Liverpool opinions
Black is not the only shade - Musings on the language of racialism
By John Williams
In the sixties, when mankind was embarking on a journey to the moon and beyond, the language of racialism in America was firmly rooted in antiquity, just as it was in Liverpoool, London and Paris. African Americans were categorised as being black or various shades thereof. The highest 'accolade' that an African American could receive from white people was that he/she could 'pass for white'. In order to 'achieve' this 'compliment', the African American had to be wrenched from the black/brown continuum and designated as being ' high yellow', trapped in a racial limbo, neither black nor white. Many actresses and actors, singers and show business personalities were held back in their careers, because many of the white supremacists in America, like their counterparts in South Africa, prided themselves on being able to detect the smallest trace of African in their appearance.
Out of this cauldron of hatred and injustice sprang the civil rights movement, and, given the need to focus African American pride, the expression 'Black is Beautiful' was coined. It was a highly successful slogan, in that songs and other mediums promulgated the idea around the world. However, as someone of Catholic Anglo-Irish descent I wonder if our employment of such simple signifiers is always wise.
For instance, I know many Catholics who will not tolerate orange lilies because of their association with William of Orange and the Protestants of Northern Ireland. In so doing Catholics have not only lost the sweet aromatics and aesthetics of the flower, but have voluntarily ceded one seventh of the rainbow to others. Of course, the reverse is true of those Protestants who cannot abide any association with the colour green.
Similarly the word 'red' became a pejorative term throughout most of this century because of its communist connotations, and in the previous century because of its association with native Americans. The Chinese are represented as the 'yellow peril', although in their own culture yellow is the colour of righteousness, 'the golden mean', and in the industrial world 'blue collar workers' are thought inferior to 'white collar workers'. The life hating Nazis employed yellow stars for Jews and pink for gays.
So when someone says, "I am black and proud" I have to ask is the choice of the word black the most productive one? On the one hand that person is stating a fact. He is dark skinned and he is proud, but the word 'black', in my opinion, tends to undermine his claim to equality simply because in the world of human language and perceptions 'black' is the most negative descriptive word in existence. In other words it generates unequal evaluations of things.
Human language abounds with expressions with connotations of degeneration, disease and death and most of them contain or are connected with the word black. To name but a few, melanism with its connotations of cancer: black as hell, blackleg, black economy, blacken, black, blacklead, japan, ink, ink in; dirty, blot, smudge, smirch make unclean; deepen darken; singe, char burn, very gloomy, dismal, or depressing 'the future looks black indeed', black propoganda. No doubt you can furnish many others.
When we use language we should be aware that one single word conveys so many different meanings at an unconscious level that we do not mean to be picked up. For instance, there are many kinds of love, parental, filial, sexual etc, so when we say 'I love you', all of those meanings are present in the one word. Small wonder that many people feel unable to utter the phrase, even though they feel the emotion. So you see how when I hear the phrase, ' I am Black', all of the negative meanings that I have gathered my life are somehow present in the single word black.
Perhaps I am simply painting things black, but I wonder if African consciousness and progress would be better served by the adoption of a new, less perjorative slogan. How about,
"I'm from the cool band of the rainbow!" 1999