Most people haven’t the slightest idea of who they are and what they are. When questioned about their true identity many are equally confused. Who are you?
Historically, we were called “nigger” before we had the right to vote, “niagras” when just a few of us went to the polls, “colored folk” when our numbers began to swell, and “Negroes” when we began the great migration north in the forties and fifties. But who are you? With the power in the 1960s came self-respect. “Black,” it seemed, was the final step on the road to dignity and equality. Not so, say many leaders and social activists of the day. “African American,” it has been said, is the proper term. But again, I ask, who are you?
Each of us sooner of later will search for you true identity. For example, ”wetbacks” became “illegal aliens” and then “undocumented workers.” The “old” became the “elderly” and now “senior citizens”; the “crippled” became “handicapped,” “disabled” and now “physically challenged.”
If any of the above labels – African American, black, Negro, of Coloured – seems symbollically out of place, then of course it should and must go. But if you told me that you are a “mind with a body,” a spiritual being, apart of the great “I AM,” you would be closer to the truth. You would be in line with the African proverb that states, “If you don’t know who you are, anyone can name you; and if anyone can name you, you will answer to anything.”
