Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/40

 one had more Negro blood than white, he would be considered a Negro; if more white than Negro, a Caucasian. Therefore, at the very threshold of this subject, even in the definitions of terms, one discovers a race distinction. Whether it is a discrimination depends upon what one considers the relative desirability of Caucasian and Negro ancestry.

PROPER NAME FOR BLACK MEN IN AMERICA

Having considered how the law defines that heterogeneous group of people called Negroes, one is brought face to face with the question: What, in actual practice, is the proper name for the black man in America? Is it "Negro?" Is it "colored person?" Is it "Afro-American?" If not one of these, what is it? Among the members of that group, the matter of nomenclature is of more than academic interest. Thus, Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, Professor of Historical Theology at Gamman Seminary, Atlanta, and editor of The Voice of the Negro, in 1906, published an article in that paper with the pertinent title, "Who are We?"

The ways of speaking of members of the Negro race are various. In the laws, as has been shown, they are called "Negroes," "Persons of Color," "Colored Persons," "Africans," and "Persons of African Descent"—more often "Persons of Color." By those who would speak dispassionately and scientifically they are called Negroes and Afro-Americans. Those who are anxious not to wound the feelings of that race speak of them as "Colored People" or "Darkies"; while those who would speak contemptuously of them say "Nigger" or "Coon." "Nig