Do you think that negative associations with the word "black" has led to racism against Africans (blacks)?

Question

When one thinks of the word "black," it usually has bad connotations (not race, i mean color) that bring about ideas relating to evil, darkness, and fear. Darkness has always been associated with negative events, aspects, etc. Black Tuesday was the day the stock market crashed. Black Christmas is the recent horror film where everything goes wrong and evil creatures come out in the night. In contrast, "white" has been associated with purity, innocence, beauty, and holiness. The word "light" (as in the color tone/description) brings about thoughts relating to things like angels, God, awakening, dawn of a new day, refreshing, and everything opposite of what "darkness" has become associated with. I mean, I have never seen a black baby depicted as an angel, while I have seen white babies depicted as little pure angels all the time. I think that it is ridiculous. I question, however, if the negative connotations of "black" and "darkness" is part of the reason why there racism against blacks.

Answer 1

Nice question- wish I would've thought of that one myself! Don't really know that the racism towards blacks stems from the negative connotation associated with all things dark, but I believe that the racism continues because it is passed down through each generation and therefore continues to exist. These days, you also hear a lot of flack about reverse discrimination and hard core racism towards whites, but at the end of the day mainstream society is governed by whites, and that is the primary source of prejudice and discrimination towards blacks. There cannot be any reverse discrimination, because blacks lack the economic and financial power needed to carry out such systematic discrimination. For example, people seem to conveniently forget that, not too long ago, blacks were constitutionally forbidden to take part in education. And when this was deemed unconstitutional, the law of the land was Separate but Equal education. These are only a couple of examples, but they demonstrate very well how you need a complete machinery in place to carry out the type of discrimination that blacks have always faced in this country. Blacks will never be in a position to dish out this type of discrimination because they will always lack the capacity to do so.

Answer 2

Very good question and I am amazed that you would give it thought. Most non-blacks could careless about that subject. I have always thought it was a negative connotation and I don't know why they chose that color to depict those incidents as dark. I don't really it it played a part with racism I think that nasty, ignorant people started that and it just escalated. But you are right about seeing white angels a lot and the only time I see things like that in black images is when black artist make them.

Answer 3

Although Australia has a high proportion of white people, they are noted for being friendly, easygoing and broad-minded, so you shouldn't have any problems there. Americans have had a bad press over the past decade, and have been stereotyped as loud, rude and ignorant, but if you are not like that then you will be just fine. I think the racial antagonism white Australians may feel is directed at Lebanese and Middle-Eastern people, due to the incident in 2005 where several people of such description attacked some lifeguards on a Sydney beach.

Answer 4

I often questioned that myself. It's amazing that we are the higher order of beings(the human species as a whole), and yet let things like "light" and "dark" affect our mentality. For instance, some Black, dark skinned dumb men say they like white or light skinned women because they are "prettier", but the attitudes of some of them women are deadly. Dark skinned women are associated with laziness and loudness and being plain evil simply because of the term dark. think about it, the racist white man can't possibly fathom the Christ being colored. White is still symbolic, and I do mean "Symbolical" of purity. Doesn't mean the person, the Human Being is pure. Not by a long shot. if white means pure, why did the whites brutalize Blacks during slavery?? that was pure evil right there. Africans may have traded us off to the Europeans, but Boy did the meaness come out...

Answer 5

No. Words and their connotations are different among all cultures, but yet all cultures exhibit xenophobia and racist discriminatory behavior. It all descends from the need of our tribal ancestors to protect the health of their tribe and to survive against the wishes of the other competing tribes. Racism against whites is also quite real, (though never exploited or screamed about); so I doubt that the language or symbolism is the problem.

Answer 6

Racism has nothing to do with a word. They were called much worse and treated much worse when I was growing up. In today's society they can't claim their life is a failure because of racism. They can can be anything they want if they just put the effort into it.

Answer 7

When I was born, my birth certificate listed me a "***** Female."
Growing up being called black was negative and led to many hurt feelings and fights. Thank you James Brown for "Say It Loud! I'm Black and I'm Proud!" I embraced who I was and the sting of being called black was gone.

I've never identified as African-American, but support all who do.

Answer 8

The African Americans selected the title of "Black" for themselves back in the 1960s and 70s. Do you think there would be less racism today if we still used the word ***** for their race?

Answer 9

Racism is systemic and does not come from the use of a word. Rather, that word is the result of the racism.

Answer 10

No. Racism exists because of people, not because of words.
Racism exists because some people dislike people who are not the same as themselves, and generally crosses over more than one race, i.e. black, hispanic,etc.