ABSTRACT
Introduction The primary objective of this book is to argue for bringing an end to the use of the term ‘black’ for humans, and by consequence to set in motion a new beginning for conceptual liberation. In the preceding chapters, I traced the genesis and evolution of the use of the odious term ‘black’ for African peoples, and demonstrated the insidious consequences of this practice. In this chapter, I argue that the use of the term ‘black’ dehumanises and denigrates (blackens) Africans, and contributes to anti-African racism, and that the categorical use of black should therefore be abandoned. The chapter draws attention again to the fact that the word ‘black’ is used in English, in other languages and in Christianity both symbolically, to evoke evil, fear and inferiority, and categorically to describe people and things and to categorise a group of people as black. This dual usage, as demonstrated in the previous analysis, creates an association between the people categorised as black and the negative qualities associated with the symbolic use of black. Given the strong correlation established between the negative symbolism of the concept ‘black’ and its human referents, most contemporary anti-racists have responded to this problem by accepting the categorical use of black but challenging its symbolic use, in particular by associating the categorical use with positive rather than negative connotations (this perspective is addressed in detail in Chapter 8). In contrast to this dominant position, the central argument of this chapter is that the symbolic use is so deeply embedded that it is better to reject the categorical use. Another reason is that it is not even remotely liberative to adopt and use an imposed odious concept to designate the self. Thus, the current chapter advances the central arguments for abandoning the categorical use of the word black, and also sets out in greater detail the central arguments against the use of the term ‘black’ as a human categorising device. In addition, the chapter explores the work of social theorists and sociologists on black and white as a racial binary and points out how these discussions corroborate the central argument for the abandonment of the categorical use of black. The ultimate goal of the chapter is to critique and dislodge the common belief that there is a group of people out there who can be accurately described and categorised as ‘black people’. The argument for the abandonment of the descriptive and categorical use of the term ‘black’ articulated
in this chapter is that (a) so long as the symbolic use of the term ‘black’ remains, the categorical use of black will be derogatory, (b) the categorical use of black is an imposition of a definition of a subordinate group by another dominant group, (c) the categorical use of black and the associated black/white dichotomy supports a privileged self-understanding of the people who label themselves as white, and finally (d) it normalises the oppression of those labelled black.
