Is the term 'blackout' racist?

[Asclepias]

You forgot blackball. blacklist, "black as sin", blackmail, black monday, black day, black eye, black sheep, black look. black mark, black mood, blackface.

Interesting article.

A rose by any other name The consequences of subtyping African-Americans from Blacks

The majority of these terms have nothing to do with black people.

Blackballing is a rejection in a traditional form of secret ballot, where a white ball or ballot constitutes a vote in support and a black ball signifies opposition.[1] This system is typically used where a club's rules provide that one or two objections, rather than an at-least-50% share of votes, are sufficient to defeat a proposition. Since the seventeenth century, these rules have commonly applied to elections to membership of many gentlemen's clubs and similar institutions such as Freemasonry and fraternities.

A blacklist (or black list) is a list or register of entities or people who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle.

blackmail Sixteenth-century Scottish farmers paid their rent, or mail, to English absentee landlords in the form of white mail, silver money, or black mail, rent in the form of livestock or produce. The term black mail took on a bad connotation only when greedy landlords forced cashless tenants to pay much more in goods than they would have paid in silver. Later, when freebooters along the border demanded payment for free passage and "protection," the poor farmers called this illegal extortion blackmail, too.

In finance, Black Monday refers to Monday, October 19, 1987, when stock markets around the world crashed, shedding a huge value in a very short time. The crash began in Hong Kong and spread west to Europe, hitting the United States after other markets had already declined by a significant margin. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by 508 points to 1738.74 (22.61%).[1] In Australia and New Zealand the 1987 crash is also referred to as Black Tuesday because of the timezone difference.
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Black sheep' is rather an odd phrase to choose to epitomise worthlessness. Why sheep? Badgers, dolphins, pandas and penguins, which are all primarily black, are considered cute. First thoughts might suggest that it came about because of the linking of black things with bad things, which is a long standing allusion in English texts - black mood, black looks or (where I come from) the Black Country. It may also be because shepherds disliked black sheep as their fleeces weren't suitable for dying and so were worth less than those of white sheep.

In fact, it is more likely to have derived from a bit of misinterpretation by the writers of early English Bibles. Myles Coverdale's 1535 Bible, which was the first complete bible printed in English, renders Genesis 30:32 as:

‘All blacke shepe amonge the lambes’ which Coverdale had translated from a German source text.
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Blackface is the only term that has any connection to black people.

Of course they have a connection with Black people. When that same term is used to describe someone the subconscious does not do a switch. Read the posted article I linked.

So, now you want to ban use of the word black for anything with a negative connotation? Good luck with that, Skippy. In general, you and I are often in agreement, but I find this argument pretty stupid.

No I dont want to ban the word. I call myself Black. I was pointing out that using Black to describe a negative experience is racist in its concept. It feeds into the subconscious of everyone that uses the words.

 

[Asclepias]

Black is a color. White is a color. Black people are not really Black. White people are not really white. We are all really different
shades of the same color whatever you want to call 'skin color' peoples minds are just twisted right now. You cant even address the english
language with out seeing racism in innocent phrases

Thats because people that used the English language were gung ho about racism. There is no reason for so many of the words to have a negative connotiation. When you look at the opposite, white is primarily perceived as virtuous, clean, pure. I remember as a kid looking up the word Black in the dictionary and I was shocked at the negative meaning. They since have changed it.

for thousands of years people have used language to describe the world around them. How else can they? long before all the racism bullshit existed early
man feared the night because they couldnt see, they would have associated the darkness with spirits who inhabited it or the unknown and mysterious .
and likewise they would have seen daytime as quite the opposite. Night/ dark , black/white .... has been associated with good and evil for centuries and has
become entwined in the language of all countries around the world. i just can not believe this is about black people and racism. the fact that there are people
with light and dark skin is just incidental , well, thats just my opinion anyway

I agree with some of your post. You forget however, that some races of men saw Black as a divine color and it was not associated with evil spirits. The east indian civillzations and egyptians both worshipped the color black off the top of my head. its a mindset. You start associating Black with bad and evil then you apply that same feeling subconsciously to people that you use the term to describe.

 

[pillars]

. I was pointing out that using Black to describe a negative experience is racist in its concept. It feeds into the subconscious of everyone that uses the words.

No. the use of black to describe a negative experience probably comes from the time in which the dark/night was a dangerous time, and religious beliefs equated white with innocence and black with guilt.

I don't think this has any connection with race. In fact, there is some evidence that suggests that the negative associations with black, which are widespread across many cultures and many times, has a spillover effect on racism, not vice versa.

So, negative perceptions of the color black aren't racist, they're to some extent innate and in some way that we don't really understand, have an affect on race relations.

This is an interesting article:

http://www.yale.edu/intergroup/Smith-McLallen et al2006sc.pdf

The pervasiveness of preference for the color white over the color black across cultures and time, as well as the hypothesized evolutionary basis related to danger associated with darkness (Mead & Baldwin, 1971; Schaller et al., 2003), might suggest that color preference is amore fundamental form of bias than is racial
preference. Although our data do not speak to this issue, they do answer questions regarding whether general implicit color preferences are related to implicit racial preferences, and whether implicit racial preferences involve effects over and above associations with colors. The answer in each case was “yes.”

 

[Asclepias]

I have long believed negative connotations of the color black stemmed from fear of the night. I agree with what this paper is saying however as I mentioned there are some civilizations where the color Black was divine. I would be curious to see specified what civilizations and cultures feared the color Black vs the ones that didnt prior to whites influencing the world.


"Dark skin is highly esteemed among these people. ‘When a child is born they anoint him once a week with oil of sesame, and this makes him grow much darker’ (replaced since by ‘Fair & Lovely’ creams!). No wonder their gods are all black ‘and their devils white as snow.’
-Marco Polo

See more at: 3quarksdaily Marco Polo s India

 

[pillars]

I agree with some of your post. You forget however, that some races of men saw Black as a divine color and it was not associated with evil spirits. The east indian civillzations and egyptians both worshipped the color black off the top of my head. its a mindset. You start associating Black with bad and evil then you apply that same feeling subconsciously to people that you use the term to describe.

Personally, I love black. It's a power color. I wear a lot of black, it communicates seriousness and being in control, imo. I also love night time. Of course, i'm mostly pagan, so the connotations are different. Night is when the moon and stars are out, and I see the face of the goddess in the night sky as much as I see her in the sunshine. Paganism doesn't have the same good/evil false dichotomy of many other religions.

It's that dichotomy that is part of the issue, IMO.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

No, the blacks dont come out, it means when you stand up on a hill overlooking the city lights and the lights go out.......

The city appears to go BLACK. Im sure the first person to coin this phrase was not thinking about black people.

Do a test ot home, go stand in your bathroom, unplug your nite light, then turn the switch off. IS it black? does that

make you a racsist ?? ( well maybe, i have no idea) Think we are really over thinking this to much

It is light deprived.

 

[IM2]

Had a power outage here last night, and finidng myself suddenly transported to the 17th or 18th century, found myself musing on things including whether the term 'blackout' was racist? Is it as in 'blacks come out when the lights go out?'

That's stupid.

 

[IM2]

for thousands of years people have used language to describe the world around them. How else can they? long before all the racism bullshit existed early
man feared the night because they couldnt see, they would have associated the darkness with spirits who inhabited it or the unknown and mysterious .
and likewise they would have seen daytime as quite the opposite. Night/ dark , black/white .... has been associated with good and evil for centuries and has
become entwined in the language of all countries around the world. i just can not believe this is about black people and racism. the fact that there are people
with light and dark skin is just incidental , well, thats just my opinion anyway

But it was a white man named Linnaeus who created race and people like Kan't and Hume decided that whites were superior. But racism is about much more than this.

 

[IM2]

Only the PC Police are authorized to determine whether a word, phrase, action or thought is racist.

Before deploying any potentially offensive word, phrase, action or thought, please submit it in writing to your nearest PC Police officer.

Clearly, blackout has potential. As does blacklist, blackened, blackboard, blackjack, blackberry, blackbird, blackfoot, blackhead, blackhawk, blackmail, blackrock, blackstone, blacksmith.

You will receive a written response within six (6) weeks. If you do not, please re-submit.

.

There is no such thing as PC.

 

[IM2]

It's foolishness like this OP which allows some whites to discount the seriousness of racism.

 

[Yarddog]

But it was a white man named Linnaeus who created race and people like Kan't and Hume decided that whites were superior. But racism is about much more than this.

There are actually very few people who find themselves mentally consumed by that shit. Most of them are worthless idealogues. I'm white but I have no control over what some intellectual who was also white, happened to dream up. And I doubt that in his time era most people would have given a damn about his theories. Sometimes there's a problem with intellectuals who have too much time on their hands and aren't out to help society.

All I know is growing up hearing terms like black out or black sheep... whatever... I had never associated that with black people. It would never have crossed my mind. Again a lot of these analysis of society and our language is done by intellectuals who have big egos trying to pretend they know whats in everyone elses head.

 

[Asclepias]

All I know is growing up hearing terms like black out or black sheep... whatever... I had never associated that with black people.

False. Just like you cant keep yourself from eventually drawing a breath, you also cant resist your minds instinctual drive to relate things to things you know. You may not have associated Black as being negative to Black people consciously but you damn sure did unconsciously. Ask MLK. He too understood this.

 

[IM2]

There are actually very few people who find themselves mentally consumed by that shit. Most of them are worthless idealogues. I'm white but I have no control over what some intellectual who was also white, happened to dream up. And I doubt that in his time era most people would have given a damn about his theories. Sometimes there's a problem with intellectuals who have too much time on their hands and aren't out to help society.

All I know is growing up hearing terms like black out or black sheep... whatever... I had never associated that with black people. It would never have crossed my mind. Again a lot of these analysis of society and our language is done by intellectuals who have big egos trying to pretend they know whats in everyone elses head.

You do have control over the continuation of white racism. This forum is proof of how whites behave relative to race. You do and say nothing while other whites are racists then when blacks point it out you get defemsve and indignant. You guys pretend you're helpless to do anything about it while you can muster up every kind or energy to start local, state and national initiatives to stop people of color from presenting their experience or opinion about the American system. It's s false helplessness that needs to stop. You can do something about white racism.

Like I said, this thread is stupid and this stupidity allows whites to dismiss serious matters. Dr. Kng spoke on the descriptive use of the word black, but the term blackout has never been an issue. The word whiteout describes a nasty and dangerous weather condition yet nobody is posting stupid ass OP's wondering if the term is racist. This is juat dumb and needs to be in the rubber room. I guarantee if a thread asking the same question about whiteouts had benn made by blacks it would have been immediately moved.

 

[Mac1958]

There is no such thing as PC.

And the right wingers tell me that there is no racism.

I know, I know.

 

[Yarddog]

False. Just like you cant keep yourself from eventually drawing a breath, you also cant resist your minds instinctual drive to relate things to things you know. You may not have associated Black as being negative to Black people consciously but you damn sure did unconsciously. Ask MLK. He too understood this.

thats what this whole thread was about ... the word "black" in the english language being "racist"
And why is that?
.
It didn't take me unconciously associating anything really. I simply just responded to the existing thread.

 

[IM2]

And the right wingers tell me that there is no racism.

I know, I know.

No, you don't know. There is no such thing as pc. Thats a racist term in and of itself because it is used to describe mostly interactions that try defining the experience of POC in opposition to stereotypes created by racists. There is correct and incorrect, there's nothing else.

 

[IM2]

 

[Mac1958]

No, you don't know. There is no such thing as pc. Thats a racist term in and of itself because it is used to describe mostly interactions that try defining the experience of POC in opposition to stereotypes created by racists. There is correct and incorrect, there's nothing else.

"PC" is a racist term now?

Yikes.

With breathtaking irony, you just demonstrated the PC that you claim doesn't exist.

 

[Asclepias]

thats what this whole thread was about ... the word "black" in the english language being "racist"
And why is that?

Its not the presence of the word Black in the english language. It's the usage and connotations associated with it that is racist.

 

[IM2]

"PC" is a racist term now?

Yikes.

With breathtaking irony, you just demonstrated the PC that you claim doesn't exist.

No idiot I didn't. Notice what is described as PC. PC doesn't exist, you are either correct or incorrect. It doesn't matter how you say it. But most of what is describe as politically correct is language used in relation to non white people. The same people who call things the pc you claim is ironic demand so called political correct language when it comes to describing their behavior. For example, "Not all whites." In speaking about white behavior whites here must always see the wprds not all whites or some other disclaimer so as they understand that a person is not blaming all whites. Now require that for a person of color then you get the claims of people being pc. And you with your disbelief that someone could say pc is a racist term, shows that you have been sucked into the crazy.