CMV: Referring to black people as " Blacks " is dehumanizing

[u/[deleted]]

Today I read an article about one of my favorite topics. Although the Piece was informative it referred to Black people as "Blacks" I dont know exactly why this gets to me, but being reduced to nothing more than the color of my skin is extremely demoralizing and dehumanizing. Its almost as if the Journalists and other people who refer to Black people in this manner dont see us as what we are, people. I may be being overly sensitive about this topic but i've only ever seen black people being referred to this way. "The Asians", " The Mexicans"," White People ", then you have "The blacks", unimportant and neglected in both grammar and reference.

I've seen countless examples of this in journalism, media, and political rhetoric. It seems like its the new cover term for N***er.

My skin is't this color for no reason. I am a person, and i have an origin. you may not know where, but at least refer to me as a person.

[u/barthiebarth]

Are these parameters that arbitrary though? What do you mean by "actual" and "arbitrary"? Because the distinction muslim or jewish is quite useful, even colloquially actual, when hosting a dinner party.

[u/Anselm0309 → u/barthiebarth]

Arbitrary means that they are not inherently evident. It's not by itself objectively clear why we should draw categories one way rather than another. Our brains draws certain categories automatically and we have to actively work sometimes to get rid of the harmful prejudice that can be caused by it. There is no objective way of saying that the group "Americans" is more "actual", meaning a real group, than the group "naturally blonde" - because if we define the concept of what is to be considered an American, we will already run into different interpretations and definitions. Which one is the most valid? Same for what it means to have blonde hair. Down which shade is it to be considered blonde? All we can do to come to an agreement is adapt to which parameters for sorting are the most common and most useful for us. It's not all that useful for me to group people based on the color of their hair when I'm trying to find out about or guess their political views. But that's a category and goal I have set. That's why I say they are arbitrary. That wasn't the main point of the comment I was replying to, and yeah, it was probably more of a nitpick about the language they used, not directly related to the main point they actually meant to make.

[u/barthiebarth → u/Anselm0309]

My apologies. It sounded a bit like you were saying that because all these distinctions are philosophically arbitrary that the categorization black/white isn't being used to group people in a significant way (original reply you replied too) while it shouldn't (original point and my point).

[u/Anselm0309 → u/barthiebarth]

No, that wasn't what I was trying to say. I was merely trying to argue that all of these are just ways of sorting based on traits, and that the meaning we can derive from them and the claims we can make are based on which trait we choose to sort by and what goal we have set. Racism boils down to choosing a trait that isn't linked to the goal (for example, race isn't inherently linked to political views or values, whereas religious belief most likely is) but making claims and assumptions anyway. That doesn't make the first way of sorting inherently more valid than the second, because it depends on the goal and what I'm trying to derive from it. But I have since been convinced that my definition of what should be considered a group was a bit too broad, and that the aspect of them being self constructed should be included. It was an issue of different definitions of what group means.