Sorry I Can't Hear you Over Your STEROtyping

                This week’s reading was just like last week’s, predictable. But there was something different that I just couldn’t get past while reading and that was the frequency of Larson’s labeling (i.e. “black”). Every time, well almost every time, she referred to African Americans she used the term “black(s)”. Really Larson? Is there no other term to describe a person other than by the color of their skin, which by the way once again leaves out the issues of colorism and the spectrum of “black” that is group into the African American category. The ideas or concepts Larson was trying to discuss, was frankly getting lost in the overbearing amount of color categorizing in that chapter. I actually counted the number of times she used the term “black” versus “African American” (the only other word used to describe people of African descent) and it was 168 to 3 respectively, not counting words in quotes or titles. It was also interesting that “black “ was never capitalized but those who were quoted and used that term did capitalize it implying “Black” as a pronoun; a group or people or community; it gives it human characteristics rather that making it an adjective. Larson’s other chapters are somewhat redundant with the names she uses to refer to minorities but somehow she finds a way to use other words interchangeable ever once in a while. I was reminded of an article I read for the paper we had to do for Dr.Pimentel, The Naming: A Conceptualization of an African American Connotative Struggle written by Anthony Neal. This article describes the conflict and effects of what to name a black person. There’s a passage that applies the premise of “a rose by some other term could have a much lovelier bloom…” to the naming concept of African Americans by quoting Baird (1970):

In America Europeans have been the victors in the American adventure while Africans have been the victims, but it is also the truth that the oppressors have used communication as an instrument of control to maintain their ascendancy over the oppressed. Indeed, by defining to their own satisfaction the identity, status, and destiny of the oppressed consciously or unconsciously celebrate the insult and compound the injury to their victims. Thus, as to identity, the Euro-American owned and controlled communications media designate people of African descent as Negro—the name which marked them as slaves—or black which describes them physically but deprives them of cultural identity. (qtd. in Neal 52)

By Larson repeatedly using primarily one word to describe an ethnicity, she is in effect depleting their culture just like the news. As a writer, especially of a minority text, you should be conscious of words used to create or decline one’s identity. After all that, I’m not going to say I don’t like what she said, my complaint is more about her style of writing. However, I do not know her and this could have been part of her plan, but I think it was not effective.