I'm Right With You About Not Being Labeled an African-American, Raven-Symone

I haven't tracked the hype on it because folks can sho nuff hype about different things, but apparently it is news that Raven-Symoné said that she did not consider herself an African-American, but as an American on a recently aired "Where Are They Now?" episode on the OWN Network.

Raven-Symoné was just saying that she did not like being a label.

I still regard the term African-American as pretty new as I clearly remember when they started using that term.  I also remember how I hated that term because of the automatic assumption that because my skin is dark, I am supposed to be an African-American.

Every time I heard the word mentioned in the media, I would cringe.

About a decade ago, a supervisor and I were talking about Christmas holidays and he asked me if I were going to celebrate Kwanzaa.  I said, "Man, I don't know anything about Kwanzaa.  That is a tradition that was brought here in the 60s."  Then I broke and said, "And don't call me an African-American either.  That's just the term to be politically correct for the day."  He told me that he went home and told his wife, "No matter what you do, don't ask Tonya about Kwanzaa or say African-American."  Apparently, it was a wake up call that all Blacks do not celebrate Kwanzaa and that all Blacks do not accept the word African-American.

Like Raven-Symoné noted that her roots were in Louisiana, I don't know how my family arrived to Cleveland, Ohio before the 1900's.  My folk could be Haitian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, New Guinea, etc.  And yes.  Even with that there is a link back to Africa, but bottom line..... TODAY.....I don't know it and I don't try to claim what I don't know. 

What really makes me HATE the word African-American is it's a catchall to classify a group of people because of their skin color. My hatred for that term has nothing to do about Africa except for the fact, I don't know jack about Africa and I'm not about to begin studying Africa or embracing Africa like I am "supposed to” or “expected to” because I am of color.    Of course, history research is always on the menu and where it is personally important to my children and me, it is an appetizer. My main course, however, is about what I can do today and my dessert is about how what I do today will impact tomorrow.

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I remember when I was just a child, we were Negroes (so it says on the birth certificate), and then I recall the term Black.  Whew.  My father hated it when I used the word Black and told me to use the word Colored. It was almost a punishable offense to use the word Black in our household.  So probably then for him, when the tide turned when folks started using Black, that was like African-American to him.  I liked using the word Black because it had a strong definition to it.  Solid.  Black is Beautiful.  Powerful.  Pride.  As a child, I always pictured red, green, and yellow when I heard the term Colored. I didn’t like the word Negro because it was too close to the word nigger - a word heard repeatedly from speeding passersby while walking home from school.

Then it went to Afro-American.  I could never understand that.  What the hell a hairstyle term got to do to classify a group of Black folk – so I thought as a youngster.  Then the classification got cute and landed on African-American - to my assumption to be respectful or something.  This is how I remember the chain of labels evolving.

But why we got to be anything?  When will we ever get to the point we are just a race of humans?

I rebelled against forms requesting racial demographics.  I would cross out the word African or just write in the word Black for Other.

Anyway, I hope Black folk ain't gonna be all up in arms saying that Raven-Symoné is turning her back on her 'race' because she said she is not African-American.

Pause…..

okay…..

gonna keep moving…..

I think I may have let the term African-American slip somewhere, here or there, in prose.  I quietly backed down about my stand on being labeled. Part of it is I began to choose my battles.

Another reason is I know who I am and labeled myself.

Posted by:

A Child of God who lives in the United States of America.

More info:

http://www.oprah.com/own-where-are-they-now/Raven-Symone-Jackie-Evancho-Maurice-Benard-and-More