TheLoop21.com

By: Michael E. Ross (Add to your loop)
Tue, 08/12/2008 - 18:45

A prank exposes one of black America's deeper sensitivities

A prank at a high school in suburban Los Angeles has reawakened issues of black names, black identity and the ways they connect and collide with majority culture.

In June, a yearbook photo of members of the Black Student Union at Charter Oak High School in Covina, Calif., featured an array of phony "ghetto" names, such as "Tay Tay Shaniqua," "Laquan White" and "Crisphy Nanos," for those students.

School officials promised to discipline the student responsible, but the incident has exposed one of black America's deeper sensitivities: the issue of identity.

The deeper meaning

Since at least the 1970s, in the wake of the Black Power movement, names of black children have strived to be a thing apart. Early in that era, some black names, such as Imani and Malik, had African or Arabic origins.

"It's difficult to measure, but I think the Afrocentric names did drive many of the youth to learn more about their heritage and to discard feelings of inferiority because they were descendents from Africa," said Alvin Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "It was the time of 'I'm black and I'm proud' and 'black is beautiful.'

"Most parents wanted these names to spur their children to high achievement and accomplishments," said Poussaint, who's also the author of several books and Bill Cosby's co-author on the 2007 book Come On People. "Middle-class and low-income parents shared in this trend and hoped to galvanize black youth to take full advantage of educational opportunities."

Later, black names spoke more directly to our aspirational side: an expression of what we wanted to be culturally, athletically or philosophically. Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Tiffany, Whitney, Nelson and Jordan were frequent choices of black parents. More recently, names for black children became the products of fanciful invention; Keyshawn, DeAndre and JuMichael are examples.

At least one Web site, Black Ghetto Baby Names, explores the origins of black names in depth, revealing sources that are grounded in global cultures. For example, one common name for boys, Darryl, actually has origins in 11th-century France, according to the Web site.

The effects

The issue resonates in other ways. Recent studies suggest employers discriminate, sometimes unconsciously, against "black-sounding" names. In 2003, scholars at the National Bureau of Economic Research released a paper. The study's authors, responding to 1,300 classified job ads with fake resumes, found employers were 50 percent more likely to contact people with widely used names than they were to contact people with Afrocentric names.

For Poussaint, such names are neither a predictor of life's outcome nor an isolator from life's possibilities. "I have not found, in my experience, that Afrocentric names isolate black youth – either from other blacks or from whites," he said. "In fact, it's probably very educational and a poignant reminder to whites to recognize and respect the African heritage of black people."

The unknown yearbook comedian at Charter Oak High School has tapped into how our names say more than the names themselves. The reaction to those names speak volumes about America, its storied "melting-pot" values, and acceptance of — or resistance to — the black experience.

For Poussaint, the names' possibly waning power as a statement is countered by the fact of their continuing social impact. "I think today," he said, "although Afrocentric names are still given, they have lost some of the power of the earlier connections I just described. It still represents a trend to shape our own culture and destiny."

Was Harry Reid right in his comments about Obama?

Yes, it's true

Maybe, but it was inappropriate

No, he's clueless

Not sure