Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: January 26, 2020 01:15AM
OneWayJay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tevai Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> > A similar situation would be the use of the
> word
> > "colored" (meaning: Negro), and certainly in
> > American life. I was raised to believe that
> > "colored" was a more polite, socially PREFERRED
> > term, to any alternatives, BUT post Civil
> Rights
> > Era, then and now, says that the preferred
> usage
> > is "black," and "colored" is now outright
> > offensive. (There are similar situations in
> > American culture concerning Native Americans,
> > Jews, Asians, etc. What may be okay/preferred
> > language at one point in American or wider
> history
> > may be a "no, no" at a future historical
> point.)
> >
> Wonder if the NAACP knows this?
The NAACP was founded in 1909, one hundred and eleven years ago.
Sometimes (though definitely not always) when a name or symbol is chosen in one century, it becomes anachronistic as the far future becomes the present. (Think of all the "Redmen" and tomahawk and drum symbols which were adopted in the last couple of centuries, as high school or college nicknames and identifiers, and are now--to a large extent--being renamed and resymboled....but not always.)
In the case of the NAACP, the anachronism today serves to emphasize the countless, known and unknown, historical sacrifices of the past (when "colored" meant "less than" in the larger society), which have, over time, become the foundation of our present and our future.
Today, every time anyone mentally or verbally sounds out the words symbolized by the NAACP acronym, they are paying homage to all those who have been the victims of historical maltreatment.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2020 02:53AM by Tevai.