10399: Adios, Negro…?

From The Los Angeles Times…

Census Bureau considers changes to race, ethnicity questions

The U.S. Census Bureau is considering changes in questions it asks Americans about race, in an effort to keep up with evolving perceptions about race and identity.

The bureau released recommendations Wednesday in which it suggested dropping use of the term “Negro” on its questionnaires and counting Hispanics as a single category, regardless of race. The census now defines Hispanic as an ethnicity, not a race, and respondents who say they are of Hispanic origin are also asked to identify their race.

The recommendations were based on research conducted through experimental questions asked of 500,000 households during the 2010 census. The findings showed that many Americans believe the current categories don’t always jibe with their own views of their identity and have led to confusion.

For example, asked to state their race on the 2010 census, more than 19 million people, including millions of Hispanics, chose “some other race,” rather than select from the five offered categories: white, black, Asian, American Indian or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.

One change proposed by the Census Bureau would simply ask respondents to choose their race or origin and allow them to check a single box next to categories that would include white, black or Hispanic. Another would end the bureau’s use of the controversial term “Negro” as an alternative for black or African American. And a third would add write-in categories to allow those of Middle Eastern or Arab origin to specifically identify themselves, officials said.

Nicholas Jones, chief of the Census Bureau’s racial statistics branch, said the research findings were the first step in a process leading to possible changes for the 2020 census.

Changes to census questions must be approved by Congress.

9213: Grey’s Culturally Clueless Cookies.

Grey displays cultural cluelessness internationally, as evidenced by this campaign from its office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Fluff & Stuff cookies manages to stereotype gays, old men, women and Blacks—and they even throw in a nun.



From Ads of the World

8988: The Blacker The Raspberry…

From The New York Times…

Urban Forager | It’s Prime Time for Black Raspberries

By Ava Chin

Sweet, tart and thimble-shaped, black raspberries resemble the red supermarket variety, only they are smaller and give a greater punch to the palate. This time of year, black raspberries are ripe and abundant throughout the city and the metropolitan area, growing wild along the side of the road, on parkland and in neighbors’ backyards.

Black raspberry (Rubus occidentalis), a k a black cap or blackcap raspberry, is native to the eastern and central United States, and can be found as far west as Colorado. (They are more common in our area than red raspberries.)

A thorny, bushy perennial, the black raspberry has palmate leaves that grow in three to five leaflets, and, like red raspberry leaves, are characteristically silvery white underneath. The small, tangy fruit ranges from the color of dark, mulled wine to purplish-black when mature, and like all raspberries, it has a hollow core. In addition to eating the fruit, various American Indian groups like the Cherokee and Chippewa have used black raspberry leaves and roots medicinally as a gastrointestinal aid, and to ease childbirth and menstrual cramps.

The black raspberry bush has thin, arching canes that grow as high as eight feet and bend back toward the ground, rerooting where they settle, so the plant sometimes resembles a tangle of giant croquet wickets. In upstate New York, I once found myself in a black raspberry patch that was so thick and thorny, it reminded me of the thorn forest surrounding the castle in the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty.”

Growing up, I associated raspberries with cough medicine and overly sweetened jams, until I had my first taste of wild black raspberries a couple of years ago from a friend’s backyard in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Though it is possible to make wonderful tarts or even alcoholic beverages from Rubus occidentalis — Chambord Liqueur Royale de France and bokbunja, a Korean fruit wine, are based on black raspberries — I’ve never managed to do anything except eat them out of my hand.

If you’re lucky enough to have friends with black raspberry bushes, now is the time to start collecting.

8533: Suddenly Black Like Me.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Actor who didn’t know he was black tells story of discovery

By Maudlyne Ihejirika

In 1992, the impending divorce of Michael Fosberg’s mother — a brunette of Armenian descent — and his stepfather — a blonde of Swedish descent — threw the 32-year-old Chicago actor into an emotional tailspin.

“I was deeply saddened and I guess I got really angry with my mother,” says the author of a stunning new memoir released just in time for Black History Month, “Incognito, An American Odyssey of Race and Self-Discovery.”

The story about the jarring discovery by Fosberg, then living as a white man, of his black history — he had no idea his father was a light-skinned black man — is currently stirring vibrant debate about race and identity, white privilege, and the sensitivity of blacks about light vs. dark skin.

Making its way across syndicated black radio and cable TV, it’s a dialogue Fosberg has devoted his life to since 2000, when he began telling his story in a one-man play, Incognito, which continues to tour theaters, schools, colleges and other venues nationwide.

“The woman I was living with at the time said that much anger wasn’t really about my mother. It was misplaced anger that probably had more to do with the fact I never knew my biological father, and felt like now I was losing my Dad, the man who raised me,” Fosberg says of the event that triggered a search for his biological father. “She was absolutely right.”

Fosberg’s mother, whose parents emigrated from Armenia, was 20 when she met his biological father at Boston University in 1957. She got pregnant, and was immediately disowned by her parents. The couple married, struggled for two years, the Fosberg’s mother told her to come home with the child.

She did. When Fosberg was five, she married his stepfather, never telling her son her secret. And raised in a then all white, working-class north suburb, Fosberg never had reason to question his heritage.

But he always felt different. His two siblings had straight hair. His, coarse and kinky. Teenage queries about his biological father had elicited from his mother little information beyond a name and a lie.

“After bugging my mother many times about it, she told me he was of Cherokee Indian descent,” he said.

But in 1992, he knew it was time. Recalling his mother had said his biological father lived somewhere in the Detroit area, he found six listings for John Sidney Woods, called the first one and bingo.

“When I asked, ‘Did you live in the Boston area in 1957?’‚ he said he did. I said, ‘Were you married to an Adrienne Pilbosian?’ He paused for what seemed an hour, then said, ‘Yes, I was,’” Fosberg says.

“My God, son, how are you?’ ” he said. “‘Where are you?’ When he said the word son, I just melted. We talked. Then he said, ‘There’s a couple of things you should know which I’m sure your mother never told you…I’ve always loved you, always thought of you…I’m African-American.’”

Fosberg describes having to reach out and steady himself, unable to respond, and “catching my reflection in the mirror across the room as if looking to see if I had just changed from white to black.”

“‘Are you alright?’” the voice on the other end asked. “I said, ‘Yeah. You’re right. She never mentioned that.’” Thus began his odyssey.

Read the full story here.

7799: It Pays To Be Black.

After reading the New York Post story below, one can’t help but think that if Black were Black, he’d stay in jail.

Black to go free on bail

By Paul Tharp

Conrad Black will be released from a Florida prison on bail, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

The former chief executive of Hollinger International, imprisoned since March 2008 after being convicted of fraud and obstruction-of-justice charges related to his looting of the company, won his bail argument following a June 24 US Supreme Court ruling that gutted the “honest services” fraud law that was used to prosecute Black and other notorious white-collar defendants.

Black is serving a 6½-year term on the conviction.

It is not known when the 65-year-old Canadian executive, author and member of the British House of Lords would be released. The appeals court sent the case back to the trial court to decide the timing and conditions of Black’s release.

Black was convicted of looting $6.1 million from his Hollinger International. The firm collapsed after Black sold off pieces of the empire, which included the Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph of London and National Post of Canada.

5169: Basic Black.

From The New York Times. Hat tip to Tangerine Toad.

Go Back to Black

By K. A. DILDAY

London

I’M black again. I was black in Mississippi in the 1970s but sometime in the 1980s I became African-American, with a brief pause at Afro-American. Someone, I think it was Jesse Jackson, in the days when he had that kind of clout, managed to convince America that I preferred being African-American. I don’t.

Now I live in Britain where I’m black again. Blacks in Britain come from all over, although many are from the former colonies. According to the last census, about half of the British people who identify as black say they are black Caribbean, about 40 percent consider themselves black African, and the rest just feel plain old black. Black Brits are further divided by ancestral country of origin, yet they are united under the term black British — often expanded to include British Asians from the Indian subcontinent.

The term African-American was contrived to give black Americans a sense of having a historical link to Africa, since one of slavery’s many unhappy legacies is that most black Americans don’t know particulars about their origins. Black Americans whose ancestors arrived after slavery and who can pinpoint their country of origin are excluded from the definition — which is why, early in his campaign, people said Barack Obama wasn’t really African-American. Yet, since he has one parent from the African continent and one from the American continent, he is explicitly African-American.

Distinguishing between American black people based on their ancestors’ arrival date ignores the continuum of experience that transcends borders and individual genealogies and unites black people all over the world. Yes, scientists have shown that black means nothing as a biological description, but it remains an important signal in social interaction. Everywhere I travel, from North Africa to Europe to Asia, dark-skinned people approach me and, usually gently but sometimes aggressively, establish a bond.

When, early on in the race for the Democratic nomination, people wondered if black Americans would vote for Mr. Obama, I never doubted. During the last two years I’ve learned to decipher his name in almost any pronunciation, because on finding out that I’m an American, all other black people I meet, whether they are Arabic-speaking Moroccans in Casablanca, French-speaking African mobile-phone-store clerks in the outer boroughs of Paris, or thickly accented Jamaican black Brits, ask me eagerly about him. Black people all over the world feel a sense of pride in his accomplishment.

It’s hard to understand why black Americans ever tried to use the term African-American to exclude people. The black American community’s social and political power derives from its inclusiveness. Everyone who identifies as black has traditionally been welcomed, no matter their skin color or date of arrival. In Britain, in contrast, dark-skinned people who trace their relatives to particular former colonies can be cliquish. Beyond the fact that blacks make up a smaller share of the population here, this regional identity may be a reason that the British black community isn’t as powerful a social and political force.

I’ve never minded not knowing who my ancestors are beyond a few generations. My partner is an Englishman whose family tree is the sort that professional genealogists post on the Internet because it can be traced back to the first king of England in the 11th century. To me, it’s more comforting to know that, through me, our children will be black, with all of the privileges and pains.

On Mr. Obama’s behalf, American blacks have set aside their exclusive label. Polls show that about 80 percent of blacks who have voted in the Democratic primaries have chosen him. And all of the black people in the mountains of Morocco, the poor suburbs of Paris, the little villages in Kenya and the streets of London are cheering Mr. Obama’s victories because they see him as one of their own.

Black Americans should honor that. It’s time to retire the term African-American and go back to black.

K. A. Dilday is a columnist for the online magazine Open Democracy.