Hung up on labels we forget `people'

17 August 2001

If the Boston City Council succeeds in passing a law banning the use of the word "minority," what will we call the group of councilors voting against the measure?

The thinking of Council President Charles Yancey, who proposed the idea, is that "minority" has a negative connotation. Minority "implies inferiority," he says.

Unless, of course, you happen to be among the minority of applicants accepted to Harvard College, in which case you're decidedly not inferior.

In our culture today, we all want to be part of the mainstream. To be in the minority, to not be like everyone else, is to make you unusual and out of step. That's why the word "minority" hurts.

My mother, font of wisdom when I was growing up, used to argue that, "just because all of France jumps off a bridge, doesn't mean you should too." How wrong she was. Better to be in the water with the rest of the French nation than to resist and be thought of as different.

In truth, though, Yancey has a point: The way we use the word "minority" is somewhat bizarre. Back in simpler days, we used to divide the world into black and white and there was no need for the word "minority." Then we discovered Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans and decided to throw them into the same category as African- Americans.

A new word was needed. Some used "non-white." A few Archie Bunker- ish types adopted the term "ethnics," but the more politically correct settled on "minorities."

That worked fine until the number of minorities grew so that, as happened in Boston, there were actually more non-whites than whites. At that point the minority became the majority and the majority became the minority, a linguistic inversion on par with "jumbo shrimp."

Thus the City Council rides to the rescue of the nation's vocabulary. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will have to shut down its Office of Minority Health. Minority Business Enterprise magazine will no longer be available on Boston newsstands. And minority set-asides for minority contractors will become something else altogether.

And what will that be? Yancey proposes "people of color." (People- of-color set-asides for people-of-color contractors?) "People of color" should not be confused with "colored people," by the way. The latter is decidedly not politically correct; the former is fine, apparently through the miracle of prepositions.

But who is a "person of color"? Gloucester fishermen and habitues of tanning parlors have far darker skin than residents of Boston's Chinatown. They, presumably, aren't really people of color. And then there are women, who presently are often counted as minorities. Could a blonde woman be a person of color while a dark-haired man is not?

I suppose "person of color" is a lot like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it."

One alternative to "people of color" is the ugly acronym AHANA, which stands for African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans. First coined by Boston College, it's now in use at lots of area schools, including Emerson and Babson.

I think AHANA is fatally flawed because it excludes Pacific Islanders, who, I imagine, will mount demonstrations in protest if it is widely adopted. And then there are the 15.4 million Americans who say they are some other race altogether. Where do they fit in AHANA?

And in Boston, with its long history of ethnic strife, the list can go on. Boston's Irish, who carry the memory of "Irish Need Not Apply" as if it were today's news, still puzzle over when and how they made the switch from aggrieved minority to oppressor majority. Boston's Jews and Italians have similar histories.

We are indeed a city and nation obsessed with race and ethnicity. And that obsession has played out in ways that have been deeply troubling. The busing clashes of the early 1970s tore the city apart. For a long time visitors to Boston were warned off from certain neighborhoods because of their skin color.

Yet Boston has, over the past few years, slowly begun to emerge from its preoccupation with race. Real issues - like housing, education, and the future site for a new Fenway Park - increasingly dominate political discourse. It's certainly not one big happy city, but it is inescapable that there is a level of civility and harmony today that once seemed unattainable.

All of which makes the City Council's actions puzzling. In trying to figure out how to label people with different skin color, we perpetuate the notion that these should be the measure of a person. Rather than getting away from stereotypes, the council seems more willing than ever to indulge in them.

So what should we call Asians, Hispanics or African-Americans?

Minorities? People of color? AHANAs?

How about by their first and last names?