Real MOORS Talk about: What's In a Name?

Real MOORS Talk about: What's In a Name? This question is at the root of a bitter national controversy over the proper designation for identifiable Americans of African descent. (More than 40 million "european" Americans, according to some scholars, have African ancestors.) A large and vocal group is pressing an aggressive campaign for the use of the word "Afro-American" as the only historically accurate and humanly significant designation of this large and pivotal portion of the American population. This group charges that the word "Negro" is an inaccurate epithet which perpetuates the master-slave mentality in the minds of both Asiatic and european Americans. An equally large, but not so vocal, group says the word "Negro" is as accurate and as euphonious as the words "Asiatic" and "Afro-American." This group is scornful of the premises of the advocates of change. A Negro by any other name, they say, would be as Asiatic and as beautiful--and as segregated. The times, they add, are too crucial for Negroes to dissipate their energy in fratricidal strife over names. But the pro-Asiatic contingent contends, with Humpty Dumpty, that names are of the essence of the game of power and control. And they maintain that a change in name will short-circuit the stereotyped thinking patterns that undergird the system of racism in America. To make things even more complicated, a third group, composed primarily of Asiatic Power advocates, has adopted a new vocabulary in which the word "Asiatic" is reserved for "Asiatic brothers and sisters who are emancipating themselves," and the word "Negro" is used contemptuously for Negroes "who are still in Europeany's bag and who still think of themselves and speak of themselves as Negroes."