Referring to people as "black" in the USA

I was listening to a (US-produced) podcast recently, with a panel of guests talking about tech news. One of the guests was British, the rest American. It was recorded in the week after Obama's inauguration. The British guy, Wil Harris, interjected at one point to say "So guys, I hate to point out the obvious, but wasn't there something that happened this week that may have a huge effect on the tech industry for the next four years or so, maybe..?". After some joshing around about waht he might possibly be referring to, he finished his elephant-in-the-room routine with "Some black dude...?". At which point there were embarrassed noises from the others and the host said "We don't say that any more, Wil".

Harris's rhetorical humour, such as it was, obviously lay in referring the new US president in such off-hand terms, but seemingly his choice of words was beyond the pale. Is the word "black" itself the cause of the embarrassment? In the UK, "black" isn't seen as derogatory, whether it's used by white or black people. I know most Americans prefer "African-American" these days, but wasn't aware that "black" had become quite so off-limits. Or was it the fact that it was used in conjuction with "dude"? Or was this panel just atypically oversensitive?

If you want to hear it, it's at 16'40" of the mp3 at http://twit.tv/179

no, people still say "black". what they don't do is reduce the elected president of the US down to "some black dude".

I know most Americans prefer "African-American" these days

I wouldn't agree with this.

Black is fine. I think the embarrassment was more about that being the sole identifier. People often also use African-American, which is more politically correct than black, but the word black itself is not pejorative.

The diminution was purposefully ironic. Oversensitive panel.

surely it was the reduction of obama to his race that was offensive. as well as the casual disrespect of the phrase.

what akm and Maria said (esp. akm) (and Tracer)

OH MY GOD JUST BOMB ENGLAND ALREADY FFS THIS IS AN OUTRAGE

no, people still say "black". what they don't do is reduce the elected president of the US down to "some black dude".

― akm, Wednesday, February 11, 2009 2:30 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^yeah exactly. tbh this seems obvious to me, i'd have flinched a little if someone said "some black dude" to me, and i'm sick of british people pretending they don't know what words are appropriate or not when it comes to race.

RACISM CONTROVERSY STAN STAN STAN BACON BACON BACON OK SEE YOU NEXT WEEK

Yes, god forbid Alba ask such a question.

what they don't do is reduce the elected president of the US down to "some black dude".

― akm, Wednesday, February 11, 2009 2:30 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

bit po-faced imo.

just tryin to speed things along!

fuck any country that ciara doesnt come from imo

"Wasn't there some jerk who said something about the Jews awhile back? Some short German dude"

bit po-faced imo.

― Ecstasy Mother Forster (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 11 February 2009 14:38 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

C'mon, it was The President of The United States of America this dude was bad mouthing.

i'm sick of british people pretending they don't know what words are appropriate or not when it comes to race.

I know what you mean, and I hesitated to ask the question. I was genuinely surprised by the reaction on the podcast and was interested in unpicking it.

From the sounds of it, it says more about American's deference to their leader, compared with the UK's. As Tracer said, it was a purposely ironic reductiveness, but perhaps it was an irony that came too easily to Harris's lips.

What slightly undermines that reading is the host's "we don't say that any more" reply, as if it was outdated terminology that offended him.

Can we get Marcello in here for his definitiv judgement plz.

srsly I will lock this thread when that happens

C'mon, it was The President of The United States of America this dude was bad mouthing.

HE LIKES SPIDER MAN FFS

tech industry? i don't get that bit

Obama's infrastructure plans involve dramatically boosting things like wireless broadband coverage in the US and getting everyone hooked into the Internet.

I wonder if the panelists were particularly uncomfortable with a British guy making a joke about Obama's race, as innocuous as it might have been. Since non-Americans aren't as acutely aware of how race operates in the U.S., it may be harder to tell what kind of implications, if any, such jokes carry. In other words, I don't think it was "deference to their leader" as much as protectiveness over the precarious racial dynamics involved in this country and specifically in Obama's election.

Yeah, his tech agenda has been a regular topic on TWIT.

x-post

Does 'african-american' include white africans or those from north africa? Does it include black people from the carribean? it's to make this distinction why black british is considered acceptable.

is he really called 'wil' not 'will'?

bit suspect.

xpost

'making a joke about obama's race'??

Yeah, jay, that sounds right to me.

'making a joke about obama's race'??

― Ecstasy Mother Forster (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 11 February 2009 14:46 (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah will you please stop it.

A joke involving Obama's race, I guess jay means.

I'm sorry, I said "purposefully" when I meant to say "purposely". I hope no one here is offended.

xpost Yes.

xpost that british white dude?

"white, black, Asian..."

still bothers me, maybe more and more

"some mixed race dude"

"black" in the USA

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61H82xJ0btL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

i'm still misunderstanding the joke somehow. what does obama's race have to do with his plans for spending on broadband infrastructure? sorry to sound like a dumshit.

Wil Harris included "black" because his joke was that the person in question was so obscure that an identifier like that was necessary.

"some secretly muslim dude"

Oh wait, now that I've done a GIS I get it. Harris is white. Yeah that doesn't help.

fyi britishes and various assembled foreigners african american is a term used primarily in the public sphere - in every day conversation regardless of the speakers race 95% of the time theyll say black - tho def african american is gaining in popularity - too bad imo its super clumsy clinical term - tho i guess that weve devised no ordinary sane way to refer to race shouldnt come as any surprise

Wil Harris included "black" because his joke was that the person in question was so obscure that an identifier like that was necessary.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, February 11, 2009 3:03 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark

Yeah, Harris was just putting on a little jokey routine: "Hey guys I think we're forgetting something here ... something big that happened this week ... involving, oh I dunno, some black dude ...?" He could've just as easily said, "some guy whose name rhymes with 'Marack Momama.'"

too bad imo its super clumsy clinical term

yeah it's just too long/too many syllables

And it can be somewhat inaccurate as well.

Have noticed lately that R Maddow refers to people in the news as "African-American", and her African-American guests refer to the same people as "black". FWIW

yeah whoever said that 'black' is ok if it's not purposely reductive was otm

gave me a good some dude pun username at least

quick on the draw

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20258442,00.html?xid=rss-topheadlines

(now I'm just baiting Marcello)

Personally I think they were just embarassed to see a British guy use the word 'dude' in front of them.

i feel u m-dog

this was in nyc

And not, as you implied, in the North of England.

For a lot of white Americans, "culture" (in its anthropological sense) is often thought to be something that other people have.

^ this. "culture" is implicitly anthropological, thus often directed towards the other. but that's the easy half.

"white society" went 4-1 over "black society". tempted to suggest that "society" is implicitly "civilized", and therefore...

hay white guyz and black d00dz just saw this google ad on a huffpo obama story

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=COHz35reo7rmbRDIARi9ATIIrZLLp0wbiO8

Oh, I would have said that the "society"/"culture" debate is easier that that, I think that white people don't think there IS a "white culture" because we're more into being Italian or Scottish or Dutch or whatever than a skin color. Whereas black people are all the same, I seen it on the teevee. Therefore, black people have a (singular) culture, whereas white people are all different, don't you know.

lol "interracial singles"

But Laurel, aren't most white people in America pretty mongrelized culturally? Perhaps not in pockets but generally?

look on white dudes face is buggin me out

Probably? I just suspect that deep down (or maybe not that deep) the cumulative white viewpoint is that they're more different from their white neighbors than black people are from other black people. Purely supposition.

Partly based on my kind of recent realization that people mean black when they say "urban", for instance.

urban = saggin

am i supposed to read that backwards

OMG

How did you even NOTICE that? Or is this something else I've missed?

andwhat:

fuck no! i realized after i posted, and was gutted. but no takebacks on ilx...

jesus

bahahahaha

contendo u should google 'reggins' once.

those racists, so clever.

i am happy to have been totally clueless WR2 reggins

flaming heck, this thread started this afternoon or something and it's 330 posts

^ mechanics of race thred

'Reggins' is so despicably cowardly.

How many of you guys are black?

That's because the board loves this shit.

do you mean how many of us dudes are black

Does anyone have blue eyes and do you hate yourself if you do?

Yeah sure. No. Um-how many of you people are black. You people. Jesus.

actually my eyes are fuck off troll

I am Black Jesus

the repetition of "you people" is A+ trolling, though, right?

unfunny troll is gone now; go login with another one of your bazillion guesspaper sockpuppets

was it chaki

reminded me of this classic chaki post

Ya see, them Neegrows have flat noses. The Bible says that people with flat noses are not allowed to approach God "For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous," Leviticus 21:18

Ethiopians on the other hand have proper noses so they ain't really black

- Jim

― murderdogger, Monday, February 11, 2008 2:53 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=COHz35reo7rmbRDIARi9ATIIrZLLp0wbiO8

can't get enough of this

was it chaki

odds are no

Interracial Singles

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/2348480491_3c21e4f01b_b.jpg

who was it, HD?

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/opopop.jpg

this can be the part of the thread at the end of irreversible

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/opti20animated.gif

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/output.gif

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/01_censored.jpg

http://www.banbucket.com/uploads/1234449075.jpg

this thread has truly been a blaffair to rememblack

i haven't been following it, but i just remembered this paper i wrote like freshman year of college, something about racism, and i used "black" instead of "African-American" for the whole thing, which was a lot of "black"s. i also remember the professor said the paper had a "voice." yay for college!

lol @ who started thread w/"black dude" in title
Seeing a black dude at a Cat Power show and thinking to yourself "oh, he must be the bouncer" - racist or not?

I've always liked how guys with strong south Chicago accents say "blacks"... like "blakes" sort of.

late, but I call both women and men of any race "dude" because I grew up in southern California and that is how we talked there, dude

also everyone in southern california is a black dude, regardless of race or creed

Didn't realize l0u1s jagg3r was an Ay-rab.

By the time Feb. is over I predict a blacklash the likes of which God has never seen.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22334