What’s In A Name? Plenty …
January 3, 2007 on 2:48 pm | In Main, State |After reading this morning in The Hartford Courant that state Department of Mental Retardation Commissioner Peter H. O’Meara is urging lawmakers to rename his agency, I got to thinking about the evolution of names and how exactly a label becomes offensive.
Most people hear the word retarded and it immediately conjures up images of Down syndrome or fingers curled inward like a ram’s horns. Of course, like many stereotypes, such is not always the case.
But when the agency’s current name was created, words like idiot, imbecile and feeble-minded were used routinely to describe such people. So advocates for those with IQs under 70 preferred the term mentally retarded.
It was accurate and it was not considered pejorative. Fair enough. But now, after decades of use, the term that carried less baggage has finally accumulated it.
Ditto some other terms that I have run across in my career(s). When I first started teaching in 1982, students with auditory processing difficulties or reading disorders were labeled learning disabled — not slow or (God forbid) stupid.
But after repeated use, learning disabled acquired a stigma, so by the mid-90s my headmaster (and many others in the education field) preferred learning challenged or (get this!) differently abled.
During that time, Orientals became Asians, American Indians became Native Americans, black Americans became African Americans, blind became visually impaired and so forth. Were the previous names offensive? I guess you’d have to ask those the names describe, but what changed in the interim to make the term unacceptable when once it was fine?
In some cases a more accurate term was found, but in others, I suspect the name had taken on a negative connotation by repeated use. What is wrong, for example, with using the term black to describe someone of African heritage? I am white, not English American.
Furthermore, African American isn’t even as accurate as black. Take, for example, the black man of Caribbean descent who in the 1980s used to ride his bycycle all over Goshen and Torrington, his dreadlocks flapping in the wind beneath his wool headdress? An African American? African Jamaican American? He’s not even from Africa, for crying out loud.
[Aside: I once saw a CNN reporter in London refer to the Brixton section of the city as “predominantly African American.” She quickly corrected herself by saying “predominantly black,” but you get the point.]
Speaking of media, I once heard an interview on NPR with a woman from one of the tribes out west who repeatedly referred to herself as an Indian. The horrified NPR reporter asked why she didn’t call herself Native American.
Her response (and I’m paraphrasing as best I can): “That term was invented by Whites to assuage their guilt from generations of treating us like garbage. I am an Indian and proud of it.”
Sometimes if a name acquires baggage over generations, it’s best to simply stick with it. Or change it and be prepared to do it again in another 40 years.
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Gosh…what am I to do?
I have been called retarded, an idiot, and imbecile, jerk, jackass and more! And thats just my first two wives…God knows what everybody else has called me!!!
I have even been called late for dinner!
But, none of Terrys problems listed above would matter if people did not need terms to describe ones ethicity, or medical problems. Gee, how about I met Paul today, wow, how simple life would be!
Marshall
Comment by Marshall Miles — January 3, 2007 #
Like Aretha always says: “Gimme a little respect…”
This trend to inflate ourselves just a tiny bit more via highfalutin nomenclature pervades the world of work as well. You Information Disseminators have been covering this for awhile now: Sanitary Engineers, etc., etc.
We Lithostructural Aestheticists can only sit back and shake our heads.
Comment by Doug Richardson — January 3, 2007 #
Doug– What???
Comment by Paul Bartomioli — January 3, 2007 #
Change is hard and to those it doesn’t impact, it sometimes seems unnesessary.
But obviously changing these names does matter to some, usually having to do with clarity or the perception of respect/disrespect.
Since its always a good idea to be clear and respectful, whenever possible, whatever it takes, then why not just call each group whatever it is they ask to be called? How hard is that?
Just as a related asside… I remember in Lakeville when Montgomery street became Sharon Road and Robin Hill Lane became Red Bird Lane. There were alot of street name changes and I remember how to me the changes seemed unnecessry and disrespectful of local history.
I also remember how hard the name changes were to get used to.
Now it seems the ‘new’ names are clearer for emergency personel using the 911 system. We seldom have to think about it anymore.
So while change is hard, change is also helpful to some people sometimes, even if it isn’t apparent to all of us at the time why that is. And time does heal.
Comment by Mark Alexander — January 3, 2007 #
Mark Alexander, where have you been all my life?!?!
–Fred–
Comment by Fred Baumgarten — January 3, 2007 #
A similar situation exists with the “first peoples” of southern Africa. The term “bushman” is felt by anthropologists and other academics to be pejoritive, and indeed there is a terrible legacy of prejudice, even genocidal persecution, against this ethnic group by black and white alike. Yet the substitute term “San” is not the terminology used by the people themselves but was applied to them by their enemies and means “bandits.” Nor are bushman groups homogeneous. The Ju/’hoansi or “real people” of the western Kalahari speak a dialect unintelligible to the Hei//omn of Etosha Pan a few hunded kilometres to the West. Many Ju/’hoan speakers I met in my years in Namibia prefer “Bushman” to “San” as a collective term.
Comment by Tim Abbott — January 3, 2007 #
“I am white, not English American.”
That would be “Anglo-American”, and is used by my mom on every government form that has a place for “other” ethnicity. Not sure if it has gotten her any “affirmative action” yet. Not that she needs affirmation, mind you.
Comment by Jake — January 3, 2007 #
I agree with Terry that some new terms cover up real problems– differently abled usually mean you are UNable to do something–walk, read, see, hear. It’s a fact, not a judgment. I think that being “food insecure,” the new euphemism for people and families who are hungry, obscures the life and death matter of being hungry and malnourished. “Food insecure” sounds like an emotional problem when it is a physical (and social and economic) one.
Comment by ZenMensch — January 3, 2007 #
Nice thoughts everyone.
The bottom line to me is this:
The people who use the terms become uncomfortable.
They are either unable to help someone they feel sorry for, or are indifferent to someone who is not like them.
As a result, they conjure up a new way to refer to these folks and make themselves feel good.
Constantly ‘politically correcting’ these terminologies is typically a ‘feel good’ for the user and serves no benefit to the human being the term refers to.
So I think …
Comment by Michael Flint — January 3, 2007 #
“I think that being “food insecure,†the new euphemism for people and families who are hungry, obscures the life and death matter of being hungry and malnourished.”
Or maybe it’s a way for the relevant government bureaucracy to ensure the numbers are large and inclusive enough to justify their ever expanding budget.
After all, if 36 million people (see Ted Kennedy’s remarks referring to a total of 12% of the population) are malnourished due to inability to purchase food, isn’t that something we would notice every day? One in every eight or so people on the street slight of build, black rings around their eyes, pangs of hunger slowing their step? (Visit India to see the real thing).
I live in a low income, rural area where the overwhelming majority of poor people suffer from obesity (think Wal-Mart carts full of processed carbohydrates). That kind of malnutrition is due to eating the wrong foods, not due to having too little to eat.
Leads one to suppose that “food insecurity” includes people who make bad food choices and, as such, may not be so bad a term to use. But it’s hard to imaging that 36 million people in the US “go to bed hungry every night”, as the august senator said on national TV, or find themselves in a precarious “life or death” situation.
Comment by Jake — January 3, 2007 #
As for myself, on forms that ask for ethnicity, I always check Native American if it is an option. I was born in this country, and that makes me a native American. I am your average “Euro-mutt” with Italian, English, French, Swedish and Czech ancestry, but I don’t really identify with any of those cultures. (With the exception of Italian food.)
Comment by Amy — January 3, 2007 #
Jake,
I don’t think you’ve spent much time in, oh, say, New York City, have you, let alone East St. Louis, the South Side of Chicago, or Appalachia. If you have, I guess you’ve averted your eyes from the hungry, homeless people on the street, in the subways, etc.
You might even want to shimmy over to one of the nw Corner’s food banks.
For your enlightenment: Many credible, mainstream scientific studies have linked obesity to poverty. The reason? The less income people have, the hungrier they are, and the more they stock up on easy-to-get, cheap, quick-filling, non-nutritious processed foods. Hence, obesity.
Oh, go ahead, screw with me because I don’t have time to go find a citation for you. You’ll just have to take my socialist word for it.
Comment by Fred Baumgarten — January 3, 2007 #
Fred, so I guess we agree. It is not that many poor people cannot afford food, it is that they have poor diets. That was my point, too.
And I guess you would agree that the claim that there are 36 million people in the US going to bed hungry every night is a bit of an exaggeration. It may feel good to make those kinds of claims, but it makes for a lousy responses to real problems when politicians and fools make outlandish claims for the sake of their ulterior motives (like getting elected and projecting their moral vanity).
As to where I’ve been in my life, Fred, trust me, I’ve been to more places both here in the US and around the world than anyone you know personally. Guaranteed. I am one traveling fool.
Comment by Jake — January 3, 2007 #
Mental retardation is a physical affliction just like any other - all they simply “health-disabled” just like someone with, say, cancer or diabetes?
Boy, that is a dumb-sounding term, isn’t it?
Mental retardation is certainly much more than “learning-disabled” or any other dumbed-down moniker suggested. I agree with comments that pc terms make social problems easier to swallow. Call them what they are.
Signed, a Native American (of no tribal descent)
Comment by Karen — January 4, 2007 #
Tim,
That’s a very interesting story about the term “bushman.” I had never considered it pejorative, but of course I am not clued in to southern Africa.
Does anyone know what term is now used for the original inhabitants of Australia? Is it still aborigines? Indigenous peoples? Native Australians? I would be interested to find out.
Comment by Terry — January 4, 2007 #
Terry:
As you know, I lived in Montana for six years before I worked with you in Millerton. In all those years, I never heard a “Native American” refer to him or herself that way. They called themselves Indians or, more often, referred to themselves by the name of their tribe: Crow, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, etc. For that reason, I stopped being PC and went back to calling them Indians.
One more thing: The NCAA is on a crusade to ban mascots and team nicknames that they have deemed offensive to “Native Americans.” Here are the nicknames for the schools on the reservations: Plenty Coups Warriors, St. Labre Chiefs, Lame Deer Braves and the Lodge Grass Indians. If these mascots and nicknames are so offensive, why are these “Native American” schools using them? (And quite proudly and fiercely, I might add.)
Imagine if the Montana high school association instituted the same policy as the NCAA and outlawed such mascots. You would have a group of middle-aged white guys telling “Native American” schools that they can’t use these mascots because it’s offensive to … “Native Americans”! Oh, the irony!
Comment by Steve Barlow — January 4, 2007 #
Steve,
Thanks for the comment. You can’t make this stuff up.
Comment by Terry — January 4, 2007 #
Terry…
Having spent some time in Australia and a lot of time in Asia, I would say that the most accepted term is “Aboriginal People”, and to a lesser extent “Aboriginals”. “Aborigines” is clearly not PC these days, the term that was the most common in years gone by. But since that term is now associated with some of the attitudes that may have been common in those years, it is not considered polite.
There are some distinctly un-PC names for the natives of the Australian continent (even using the term native as I did in this sentence is considered sketchy), but I don’t think anyone is interested in them, least of all me.
But things change quickly (as Terry notes), so please don’t consider me the final arbiter on this subject.
Comment by Jake — January 6, 2007 #
Language, like history, is written by the victors, not by the losers, which is why we have terms that are derogatory but pass for being descriptive. My father always said — and yours did, too, I bet — call people what they want to be called, and nothing else. Ask them how they’d like to be addressed, how they pronounce their names,and then adjust your own behavior to accomodate that. What could be easier?
My rant on this subject is in some libraries; it’s called THE INARTICULATE SOCIETY, and in a review of it the Washington Post tried to slime me by calling me a cultural conservative. But
we’ra all cultural conservatives if we care about each other’s feelings enough to address each other properly.
Comment by Tom Shachtman — January 6, 2007 #
I find it most interesting in any discussion of this topic, that the participants are white.
Grew up in the inner city, never heard any blacks, hispanics, etc talk about preferring to be called “Afro American” and so on. BTW, last time I checked, Africa is a continent. So shouldn’t all whites be referred to as Euro-Americans? I am a Native American. I was born here, as were my parents. My grandparents were Italian-American. My wife is also Native American, as are her parents, grandaparents, greatgranparents and so on back to that group in 1620. THAT portion of her family was British-American.
IMHO, race mongers of all colors are ignoring the message of MLK. Every time we use these labels concerning anyone, we are referencing the color of his skin.
The reasons for this are many, including the Blame America First group, rainbow hued as is our country.
Yes, slavery is terrible, it continues to this day in the Middle East and other regions of the world. It was terrible in the US, as well, but the slaves were sold by slavemasters in Africa.
Consider this:
IF there was never a slave brought to this country, would there have been a George Washington Carver? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr? Clarence Thomas? Michael Jordan? I.M. Pei? Yes, slavery existed in the west, as well. They just don’t have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
It’s time to live the dream of MLK.
Comment by Paul Bartomioli — January 7, 2007 #