After attending Peggy McIntosh's talk this Tuesday, FACES and the AHAHA Leadership Council have shown me that I am not completely correct in my critique of our generation. The audience was packed, and many people seemed engaged in the conversation. I would say that the event succeeded in its efforts to engage the Boston College community in this dialogue about what racism is. To understand what racism is, it is also important to understand the idea of race in general. Under what considerations do we even mention race? I left the discussion wishing that I had asked Peggy McIntosh a question that I'm sure someone else would be just as able to answer: Why is the term African-American considered politically correct? After countless surveys where I have had to fill in the African-American bubble because it was the closest category that I could identify with, I've found myself wondering what it means to be American. Is an American someone that has lived in the United States for such a long time that they no longer identify with their nation of origin, or is it someone that has recently just become naturalized as a United States citizen? Is it both? It seems that Caucasians are just naturally more "American" than the next person. In the many questionnaires and applications that I have had to fill out, I have never seen a box labelled European-American, which in theory would be the counterpart of the politically correct African-American box. The term European-American might seem absolutely absurd to some people that could argue that not all people with "white" skin originate from Europe. This is why I am trying to figure out why, in a country as diverse as the United States, someone like me from the island nation of Haiti constantly has to fill in the African-American box when the "black" box would be satisfactory. Even with all these talks about race, specifically in regard to the black population, we seem to be confused about the difference between races with nationalities. Everyone at some point originated from Africa, and studies have actually shown that people with dark skin are more closely genetically related to the fairer-skinned aborigines of Australia than are people with white skin. One of the points that I would respectively add to Ms. McIntosh's list of 50 reasons why she is more advantaged as a white woman is that she does not have to add a qualifier to be identified as American - she is just automatically perceived as being so. In those questionnaires it is not hard to find Asian-American, Native American, and African-American. I would like to know why these distinctions must be so affirmative for every other group but the term White American is nowhere to be found. It seems as though white is just assumed to be American, regardless of whether a person has just migrated to the country or has been here for many generations. Others that might have lived in the United States for so many generations that they are no longer even able to identify with their nation of origin still constantly have to prove how American they are by the sue of this method. So we attach American to whatever label society has given each respective group and never even bother to do the same to "Caucasian." Being politically correct should not be as significant as respectfully referring to someone by what they most universally identify with. Obviously, it would be impossible to distinguish among all the different nationalities by just looking at people. However, having courtesy does not mean we have to circumvent what we call each other. Someone with racist sentiments is not any less racist because they used African-American over black. I personally feel that by avoiding using the term black, we are admitting that we think there is something wrong with being black. As a result, I feel that if we consider all of the immigrants, political correctness would eliminate so many people from seeing themselves reflected in the culture. Race isn't all it's cracked up to be. If we're going to have this senseless construct, we might as well be true to each person. However, the most important insight I gained from investigating this issue arose when I asked one of my friends what race she feels that she identifies with. She answered, "Why does it matter, we're all human."
Nidia Fevry is a Heights staff columnist. She welcomes comments at nfevry@bcheights.com.
Be the first to comment on this article!