Discussion published in:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 1:2 (2003) ► pp. 323–354
Discussion

Highlighting the chameleon nature of power

The social practice and ideological effects of the label “African-American”

| Northern Arizona University
This essay uses a poststructural/critical race analysis, and provides a specific example of how the social practice of labeling serves to create major ideological effects, which produce and reproduce unequal race-based power relations. Certain U.S. citizens are ascribed/branded with the seemingly politically correct label, “African-American”. Many believe that the shift from “Black” to “African-American” in 1988 was the result of Blacks exercising political power and achieving a hard-won right to change their identity. Also many view the new label as the common sense preferred alternative to “Black”. This article deconstructs the term “African-American” and views it within the context of the macro and micro interactive forces of politics, economics, sociology, history and socio-cultural phenomena. Instead of the intended purpose of fostering a sense of self-esteem, the label has also served to reinforce the socially constructed binary dualisms characterizing “Blacks” as being fundamentally different from “Whites”. Moreover, the notion of Black pride, self-esteem and heritage are concepts with the power to shift culpability and blame onto the victims of a race-based system. Power appeared to have been exercised by Black/African-Americans. However, the shift to African-American was not the result of autonomous thinking. It was a “reflex without reflection” (Billig 1991:8). It “echoed” dominating ideological structures of power. The “new” label unwittingly serves to further perpetuate racist ideology inherited from a foundational institution of slavery. America can enjoy the image of having a culture of freedom, equality and egalitarianism, while maintaining justifiable race-based political, social and economic inequality gaps.
Keywords: African-Americans, labeling, identity markers, deconstructing labels, color-blind racism
Published online: 10 July 2003
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.1.2.09wee
References
Appelt, Erna and Jarosch, Monika
(eds) Combating Racial Discrimination: Affirmative Action as a Model for Europe. Oxford & New York: Berg 2000.Google Scholar
Baugh, John
. Black Street Speech. Austin: University of Texas Press 1983.Google Scholar
. Out of the Mouths of Slaves. Austin: University of Texas Press 1999.Google Scholar
. Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice. New York: Oxford University Press 2000.Google Scholar
Becker, Mary
. “Remedies for Racial and Sexual Disadvantages in Employment.” Georgetown Law Journal, 791 August 1991, 1659.Google Scholar
Beeman, Mark, Chowdhry, Geeta, and Todd, Karmen
. “Educating Students About Affirmative Action: An Analysis of University Sociology Texts.” Teaching Sociology 281, April 2000, 98–115. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Billig, Michael, Condor, Susan, Edwards, Derek, Gane, Mike, Middleton, David Radley, Alan
. Ideological Dilemmas: A Social Psychology of Everyday Thinking. London, Newbury Park, Beverly Hills & New Delhi: Sage Publications 1988.Google Scholar
Billig, Michael
. Ideology and Opinions: Studies in Rhetorical Psychology. London, Newbury Park & New Delhi: Sage Publications 1991.Google Scholar
Bureau of Justice Statistics
. “Prisoners Under Sentence of Death, by Race, Ethnicity, and Jurisdiction. April, 1, 1999” 1999Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.
Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen and Coulthard, Malcom
(eds.) Texts and Practices. Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London & New York: Routledge 1996.Google Scholar
Camacho, David E.
United States Politics and Democracy: A Supplemental Reader and Workbook. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company 1998.Google Scholar
Choi, Jung Min, and Murphy, John W.
The Politics and Philosophy of Political Correctness. Westport, London and Connecticut: Praeger 1992.Google Scholar
Chouliaraki, Lilie and Fairclough, Norman
. Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 1999.Google Scholar
Deloria, Vine, Jr.
(ed.) (revised). The Red Man in the New World Drama; A Politico-Legal Study With a Pageantry of American Indian History by Jennings Wise, New York: Macmillan 1971.Google Scholar
Deloria, Vine, Jr., and DeMallie, Raymond J.
Documents of American Indian diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775–1979, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1999.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit
. Rescuing History from the Nation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1995 CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Erik H.
Identity, Youth and Crisis. New York: Macmillan 1968.Google Scholar
Escobar, Arturo
. Encountering Development. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1995.Google Scholar
Essed, Philomena
. Understanding Everyday Racism. New York & New Delhi: Sage Publications 1991.Google Scholar
Fanon, Franz
. Black Skin White Masks. New York: Grove Press 1967.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
. Media Discourse. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc. 1995.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman and Wodak, Ruth
. “Critical Discourse Analysis” in Teun A. van Dijk’s (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications 1998.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joe R.
Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. NewYork & London: Routledge 2000.Google Scholar
Feldstein, Richard
. Political Correctness: A Response From the Cultural Left. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press 1997.Google Scholar
Gee, James
. Social Linguistics and Literacies. London: Falmer Press 1990.Google Scholar
Gordon, Lewis R.
(1995, August). Critical “Mixed Race.” Social Identities. 1: 2 August 1995, 381. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Stephen J.
The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton 1996.Google Scholar
Grodin, Debra and Lindlof, Thomas R.
(ed.) Constructing the Self in a Mediated World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications 1996 CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Patrick A.
“Not African-American, Just American”. Headway, 9:11, November 1997, 37.Google Scholar
Hero, Rodney E.
Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics New York: Oxford University Press 1998.Google Scholar
Latinos and the U. S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1992.Google Scholar
Jones, Edward
“The Black Diaspora: A Colonization of Colored People. Conference Paper presented at WPSA Conference in Seattle Washington, March 28, 1998.
Levitt, Cyril, Davies, Scott, and McLaughlin, Neil
(eds.) Mistaken Identities: The Second Wave of Controversy Over “Political Correctness”. New York: P. Lang 1999.Google Scholar
Martin, B. L.
“From Negro to Black to African-American: The Power of Names and Naming.” Political Science Quarterly, 106: 1, Spring 1991, 83. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McPhail, Mark L.
The Rhetoric of Racism. Lanhan, New York and London: University Press of America 1994.Google Scholar
Mpanya, Mutombo
. “Stereotypes of Africa in U. S. Hunger Appeals” in David Shields’ (ed.) The Color of Hunger: Race and Hunger in National and International Perspective, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 1995.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, V. Y.
The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1988.Google Scholar
Neuman, W. Russell, Just, Marion R., Crigler, Ann N.
in Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1992 CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nieman, Donald G.
“Bondage, Freedom & the Constitution: The New Slavery Scholarship and its Impact on Law and Legal Historiography: Emancipation and the New Conception of Freedom: From Slaves to Citizens: African-Americans, Rights Consciousness, and Reconstruction.” Cardozo Law Review 171 May 1996, 2115.Google Scholar
Noblit, George and Pink, William.
“Mapping the Alternative Paths of the Sociology of Education” in William Pink and George Noblit (eds.) Continuity and Contradiction: The Futures of the Sociology of Education, Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press 1995, pp.1–29.Google Scholar
Omi, Michael and Winant, Howard
, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge 1994.Google Scholar
Pollman, Marcus
. Black Politics in Conservative America (2nd ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 1999.Google Scholar
Quadagno, Jill S.
The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press 1994.Google Scholar
Quaye, Randolph
. “The Health Care Status of African-Americans.” Black Scholar 24: 2 Spring 1994, 12. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Ishmael
. “African-Americans Outpropagandized Again.” Black Scholar, 25:3, Summer 1995, 43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rosenblum, Karen E. and Travis, Toni-Michelle C.
The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, and Sexual Orientation (2nd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill 2000.Google Scholar
Schneider, Anne L. and Ingram, Helen
. Policy Design for Democracy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas 1997.Google Scholar
Sears, David O., Sidanius, Jim and Bobo, Lawrence
(eds.) Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press 2000.Google Scholar
Segal, Ronald
. The Black Diaspora. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1995.Google Scholar
Smitherman, Geneva
. Black Talk: Words and Phrases from The Hood to the Amen Corner. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 2000.Google Scholar
Smitherman-Donaldson, Geneva and van Dijk, Teun A.
(eds.) Discourse and Discrimination. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1988.Google Scholar
Takaki, Ronald
. Strangers From a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, New York, N. Y.: Penguin Books 1990.Google Scholar
Tatum, Beverly D.
“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” New York: Basic Books 1997.Google Scholar
Theodoulou, Stella Z.
Aids: The Politics and Policy of Disease. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 1996.Google Scholar
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt
. In the Realm of the Diamond Queen. Princeton: New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1993.Google Scholar
Tuch, Steven and Martin, Jack
. Racial Attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and Change. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger 1997.Google Scholar
Williams, Jeffrey
. PC Wars: Politics and Theory in the Academy. New York and London: Routledge 1995.Google Scholar
Wilson, William
, The Declining Significance of Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1978.Google Scholar
Wilson, William J.
The Truly. Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1987.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion
. Five Faces of Oppression: Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1990.Google Scholar
Zubrin, Robert
. Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam 1999.Google Scholar
Zweigenhaft, Richard L. and G. William Domhoff
, Diversity in the Power Elite. Yale 1999.Google Scholar