Heh, one last note on this dap thing. The most interesting, and quite common, response has been "well I'm white as hell and I do the fist-bump with my wife, so it can't be that black." To me that response says more about the speaker--and race in this country--than about any measure of "blackness." It has as its unspoken premise that black is something that's stagnant, mutually exclusive to itself, and incapable of existing alongside other qualities. As I've stated, several other cultural signifiers have become mainstream, but there isn't much debate over their origins. Only the artifacts of black ethnicity are asked to surrender themselves as the move into the wider world. This is tragedy of calling Barack "postracial" or "post-black" instead of calling him what he calls himself--a biracial black man. No one calls Joe Lieberman post-Jewish, or Mel Martinez post-Cuban American. What folks are getting is that blackness damn near is the cultural mainstream of this country. The fact that you're in Wisconsin somewhere performing an ritual that was perfected on the South Side of Chicago probably means that it's mainstream. But that doesn't mean it didn't come from the South Side. Both are true at the same time.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
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So - this is going to sound crazy coming from a man who named his blog "All Panthers Are Black" - sue me.
I put up a post on the topic of "blackness" recently - http://allpanthersareblack.blogspot.com/2008/05/lets-clear-some-things-up.html - here is the long and short of it: these terms do us no favors.
I rambled somewhat in my post, but if I attempt to sum up for a comment it is this: for all of the pride in which we as a people have imbued these concepts, there is no denying that the origin of this word cannot be separated from these two concepts -
1. whiteness and white people
2. The African Slave Trade
This country started with indentured servitude, but it was only through slavery that the power of capitalism was unleashed. And as Africans became the face of slavery, two new races - white and black - were introduced into the world. All of the issues over which we are still engaged in combat are descended from that inflection point.
(Some idiots are proposing to fly the largest Confederate flag they could find off I-75 outside of Tampa here in FL. In the year 2008. Because they believe they are white.)
There are no white people.
There are no black people.
Afrikans have a rich cultural history and a wide variety of traditions that are subsumed into this term - that we did not create - called "black".
If we need a catchall category, why not Afrikan?
An off-topic favor, please. When you wanna mention a random Jew? Not Lieberman. Feel free to use Russ Feingold or Barbara Boxer or Bernie Sanders if you wanna stick with politicians.
Point taken.
It may be the fact that I haven't been able to sleep tonight, but for some reason I love this take on culture. At the risk of sounding heinously geek-like, back when I was on the debate team in college my partner and I used to "fist-bump" (a phrase I will never use again; sadly, I never knew the actual term) after winning a match as it was a quiet way of celebrating.
I also appreciate the fact that this viewpoint allows for use of something from another culture without being accused of stealing it somehow.
And now, I will attempt to sleep. My apologies if any of the above is incoherent.
Oh, one other quick thing, I realize that you might want to avoid the inbox tsunami, but could you post a link to tip you to things?
The Idea of becoming "Post-Racial" is not only tragic, it is impossible. We are what we are, and the idea that one can transcend their very essence is pure myth. Like Ta-Nehisi intimated, in the end the "Post-Racial" and "Transcending Race" concepts just become subtle control mechanisms. The notion that one needs to move away from their identity, and that the move is a positive action,suggests that the identity being shed is of little value. Therefore,one that attempts to be "post-racial" actually submits to the idea that their race is inferior, and instead of "transcending" race,they just attempt to conceal it in order to appease those who are in control. Of course this is done in the hope of gaining mainstream acceptance.
Like "Ta-Nehisi" also intimated it is peculiar that black people are the only ones who feel compelled to do this.
Shelby Steele painted Barack as a victim of this syndrome in his book "A Bound Man" and gave it as one of the reasons that Barack cannot win the presidency. I disagree with this assertion.
P.Cash
http://pcashperspective.wordpress.com
This is an age-old jazz debate that fuels itself on a misunderstanding of ownership. 'Whose music is it?'
Clearly, any thinking person would call jazz Black music, but White jazz cats always get uptight about it, as if its Black origins means Whites can't play it. The idea, just as with dap, is 'If I do it, and I'm White, it can't be Black.' Or the reverse assumption, 'If it's called Black, then I'm not allowed to do it cause I'm White.'
That last assumption is particularly annoying and short-sighted. If White people couldn't do Black things, we'd have no American culture.
You've hit the nail on the head.
I should add, Ta-Nehisi, in addition to kvetching (what, am I trying to Jew up -every- post in your blog?) about Lieberman, how much I'm enjoying reading your stuff. New to it, and it's a real pleasure. So thanks.
I hate to keep returning to this point - but I see the comments are going against me :-)!
There is only one race of humans. We do not have breeds like dogs or cats. There is no such thing as a "mongrel human". To describe us as having a "white race" or a "black race" is to enter into a maze in which we will be lost.
We know this as we are lost in that maze now and we have been for almost 400-hundred years.
Afrikans have culture - and there are many varieties of Afrikan culture. We should each celebrate our exceptional Afrikan cultures as well as the common threads that unite us all under that term: Afrikan. Sharing our cultures with the world is a time-honored method of breaking down the artificial barriers between us as a people.
Taking pride in our cultures as Afrikans is nothing to bow our heads in shame for doing. Arabs do this. Asians do this. Europeans do this. And before they were subsumed underneath the combined advancing armies of the Christian (imperialist) missionaries, the Seneca, Apache, Mayan and Aztec civilizations did this too (A Blackhawk is not a helicopter).
Celebrate culture not color. What does the obsession with color do for us but extend the reign of those who created these terms to enshrine their dominance over us?
I'm not against you, Derrick, though I'm not sure I'm all the way with you.
When it comes to refining vocabulary, I often think it's better to inject history back into a term (sorry to be Barthesian, but the erasure of history is typically how terms lose their basic meaning) than to coin a new one. Why? Because people who don't get where 'Black' comes from or the idea that Black and White aren't real will often just move all of their essentialist baggage to the new term.
So, if I have wholly negative ideas about 'Black people,' then the introduction of a new term will probably do little but make me now have wholly negative ideas about 'Afrikan people,' as I've left all the ideas associated with one term in place and just changed the name I call it.
What I tend to like is the idea of looking at the use of 'Black' as a site of positive reclamation or resistant strength. To fully imbue the term with its ugly history in order to actively, constantly overcome that history.
I've been having the same conversation about the term 'racism,' which seems to have become simply a synonym for 'prejudice,' losing all of the systematic imbalance of power the word has historically accrued. Losing that history is why Rev. Wright and the Klan could get propped up next to each other in MSM coverage - there's no history left in the term.
So, to the extent that you're suggesting reviewing how we came to the term 'Black,' I'm all with you. I'd even say that, once that job's fairly far along, if there's a groundswell to abandon it, then that's great, too. I'm just not convinced that choosing a new term will do the work you want it to.
And, yes, I realize that my suggestion is just as difficult as I'm saying yours is. I suppose that's the reality of dealing with systemic racism in a country that's fooled itself into thinking it isn't racist. Everything's hard.
I believe the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States of America is going to open the floodgates on a conversation that has been simmering for sometime - if I may mix my metaphors so boldly!
I say this as the folks over at Altercation referred to this same meme yesterday - and I just finished a longer response on my blog this morning - http://allpanthersareblack.blogspot.com/2008/06/guess-who.html.
I think I see where you are going with your last comment - although I would ask that you not become enmeshed in my own idiosyncrasies - like that 'k' in Afrikan - as the transformation to African-American began decades ago.
I think I was in high school then.
And I resisted it as my sister had just handed me one of her Howard University "It's a Black Thing - You Wouldn't Understand!" sweatshirts and I just thought it was the coolest thing. You can see from the title of my blog that I still enjoy a little "positive reclamation or resistant strength", but I am beginning to wonder if there is a larger opportunity out there.
Are we upon a precipice from which we can cast into history the conceptual chains - "white" and "black" - of slavery?
If I must divest myself of a term I have come to love - irrespective of its hateful origins - then I am only to willing and eager to do that.
I have a confession to make. Neither I (a 62-year-old white woman) or my 46-year-old English husband was sure about the significance of the fist bump. I did wonder if it had any relationship to the black power salute, which as a 60s radical, I used myself.
I just discovered your blog and I have already added it to my Google Reader.
Enjoy your blog. Looking forward to receiving an E-mail from you soon re the Obamas' fist bump and an affectionate tush hit. That's the real thang!