The Politics of Naming: Changing Labels for Americans of African Descent, 1800-2000

• In Event: 174 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Diverse Black Experiences and Identities

Abstract

Why do labels for the same groups of people often change over time? In this paper, I construct a general theory of labeling to explain when and why common labels for Americans of African descent (e.g. ‘Negroes,’ ‘Blacks,’ and ‘African Americans’) have changed over time. I argue that labels become popular and continue to maintain their popularity to the extent that they are cultural resonant, politically strategic, and rhetorically palatable. Using digitized collections of millions of American newspaper articles and books, I analyze how often different labels have been used over the past two centuries. This information then allows me to identify time periods when the popularity of different labels rose and fell. I then analyze the use of these terms across individual texts published during these critical points in time. My combined quantitative and historical findings provide support for a general theory of labeling.

Author

• Jeffrey Swindle, University of Michigan