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17.0. "Essay on Blacks, Whites, Humans" by TNPUBS::PAINTER (we've got to live together) Fri May 08 1992 15:14

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           Copyright 1983 Richard L. Bradley (SWAM2::BRADLEY_RI)
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                         BLACKS, WHITES, HUMANS


                          by Richard L. Bradley


    The time has to come eliminate the usage of the words "black" and 
"white" as adjectives describing human beings.  This seemingly innocent 
usage of common terms dulls our perceptions and leads us to false 
judgments.  Black might be better, more up-to-date, than "Negro", but it 
too is dehumanizing, as is the term, "white".

Start with dictionary definitions:

    BLACK.  1a. of the color black.  1b. very dark in color.  1c. having a 
    very deep or low register.   1d. HEAVY, SERIOUS.   2a. having dark 
    skin, hair, and eyes: SWARTHY.  2b. of or relating to the Afro-American 
    people or culture, literature, theater, pride.  3. dressed in black.  
    4. dirty, soiled.  5a. characterized by the absence of light.  5b. 
    reflecting or transmitting little or no light.  5c. served without milk 
    or cream.  6a. thoroughly sinister or evil.  6b. indicative of 
    condemnation or discredit.  7. connected with or invoking the 
    supernatural and especially the devil.  8a. very sad, gloomy, or 
    calamitous.  8b. marked by the occurrence of disaster  9. characterized 
    by hostility or angry discontent.  10. (Chiefly British).  11. showing 
    a profit.  12a. of propaganda: conducted so as to appear to originate 
    within an enemy country and designed to weaken enemy morale-compare 
    WHITE.  12b. characterized by or connected with the use of black 
    propaganda.  13. characterized by grim, distorted, or grotesque satire.

    WHITE. 1a. free from color. 1b. of the color of new snow or milk. 1c. 
    light or pallid in color. 1d. lustrous pale gray.  2a. being a member 
    of a group or race characterized by reduced pigmentation and usually 
    specifically distinguished from persons belonging to groups marked by 
    black, brown, yellow, or red skin coloration.  2b. of, relating to, or 
    consisting of white people.  3c. SLANG: marked by upright fairness. 3. 
    free from spot or blemish.  4. wearing or habited in white.  6a. 
    ultraconservative or reactionary in political outlook and action.  7. 
    not featuring open warfare but involving oblique methods.

    These entries were taken from a 1979 edition of Webster's New Collegiate 
Dictionary.  The reader may note little that is surprising in those 
definitions.  Another entry in Websters' gives a even clearer indication of 
sources of the social and interpersonal harm engendered by usage of the 
words "black" and "white" as descriptions of Humans:

Bradley2


BLACK-AND-WHITE. 5a. sharply divided into good and evil groups, sides or 
ideas.  5b. evaluating or viewing things as either all good or all bad.

    The trouble lies not just in definition, but also in the connotative 
meanings of "black" and "white".  These shared meanings operate below the 
level of consciousness, providing the motivating force for our behavior.  
We, then, invent socially acceptable "reasons" for our actions so that we 
can manage our affairs with the least friction.  This rather complex 
passage from Joseph Chilton Pearce's EXPLORING THE CRACK IN THE  COSMIC 
EGG, gives a better explanation of my thesis:

    "Jerome Brunner spoke of our "representing reality to ourselves" 
verbally in order to make metaphoric mutations of our representations and 
so change aspects of that reality.  This is one of the uses of language 
and creative logic.  But, through acculturation, we don't employ language 
selectively--either as a tool for logic, or as communication.  When 
language becomes semantic, and takes on  negative and positive values 
beyond denotation, our homeostatic system reacts to the emotional 
undertones involved.  Then we act on tangible sensory data, as well as our 
abstract creations, through our culture's value system...We interact with 
a "mediated reality" and consider the artificial result our natural 
condition."

    Thus, we have intelligent, well-educated humans in this country 
declaring that there are, in fact, black and white people.  There is 
obvious confusion of the sociological definition denoted by those words, 
hue or color, and the wide variety of connotations alluded to above. One 
hears news reporters on television solemnly warning us of "a dangerous 
black fugitive from justice, lurking in our communities."  A moments' 
reflection will instantly inform any fully conscious person, that that is 
not information adequate to inform the police or innocent members of the 
community whom to arrest, or to avoid.  Nevertheless, the usage of black 
and white (as well as other depersonalizing terms) continues to deepen 
ethnic divisions, as most people, without awareness, sanctify these terms 
as actual descriptions of real people.

    This past weekend, July 16 and 17, 1983, a newscaster on KNBC 
television, in Los Angeles, solemnly announced that "a young woman's body 
was found in the hills; she was described as black."  How many anxious 
parents were discomfited by this off-hand "description"?




Bradley3
                                COLOR BLIND


    A July 18, 1983 issue of Time magazine carried an article entitled 
"COLOR BLIND" regarding a Louisiana woman, Susie Phipps, whose 
great-great-great-great grandmother was an 18th century slave.  Mrs. Phipps 
found out in 1977, when she applied for a passport, that her birth 
certificate called her "colored".  She claims she has always considered 
herself white.  She protested and sued the state, but was found to be 
non-white because of a law enacted in 1970.  The current Governor of 
Louisiana, David Treen, signed a bill repealing that law, which stipulated 
that a person is non-white if he/she has more than "one thirty-second Negro 
blood".  The new statute requires the state henceforth to accept the 
parent's designation of a child's race.  The change is not retroactive, 
however, so Mrs. Phipps remains a "white black woman" until disposition of 
her appeal this fall.  This is just a small sample of the absurdities we 
allow when we continue usage of presumably racial designations when 
referring to human beings.

    George Leonard, is his new book, THE END OF SEX writes: "The power of 
the abstracting, generalizing intellect is well established.  This mode of 
thought has helped us organize society, to control matter and energy, to 
create useful new fields of endeavor.  The flaws and dangers are perhaps 
less well understood...along the scale of cultural evolution, abstraction 
and generalization tend to precede territorial or ideological war and 
genocide.  That masterpiece of generalization, "The only good Indian is a 
dead Indian, was the creation of civilized men."

    What is needed, both in America and elsewhere is what Leonard calls 
Radical Repersonalization.  It means that both globally and in our most 
intimate personal relations we must, with fully conscious intention, make 
each person's FULL HUMANITY OUR FOCUS.  In order to do that,a necessary 
first step is to attend to our experience, in the moment, and to remove 
from our use abstract and depersonalizing terms that prevent such an 
experience.  Two of those terms are "black" and "white".

    The question arises, "Well, what do I call people; how do I describe 
them, now?"  My solution is simple; call them "Alex," or "Bob," or 
"Laurie," or "My Friend."  If it is necessary to describe someone not 
present, as for a blind date, describe their physiognomic features, i.e., 
size and shape of nose, color of eyes, texture, length, style of hair, mode 
of dress, speech, sound of voice, characteristic phraseology, 
idiosyncrasies, height, weight, education, cultural leaning, language, etc.  
It is perfectly reasonable to describe the actual hue of the person's 
skin--and I defy anyone to find any person who is the color of coal or the 
paper on which this article is printed.

    "Well, what about fighting racism, surely we'll need to refer to groups 
when engaged in those activities?" you may ask.  It is not essential to use 
the words "black" or "white" to conduct selective buying campaigns, or to 
insist that employers hire persons who have skins that are not colored a 
shade of pink, along with those whose skins are."


    "But aren't you making the freedom fighters who introduced "Black 
Pride" and the usage of "BLACK" instead of "Negro" or "nigger" wrong?  No, 
I am not.  I participated with Stokely Carmichael, now called "Kwame," in 
the civil rights struggles of the early '60's, when I attended Howard 
University.  He and others were responsible for the substitution of "black" 
for terms we found objectionable.  I supported this tactical maneuver, and 
I am pleased with many of the results which flowed from them.  But it is no 
longer necessary to prove that Afro-American people can govern cities, 
administer justice, program computers, manage companies, write books, 
magazines and newspapers, pilot airplanes, design new genetic structures, 
or assist in the cure of cancer.  It is perfectly plain that we can do all 
of this and more.  We need to insist that we have additional opportunities 
to do so. For those efforts, usage of the words "black" and "white" is now 
not only unnecessary, but counter-productive.

    "But everyone I know has been conditioned to use those words for many 
years--I can't stop them!"  No, you can't stop them--you can, however, say, 
when they describe someone as "black" or "white."  "You mean black like 
coal or white like plaster?" "Do you mean Caucasian, and if you do, does 
his or her 'race' add anything useful to this conversation?"  I contend 
that you will find that there is virtually never an essential reason to use 
a persons' presumed racial origin as an element of description that adds 
non-inflammatory meaning to the conversation.

    "What else can I do to repersonalize my relationships and help others 
do so, too?"  Write the station managers of major media outlets in your 
city: radio and television stations, magazines, newspapers.  Write or talk 
to speechmakers, teachers, authors, politicians--anyone whose 
pronouncements enter our nervous systems; they need to be reminded that 
their usage of depersonalizing words to describe human beings and human 
conduct is injurious to all.  Send color charts to television news 
departments for them to use when describing criminals who must be captured.  
Practice describing your friends to yourself, (in writing, too) without 
using abstract identifiers like race.  When you next spend time with loved 
ones, or anyone you might need to describe, mentally rehearse  
repersonalized descriptions of them.  You might find your relationships and 
your communication improving from the increase in repersonalization, the 
"I-Thouness" rather than the "I-Itness" of your association.

    These modest proposals will not, in themselves, solve the problem of 
racism.  Individual human beings will participate in its elimination 
through a wide variety of activities. Individuals like you.  You are the 
operator of your nervous system.  You can become conscious of, and have 
power over the way you communicate.  Accept your responsibility, direct 
your behavior, including your thoughts toward ends which improve the human 
condition, rather than those which perpetuate ancient and modern prejudices 
and hatreds which deter our progress toward a world free of the racist 
scourge.

                               BIBLIOGRAPHY


1.  Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, copyright 1979 by G. C. Merriam 
    Co.

2.  Exploring the Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Joseph Chilton Pearce.  Pocket 
    Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.  Originally, published by 
    Julian Press.  Page 46.

3.  The End of Sex, by George Leonard. J.P. Tarcher Inc. Page 100.

4.  The Silent Pulse, George Leonard.  E.P. Dutton, New York.  Chapter 11, 
    "Life Cannot Be Fooled."

5.  Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Volume 1, The Study of the Structure of 
    Subjective Experience by Robert Dilts, John Grinder, Richard Bandler, 
    Leslie C. Bandler, Judith De Lozier.  Meta Publications, 1980.  "The 
    map is not the territory".  page 3.

6.  Crisis in Black and White, by Charles E. Silberman.  A Vintage Book.

7.  Values Clarification:  A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers 
    and Students, by Sidney B. Simon, Leland W. Howe, Howard Kirschenbaum.  
    A Hart Book, 1978.

Copyright 1983 Richard L. Bradley (SWAM2::BRADLEY_RI)