Facts. But white folk invented those constructs as a way to divide and conquer. Furthermore they were defined as such to FURTHER divide us.
When we lived in Hawaii in the early 60s, my father's command extended to India, so he took annual 6-week junkets to check his squadrons. He'd put in a few hours in the morning, then have the local officer or sergeant take him for a tour of the local shops. I have a couple of storage units of exotic stuff gathering dust. One thing he shipped back was a dictionary that was about a foot and a half thick. It was the giant one you used to read about worldwide but only big libraries bought (Merriam-Webster? definitely not some ordinary Funk & Wagnalls) and weighed about 35 pounds (a guess). I used it at home for schoolwork. It was a bargain; I doubt that Asia paid copyright fees when they reproduced books. When we left, that's the last I saw of it, because of the 8000-pound move limit. (When a military family lives overseas, they leave half their household belongings in storage in the U.S.)
I could see it being a subliminal thing. Problem is how do we describe each other without the words? We need words to describe everything.
What do you mean negative? That's how I drink it! Black: adverb (of coffee or tea) served without milk or cream. Also, the entire dictionary is printed in black type. What's up with that? Why not white type?
I agree, there are several slights here against white. 2,5,6,7,8,10, are all derogatory and/or untrue.
Well if I knew my country of origin I'd tell you. Irish, Italian, English, etc. can all trace their history back past their immigration. They can be referred to as such. That's been stolen from me... Me...? Durrett White... From Kentucky...
English was derived from the Romans, in a time when racism was not a "thing". Roman slavery was not based on ideas of race. Slaves were drawn from all over Europe and the Mediterranean, including Gaul, Hispania, North Africa, Syria, Germany, Britannia, the Balkans, Greece, etc. They didn't care about skin color, but loved having servants. (wiki) The whole white/light is good and black/dark is bad thing evolved simply from a fear of the unknown, aka nighttime. This irrational fear of darkness inspired Benjamin Franklin to harness electricity, which we now use to hurl insults at each other over the internet.
We both originated here in America, the greatest country on Earth. While I do know some of the countries my ancestors lived in, I also know of the oppression and discrimination they were fleeing when they escaped to America, and their opinion of the failed cultures they left behind. Those were their stories, which eventually had happy endings in America. My story will always just be an American story.
What's my country of origin? I'll never know. So, I must embrace being a black American. I'm not an African American. I'm an American American... We built this muthafucka so I'm planting my flag here. I'll never leave the country we built, instead I'll fight for my equality here. Where I was born. White people only say African American (most of us HATE this label) because black sounds scary. Smokey Robinson says it best:
It was an African and European thing. Africans captured other Africans, then sold them to the British and Dutch slave-traders, who sold them in Europe long before America was born. The British then firmly established slavery in the North and South American continents before the United States of America was even an idea. In North America, American Indian tribes took slaves from competing tribes before and after Caucasians set foot on the continent. About half the countries in the world today have active slavery. Most victims are children or women.
