taureg, Mandinkan, Fulani, Mende or Songhay -- not black. As Noel Ingnatiev, author of How The Irish Became White, has observed, those Africans did not become slaves because they were black. They “became” black because they were enslaved.
On the flip side, continues Pitts:
I’ve often thought the word “white” had a tendency to discomfit the people to whom it is applied, to carry some hint of accusation that is no less real for being unspoken. In my experience, white people are often ill at ease with being referred to as white people.There is, I think, a reason for that. “Black” and “white” are equally artificial, but black fairly quickly took on the contours of a real culture.
Whereas "white" includes all the categories not covered by anything else. Like on those applications and Census forms, where we white guys are supposed to check "Non-Hispanic White." [SPOILER ALERT: I'm white.] That's a pretty big catch-all, if you ask me. Although there is a lot of truth to this, too: http://
Seriously though, I should add that, among academics, the idea is taking hold that we should talk about ethnicity, not race. FYI, here's as good a definition of ethnicity or ethnic groups as any:
An ethnic group is a social category of people who share a common culture, such as a common language, a common religion, or common norms, customs, practices, and history. Ethnic groups have a consciousness of their common cultural bond. An ethnic group does not exist simply because of the common national or cultural origins of the group, however. They develop because of their unique historical and social experiences, which become the basis for the group’s ethnic identity. For example, prior to immigration to the United States, Italians did not think of themselves as a distinct group with common interests and experiences. However, the process of immigration and the experiences they faced as a group in the United States, including discrimination, created a new identity for the group.
If you accept this definition then you must conclude, as Pitts has, that the term "African-American" is meaningless. Indeed, a long time ago I babysat for an African-American woman who emigrated from South Africa, and she was white as can be. But there are even more subtle but important distinctions than that among the so-called African-American community....
P.S. -- Happy New Year! (That is, if you subscribe to the Western-European-centric Gregorian calendar....)
By Leonard Pitts, Jr.
January 1, 2013 | Miami Herald
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