[Cheryl B.]

I am an English tutor editing material obviously from the '50s and have run across a passage stating, 'Southern Negroes ... and Northern Negroes...' I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with these (I think) derogatory terms. What should I use in place to signify darker-complected people?

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[Lucy22448]

The term you should use depends on the race or ethnicity of the people to which you are refering. Refering to blacks, I would say blacks or African Americans. Negro isn't necesarily a derogatory term, just outdated.

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[Leory-Jones]

Try describing them as 'blacks with dark-skin pigmentation'.

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[gloria]

Perhaps 'people of color' or 'black' would be preferred.

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[William]

For ages Africans have been referred to by the color of there skin, dating back to Cush (Holy Bible New King James Version - Genesis 10:6) for reference. The name Cush (son of Ham and Noah's grandsons) means burn or dark or black. The Bible states two sons settled in North Africa (named after Apher, a descendent of Noah) and the Middle East. Northern Africa at the time was named Cush, then renamed Ethiopia (dark or black in another language), then Upper (south) and Lower (north) Egypt. You will see that the region was named after a person whose name was based on the color of their skin.

When the Greeks and Romans entered the region, they identified the area and its people by their color. The term Negro is Latin for black or dark; this name existed until this century. The Germans were the first to group people into racial categories (which helped them describe cultural, regional and physical characteristics - common in each category). You have Caucasians (European - geographic region), Mongoliods (Asians - geographic region), Negroes (Africans - color of skin). Here is a university that identifies the dead based on the same categories: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/forensicmedicine/llb/ident.htm#Skeletal%20remains.

Once Europeans (Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and English) came to the Americas, they still described Africans as Negroes because the languages of lower Europe are Latin-based. Years later the term Negro became mispronounced in the South, especially among uneducated Southern whites (many of whom owned plantations). You can tell the levels of education between the Northerners and Southerners based on the types of industry in the respective parts of the country. The South was agrarian (farming and textile), the North was technological (factories, shipping and banking). These Southern whites would say Niggra (Ni-gra) instead of Negro (Ne-gro), and the term deteriorated even more from Negro to Nigger, a derivative of Niggra.

I believe this is the reason you may feel uncomfortable with the term. Africans and African Americans alike have for centuries been referred to based on the color of their skin and not by a geographic region.

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[T.R.]

What's wrong with just saying 'dark-skinned'?

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[Toni]

Black people in the South; Black people in the North.

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