I also like the points about how language evolves over time. Unfortunately, there are some many points I can’t really comment on the all, but this has given me several points to think about.

In a conversation I had with an economist in Cuba, he insisted on not using the term “developing.” In his words “We aren’t going anywhere” and using the term masked the situation. Of course, for those who have been studying the “developing” world for some time, we remember when we advocated to discard “third world” for the more hopeful sounding “developing.”

One of the most interesting discussion of “other ways to say marginalized” that I’ve ever had was with a multinational group of scholars and activists who had come together in Ecuador for a conference. One insisted that we should not use “the poor” because it was insulting, and in the country where he worked (but was not a national), people who were economically disadvantaged got quite offended being called pobre, and preferred marginal, which emphasized the social dynamic of active marginalization by the powerful. On the other hand, some of us worked in another country, in which another language was primary, and to call people marginal, was the insulting phrase. The people there (vastly generalizing again, “the people”) preferred pobre, as a basic factual statement around which they could organize to advocate for economic change. Not to mention the positive and negative aspects of (and attempts at reclaiming) sem terra (without land), favelado (shantytown dweller) etc. Likewise, the distinctions raised between the use of afro- hyphenating with the national identity, versus negro raised huge questions of national - as well as regional - cultural differences. Some activists (from some countries) insisted that the use of afro- fostered division, by emphasizing the nationality (after the hyphen) and that negro (reclaimed) or negritude was the better unifying concept. Others, the opposite.

All of which served to impress me with the difficulty in agreement, for one, but also for the necessity of recognizing across cultures, and even within countries, the possibility that even the most well-thought out attempts at establishing a “new” term, less imbued with power inequalities, was likely to run into this kind of problem either sooner - in the case of cross cultural differences - or later - in the case of generational change - as with the Third World/Developing scenario. An open mind to this possibility, and the willingness to recognize it when it occurs, is extremely important.

…Yes, and anti-pron feminists have been asking “freedom to what?” for a long, long time. There are specific connotational disincentives to “liberal,” too.

Makes a good deal of sense. It leaves out one factor, because of course in theory we can pick any group and define them as the archetype. If marginalized groups nevertheless use the definitions of the most powerful group, that stems from the use of physical power rather than the definition itself.

Now, this part of the original post puzzles me slightly:

No matter how often I explain that the terms “people of color” and “colored people” are not the same, I still have students who use the term “colored people.” Even though I thoroughly explain the difference, somebody uses it every semester; it is usually Whites, but I am increasingly seeing “people of color” using the term “colored people.”

And? People changed the name because of racist connotations. If those connotations have died out enough for members of the marginalized group to use the name proudly, well then, “colored people” seems more accurate and less ominous-sounding than “black”. (And while I’ve heard the word “nigger” from Southern whites, I don’t recall ever hearing them say “colored”.)

This reminds me of the name “progressive” for people on the political left. The word sounds good, and lacks the irrational negative connotations of “liberal”, but it doesn’t make a damned bit of sense. Liberal refers to freedom, while progressive refers to progress — progress towards what? A robot uprising? A return to the Middle Ages? One person’s progress is another’s regress. It depends which direction you face. Hopefully at some point we’ll all go back to saying liberal, or some other inherently good name.

I’ve heard (perhaps apocryphally) that CBS News had a policy of substituting the term “African American” for “black,” with the consequence that Dan Rather reported, “For the first time, South Africa is sending an African American to the Miss Universe pageant.”

“You made your connotational bed, now lie in it.”

Recall that the word “cop” was originally pejorative. I knew it had turned a corner when the guys on C.H.I.Ps were complaining about being punished for being a “good cop.”

Well, let me ante up my own 2 cents:

Positive vs. Normative. I use words as tools; I have a bunch, and I use different ones for different purposes. I have words for describing (”positing” or “positive” words) and words for evaluating (”normative” or judging words). So I see benefits in having “nice [descriptive] words” for discussing marginalization and domination, as well as having evaluative words. I would hope a teacher could present her students with facts about marginalization and domination, and trust that the students would draw appropriate conclusions based on those facts. I would hope a teacher would not need to use normative words to advise students about the appropriate conclusions to draw.

I suspect Rachel’s concern is not that people use value-neutral descriptive words for discussing marginalization and domination. Rather, I suspect she’s concerned that people use value-neutral NON-descriptive words - words selected not merely to avoid expressing an opinion, but to avoid expressing facts about which people will have opinions. That language obstructs critical thinking as much as normative words do.

Positive terms “default” and “archetype.” Because everyone’s circumstances differ, no one term will encompass them all in every detail. I kinda like the idea of building a tool box of terms with related but finely graduated meanings. On the other hand, I also kinda like the elegance of using similar terms to describe certain common dynamics. And among the dynamics that I find most commonly are those of “margin” and “archetype” (although I must admit that “default” sounds less snooty than “archetype.”)

Some words evoke an archetypical (or “default”) image in my mind. This dynamic need not be related to power or oppression. For me, the word “bird” evokes an image of a sparrow, not a penguin. Intellectually I acknowledge that both are birds equally, but at some gut level I accord more “birdness” to sparrows than penguins.

I don’t know that I would regard penguins as “oppressed members of the bird community” as a result. But, of course, the fact that I think in terms of archetypes has consequences that can be oppressive. If I were to design public policy to promote the interests of birds, I might very well overlook the interests of penguins - not out of animosity for penguins, but out of ignorance and indifference. The power of being the archetype is the power not to be overlooked out of ignorance or indifference.

One sign that people are thinking in terms are archetypes is when people use adjectives to define only one part a continuum. I hear the term “unwed mother” but not “wed mother”; a “wed mother” is the unstated archetype of mother. Similarly the term “date rape” is more common that “stranger rape.” The term “Upper Peninsula” is more common that “Lower ??? [Michigan]“ The term “working poor” is more common than “unemployed poor.” Etc.

The archetype need not be a member of a majority. My archetypical human is male, even though I believe that women outnumber men. My archetypical rape is committed by a stranger, even thought I believe most rapes occur between acquaintances. My archetypical person of color is black, even though I believe that the number of Hispanics has surpassed the number of blacks in the US. Thanks to lobbying, the archetypical person who pays an estate tax is a family farmer, even though I believe the vast majority of people paying that tax are stockmarket heirs.

Attribution affect. Psychologists observe that we tend to offer more lenient judgments to people with whom we identify than to others. That guy cut me off in traffic because he’s an inconsiderate jerk. In contrast, I changed lanes abruptly because I was constrained by other cars. Identical behavior, different judgments.

So, why do I lavish attention on the archetype/margin distinction? Perhaps because it’s the one I learned most recently. But also perhaps because it offers a partial explanation for discrimination and oppression that doesn’t involve much guilt on the part of able-bodied white male professionals like me. The attribution affect suggests that I will favor explanations that let me off the hook - and I do! Of course, the attribution affect also suggests that people who feel oppressed will favor explanations that find moral fault with their oppressors. So it’s hard to find neutral ground upon which to stand, linguistically or otherwise.

I’m going to start saying exactly this, with no further explanation, to folks who bitch about how unfair it is that “those people” (or “you people”, in the case of queer slurs) get to use language that they cannot use without being offensive.

They’ll probably just stand and blink at me, but it’ll make me happy.

On a more serious note:

Polymath — I think you’re completely right, and the language is going to change and absorb new connotations all the time. Somewhere above, somebody said:

And nobody felt better or more empowered afterwards, because the problem isn’t the connotations of the words, but rather who gets the power to give the words connotations.

which I think is a really great way to say it.

I’m honestly less concerned about whether the terms are viewed as negative in this case than I am about whether they accurately reflect the power relationships for which they’re being used. I think that “minority” — understood with its connotations, including the one about numbers — winds up doing a very poor job in that. And I suspect that no small amount of confusion or misunderstanding about the nature of those power relationships comes out of that. I think that the constant “but in sociology, it means X!” thing — let’s just say I think it’s fairly funny that sociologists, who of all people should be very aware of the power in the connotations of language to form conceptual associations, are still hung up on using the terms “minority” and “majority” when — given most people’s understanding of those words — they will not accurately reflect the power dynamic they’re being used to describe.

But then, I’m a science geek, too — and don’t get me started on the words “hypothesis” and “theory” and the considerable problems they create for nonscientists’ understanding of accepted scientific ideas. No small amount of the popular culture debate on evolution is driven, IMO, by that language.

Erf. More coffee for me. I’m not sure anything I just said makes any sense at all.

kind of like how “n”“ger” was replaced with a more polite “Negro”, which was replaced with a more polite “colored person” which was replaced with a more polite “Black” which was supplemented by the more descriptive “African-American” (which some people use as if it were a synonym for “Black”; tell that to Africans and Pacific-Islanders). “multiculturalism” used to sound positive, but now it reminds people of quotas.

Perhaps the most pro-marginalized-group development in language has been the (relatively) recent move to partially re-claim slurs, like the ‘N’ word, or various anti-gay slang, as in-group-only language.

They become “words we can call each other, but that you can’t call us.” It’s sort of a flip-off to the unmarginalized, saying “You made your connotational bed, now lie in it.”

I posted on this very subject yesterday. Because let’s face it, disability awareness within the blogosphere pretty much sucks.

As for the word minority, I tend to think of it in sociological terms myself because that’s my training. I try not to use it when speaking to a person individually since it is an overall generalization and not meant to be applied singularly. It’s very similar to why I refuse to use “American Indian” or “Native American” but instead will use “indigenous peoples.”

I really like your post and the discussion that ensued. Thanks for putting it up for us to see!

kind of like how “n–ger” was replaced with a more polite “Negro”, which was replaced with a more polite “colored person” which was replaced with a more polite “Black” which was supplemented by the more descriptive “African-American” (which some people use as if it were a synonym for “Black”; tell that to Africans and Pacific-Islanders). “multiculturalism” used to sound positive, but now it reminds people of quotas.

my point is that there’s no way to prevent the words from absorbing negative connotations if the whole reason we need them is to describe undesirable situations. sure, it might matter to some people which word you use (like the woman who was understandably offended by “minority”). but to avoid negative connotations, you’d have to come up with a different word every 5 years or so, and soon everyone would be on to that ploy as well.

i once was in the presence of someone who used “Jewish” as a synonym for “stupid”. so, what, are we going to make a new word for practitioners of that religion because some people use it as an insult?

so i do understand why that woman was offended by “minority” even if it’s technically used as a sociological or numerical term. but notice that if there were no racism, that “less than” connotation would probably not occur to her, and she’d just accept it as numerical description. it’s the presence of racism that’s offensive, not the word itself.

i’m not saying words don’t matter, exactly, just that it’s unrealistic to expect the language to have (or keep) a neutral word for a distinctly non-neutral situation.

so…there, that’s the 2¢ from the linguist in the group.

sociologically speaking, minority means those who are currently not in power and that can mean democrats, liberals, non-whites. it has a negative connotation.

cynics talk of a time when we will all be black and non-black.

I use the term “default” often, too… it comes in very handy when I’m discussing this stuff with old redneck-ish buddies. Which is always a happenin’ time, let me tell you.

I also just wanted to say that the big problem I have with the term “minority” and its (often unintentional) focus on the size of the group is specifically that no matter what size of group we’re talking about, it really makes it seem as though the size of the group is the central thing in its social standing. It’s completely possible to be both a numerical majority of the population and subordinated — and it’s possible to be a relatively small amount of the population and dominant. So the language, the way its interpreted in real life, just utterly misses the point IMO.

However, I agree that we should not use the term “minority” to refer to a group whose numbers are not smaller than the established power group’s numbers. In my community, blacks are definitely a minority, as are liberals, but 30 miles away, in the city, whites are a minority (well, they were, before the hurricane), yet no one refers to them as that.

To me, it’s even worse than the old-school “first world” “third world” distinction, though of course that suffers badly from the same problem (and who ever talked about those “second world” countries, anyway?).

As you noticed, even positive, newly-minted terms and symbols simply become magnets of mockery to bigots. Rainbow flags and “multiculturalism” still seem very positive to me, but we all know how they’ve been stomped on by those who want to.

My preferred word for the condition of white men is “default“. It’s certainly how they perceive themselves, since American society never seriously treats them as an “other” for very long. Consciously or not, this allows them to sweepingly categorize other ethnicities, and depreciate women to greater or lesser degrees, while avoiding categorization, and thereby marginalization, themselves. Religion and sexuality become lesser pieces in the same game. (Note the telling meanings behind the old phrase of a certain persuasion. Persuaded away from what?)

“Default” emphasizes the lack of definition “whiteness” has beyond mere presumptive power over non-whites (”maleness” by contrast, is laden with storied imagery). It also suggests something common and replaceable; unspecial– this emphasizes that a loss of power is a loss of white male identity, since empowerment is their default identity.

The argument with which I strongly disagree:

that changing the terminology/categorization system to not reflect racial difference (because it’s not biologically real) will somehow help racial difference disappear as a social mechanism. Or, more central to this topic, that changing the language from “marginalized” or “subordinate” populations to something else would help in some way to break down the power structure that makes them marginalized or subordinate.

Not that that’s the entire argument from people who want to change the language, mind you. It was a little bit of a side note.