I always use a capital when taking about a group of people; Beats, Beatniks, Hippies, Deadheads and of course Whites.
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It used to be fairly common in the UK, not least among activists of colour seeking to promote solidarity among those suffering racism, e.g. the Southall Black Sisters, founded by Asian women. It persists primarily in the name of the Metropolitan Black Police Association (open to Asian as well as African and African-Caribbean officers) and of similar associations in other UK police forces.
In colonial times, the British would also freely apply the N-word to pretty much any non-white subject population.
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About that first point: It is a fair point of course and quite important but there is a historical background to it that might in certain cases make the use of the term slave appropiate.
The chattel slavery in the America’s was very different from “classic” slavery as it had existed throughout the world. In most societies that had slaves this was seen as a status in society of that person. The African chattel slavery was a whole group of peoples that had an in toto status of slave outside of that society. That is different.
A Frankish slave in classic Rome when freed would then become a Frank in classic Rome. An African slave in the America’s when freed would become a free slave (*) and still by that society seen as an outsider, alien. Still slave, just a special kind of slave. All varieties of the N-word I know at that time were synonyms of slave.
This makes Ta-Nehisi Coates’ point absolutely true, slave should never be seen as a quality of a person and I will certainly take her advice to heart. But also remember that the slaveholding society of the America’s at that time absolutely saw the whole of Black people as slaves and this set that type slavery truly apart from most others, certainly from things like feudalism and indentured people.
So we should never label a person slave but this was done, it was a reality in the America’s then, and when you describe that society it is sometimes unavoidable to make clear how that society worked.
(*Think of that term for a second. See: Paradox)
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Yes, it’s true that white people in America are often able to trace their roots back to a specific European country of origin. But when they start using it as a “geographic identity”, it soon becomes either offensive or ridiculous.
In conversations with Europeans, every American of European descent sooner or later proudly proclaims “I’m [Austrian | German | Italian | Czech | … ] myself!”
At which point I have to bite down hard on my tongue to keep myself from simply saying “No you’re not”. It’s a pretty safe bet that the American in question wouldn’t even understand if I said “Na, san’S net.”
They are using their privilege of living in a huge country and of speaking the world’s lingua franca at home to redefine other nation’s identities to serve as racial terms for petty distinctions within their own country.
“Geographic identity” - i.e. appropriating someone else’s geographic identity based on racial/genetic criteria - is of course also offensive when done by Black Americans. Anyone remember Trevor Noah’s Africa World Cup joke? I don’t think most Americans, or Trevor Noah himself, can understand how deeply offensive that actually was.
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To quote Coach McGuirk: “What is going on in Mexico!?”
Well, when in Rome…
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Does the term Black Americans include Black people in South America whose ancestors were also enslaved, or does it more refer to Black people in the US?
You mean in one of those rare occasions where one would actually need to distinguish them from other people who are not dark skinned, or from other dark skinned people who are not African? Because otherwise “people” would do just fine in most cases, I guess.
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Apples and oranges.
You seem to be overlooking the huge difference between being able to trace one’s lineage because in most cases, one’s ancestors chose to come here and were thus able to pass down a connection to the old country, and not being able to do so because one’s ancestors were kidnapped, relocated, and forced to lose any such connection.
Just because White Americans can look ridiculous when harkening back to this or that country of origin doesn’t mean that Black Americans would or should appreciate your telling them how they should feel about not even being able to do that.
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I remember a psychiatrist I worked with decades ago talking of visiting Scotland and saying - I thought those things we did were just weird family things. Now I know differently.
Culture isn’t erased by immigration- it can be erased much more by enslavement and forceful eradication of ones background.
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It is not a top-down implementation, but a bottom-up, and because of that, it is not engineered to cover all cases.
It is an attempt to deal with a specific point that some people don’t think the old way is the best way to express it, and now they are raising awareness about it and how this new way is more suitable.
Regarding your specific point, i think it depends on the context, and it should be clear what it is referring to.
But, i don’t think that trying to combine all the american continent blacks into a single category is so useful, as the experiences are different on each place (of course it still work in some cases).
For me, it is the same as saying western black, the black people on western countries, it can be used in some cases, but mostly it is not, useful at all, and you don’t even see it as a term.
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I’m curious. How do immigrants in your country define themselves in relationship to their origins- and how do non immigrants define them? Newer immigrants particularly. And how many are of Non European background?
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I heard a funny story about that several years ago. Someone was talking about his extended family back in France, who’d lived in the same country village since the Middle Ages when a Bohemian mercenary ancestor had settled there after retiring from the war biz. Even in the 2000s, his family was still known locally as “the Germans”.
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Your point only applies to descendants of voluntary European immigrants to the US. A born and bred American with no knowledge of Germany claiming to be German, despite no knowledge of German language and culture, is one thing.
But let’s say this person might be of German descent, or maybe it’s Algerian, or maybe Turkish, or Irish, or who the fuck knows, and oh yeah, they are about half black even though they do not identify as such and are not treated as such. This is a much closer parallel.
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There isn’t any “classic” slavery - different cultures with slaves had different rules, and that didn’t just vary between cultures, it varied over time. And according to the UN, there are more slaves today than in any time in the past - I don’t think it’s legal anywhere, but it’s practiced in many countries.
I have heard it said that slavery was kinder in Roman times, but the slaves who were poorly fed and worked to death on Roman farms or mines or galleys (ships powered by rowing slaves) did not think so - during times of Roman expansion, slaves were plentiful and cheap. Later, for hundreds of years christian and muslim slaves were used to power galleys around the Mediterranean by both European and non-European powers. That lasted until the late 1700s. And they were also often worked to death. Even Papal galleys sometimes used European christian slaves gotten from slaver raiding parties, although they preferred muslim slaves for religious reasons - much of the Mediterranean coast was abandoned in those years because of the threat of being enslaved by either christian or muslim slavers.
Arguments that some slavery is “better” than others miss the point that all slavery is horrible, and no slavery should ever be tolerated.
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All Slaves Matter?
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Do modern laws in Italy maintain (with force) the lesser legal, economic, and social status of descendants of those Roman slaves?
Let’s stay focused on the people who are STILL being actively harmed by the inhumanity forced on their ancestors.
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I said that arguments about who treated slaves better are irrelevant, all slavery is horrible, in answer to someone who was talking about a mythical “classical” slavery that he thought wasn’t as bad as American slavery. Nothing I said in any way diminished the experience of Black Americans today - and nothing I have EVER written has diminished or tried to justify or toned down the vicious effects of current institutional racism in the U.S.A.
Weirdly, in the US using the “U” implied that you were talking about race and not hue, so there were “coloured restrooms,” but “coloring books.” That usage has largely disappeared with de jure segregation.
All slavery is horrible. An institution of slavery that: singled out the enslaved mainly on the basis of the colour of the victims’ skin; that perpetuated that racist basis with a breeding programme; that left behind a legacy that runs like a toxic waste dump under American society to this day (as discussed in this very topic and FPP); that is a slavery that’s arguably more horrible than many other institutions of slavery – especially in the context of this discussion.
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Right? We’re not still dealing with the legacy of, say, slavery in the Roman empire in such a direct and visceral way… the American variant, we most certainly are. There are living people whose grandparents were enslaved. 
Assuming all forms of slavery are equally bad, so we shouldn’t talk about specific ones is just another way for white people to avoid having conversations that need to happen.
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