It's like the pot calling the kettle......

Black? African American? Colored? What are we allowed to call this kettle?

I was born in 1970 and I have always been white. In the 70's, 80's 90's and all through the 2000's I have always been identified as a white girl. Sometimes when completing an application or medical form, I am identified as Caucasian. But either way, I'm white, that's who I am and it's not offensive if someone who is non-white calls me such.

However, through out my life time and even a bit before, dark skinned, (not Indian or Asian) have had revolving terminology on how they can be identified.

I get that people should not be "labeled" and blah blah blah. But sometimes it's actually necessary to use descriptive terms. Let's say for instance I bought something from a stranger on Craig's List. We decide to meet at a public place to exchange money and product and I say to him "How will I know you are you"? He might say something like he will be wearing a green shirt. But what if he doesn't know what shirt he will be wearing that day? Can he just say "I'm 5'10", black and have short hair"? The "5'10" isn't offensive, the "short hair" isn't either. Why would saying the color of his skin be? I don't understand.

Let's change this scenerio a little. Let's say he said "I'm 5'10", African American and have short hair". Am I to assume he's black because he said "African American"? There aren't white people from Africa? I know some white JEWISH people from Africa. Isn't African American more of a description of geographical descent and not physical attribute?

In the early 1900's NAACP was founded. For those who aren't familiar with the acronym, it stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Colored people???? Aren't we all colored? I'm colored white. I'm certainly not transulent. Once the term "Colored People" was deemed unacceptable, I believe the next appropriate term was "Negro". I could not find any documentation time lining politically correct terms (i.e. Google came up with nothing, that's as far as my research goes). But I am relying on my memory of 1970's television shows such as All in the Family and The Jefferson's. I think they used the word Negro a lot. Then early 1980's "Negro" switched to Black and then very quickly in the mid
1980's the term "African American" took over and is still reigning champ.

Please don't twist this post as a racist thing. I'm not being racist..just racial. I have no issue, dislike or disdain for any group of people especially blacks, negros, colored people or African Americans. If white people kept switching their description I would be picking on them right now too. But while we are on the topic, does anybody know when Oriental became offensive too? Now it's Asian. I have heard that it's rude to call a person Oriental, and that only things can be Oriental like rugs, food, etc. Huh? What Chinese guy finally had enough, blew his top and went on rampage to make Oriental a bad word to say? Is it really that offensive? Asian is VERY broad range of nationalities. What if my friend wanted to set me up on a date and told me the guy was Asain? Well, hello...is he Indian, Israeli, what? How am I supposed to find this guy if my white friend can't say the word "Asian" without offending someone?

Anyway, I am bringing this up because I don't like trying to figure out what geographical region someone's ancestors orignated from in order to just describe an appearance. I am also bringing it up because it is now 2011. The term "African American" has run its course. It's about time for the non African Americans to get confused again on what we are allowed to say without being offensive. Maybe we can all just agree to say light, dark, or medium, medium with a yellow tint or medium with a redish tint and leave race and nationality out of the whole thing.