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Color metaphors for race

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In some societies, color metaphors are used in place of racial classifications. These often resulted in Western societies because of the variety in human skin tone.

Contents

Western classifications

In the West, especially the United States, the primary color metaphor for race of individuals of African ancestry-classified as Negroid- is "black", and individuals of European ancestry-classified as Caucasoid-is "white". In Australia, Australian Aborigines are also called "black". The terms negro, colored also served as color metaphors for Negroids of African ancestry except in some places, such as South Africa, where the metaphor coloured is used for those who are racially mixed.

Similarly, persons of East Asian descent-classified as Mogoloid- are called "yellow". This term was most commonly used during the late 19th century, but it is still sometimes used. The yellow peril was a perceived threat from East Asian immigration.

Execept for those from Latin America, Indigenous peoples of the Americas are called "red", "Redskins" (generally resulting from the red war paint used by Native Americans), and "Red Indians". Mestizos- a blend of Caucasian and Native American as well as full blooded Native Americans, usually from Latin America- are commonly referred to as brown people.

At times, brown has been used as a catch-all term for nonwhites. For instance, during the American occupation of the Philippines, Governor-General William Howard Taft referred to Filipino people as his "little brown friends".

Sometimes in the US those from the Indian subcontinent are referred to as "brown".

In the United States, color metaphors are so commonplace that many anti-discrimination statutes use the phrase "race, color, or creed". A branch of the civil rights struggle by African-Americans was known as the "Black Power" movement; by extension, a similar civil rights movement among American Indians was (much less commonly) referred to as "Red Power". The metaphors are used somewhat informally in academic writing as well as reflected, for example, in the title of Gary B. Nash's book Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America (1974).

One point of objection to these terms for race is that they can be used to reinforce subconsciously erroneous positive and negative self-images. [#endnote_Moore] The numerous negative uses of black and favorable uses of white have led many people to promote alternate terminology for "black" people, for example "African-American". Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Ralph Ellison identify a number of negative metaphors in Western cultures associated with the color "black"; see Black - Usage, symbolism, and colloquial expressions.

See also: Food metaphors for race

Russia

In Russia, persons of Caucasus descent are called Black. "White", apart from its racial meaning, is also a term denoting opponents of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (see White movement for this usage).

Sometimes, Belarus and Belarusians have been referred to (in Western languages, not Russian) as "White Russia" and "White Russians", which can be misleading; see those articles for discussion in more depth.

India

The Sanskrit word for "caste" is वर्ण (varṇa) which has several literal meanings including "color".

China

Huang (yellow) is a common surname, but does not refer to the East Asian race as was popular in Western languages until recently. However, the Yellow Emperor was a legendary founder of China. Yellow is also identified with the "center" cardinal direction, while China is known as Zhongguo "middle country".

Hua (華), one of the most common terms for "Chinese", literally means "multicolored", "flowery", or "splendid".

White (白 bai) means "plain" or "free of charge" in many common expressions and was not traditionally used to refer to Europeans or descendants, who were indentified as "people from [across the] ocean" or some variety of "barbarian". Contemporary Chinese, has, however, adopted Western usage to a large extent. Black (黑 hei) is typically applied to those of African race today. However, the term "black resident" (黑户) also refers to unregistered rural migrants in cities (as in black market).

Names of ethnic minorities sometimes contain colors, not to indicate skin tone, but simply for identification, possibly based on traditional clothing or geographical direction.

Korea

The word, 인종 een-jong, is used when describing a person's race, which also incorporates his or her skin color. White 백 baek, used with 인 een to make 백인, baek-een, literally means white-person in Korean, cognate to Chinese bai ren and Japanese hakujin. 흑 heug is used to describe persons of African descent, (i.e. 흑인, cognate to Chinese hei ren and Japanese kokujin).

Central Asia

The five cardinal directions were historically identified with colors. This was common to the Central Asian cultural area and was carried west by the westward migration of the Turks. These directional color terms were applied both to geographic features and sometimes to populations as well.

Notes and references

  1. ↑  Moore, Roger B., Racism in the English Language, 1976; Hughes, Langston, "That Word Black", The Return of Simple

See also

 

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