Word: africanizing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Generally, I've accepted these changes as mere semantics. But recently, two developments have made me consider how the conscious choice of such labels can become a serious and meaningful issue. The first is the rise, or return, of "African-American" as an alternative to, or substitute for, "black" in the past few years; the second was my learning about the Asian American community's own struggle to define its identity and its label...
...meeting of black leaders in December 1988, Jesse Jackson and others suggested that "African-American" should replace "black" as the term of choice. Since then, "African-American" has been gaining ground among black leaders, politicians and the national press. In the past four years at Harvard, I witnessed the fascinating phenomenon of a label in transition: students coming to the point in a sentence where the proper racial label should be inserted would hesitate, even freeze, before gingerly choosing one. At times I would avoid using either term, electing to leave the person's race unspecified rather than choose between...
Certainly, Harvard has come a long way since W.E.B. DuBois, unable to afford a spacious room in Harvard Yard, was forced to rent a home from an African American woman on Flagg Street, near where Mather House stands today...
Henry Louis Gates Jr., the well-known professor of African-American studies, has argued, for example, that the Great Hall was a redundant symbol of Harvard's elitist past. Since we have now largely managed to put that past behind us, he claims, we might as well erase its physical evidence as well...
...once again the subject of controversy regarding his statements about race and Harvard. Over the years, Mansfield has made many shocking and even offensive assertions, especially about black students. For example, he has blamed grade inflation at Harvard on blacks, accusing his fellow colleagues of being afraid to give African-American undergraduates the low grades they allegedly deserve. And Mansfield's response to President Neil L. Rudenstine's annual report, "Diversity and Learning," has also caused a stir on campus...