Non-offensive Historical terms for Black people in historical fiction
@pleasespellchimerical asked:
So writing historical fiction, with a white POV character. I’m not sure how to address race in the narration. I do have a Black main character, and I feel like it’d feel out of place to have the narrator refer to her as ‘Black’, that being a more modern term. Not sure how to do this without dipping into common historical terms that are considered racist today. Thoughts on how to handle this delicately, not pull readers out of the narrative? (fwiw, the POV character has a lot of respect for the Black character. The narration should show this)
There are non-offensive terms you can use, even in historical fiction. We can absolutely refer to Black people without slurs, and if slurs is all one can come up with, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. I cannot say which terms are best for your piece without knowing the time period, but hopefully the list below helps.
Historical terms to use for Black people (non-offensive)
African American documented as early as 1782 (documented in an ad in the Pennsylvania Journal). Note the identity isn’t accurate for non-American Black people.
African could refer to African people or “from 1722 as ‘of or pertaining to black Americans.’”
The place of origin could also be used. For example, “a Nigerian woman”
Africo-American documented as early as 1788.
People of Color documented as early as 1796 (with specific contexts, usually mixed people)
Afro American documented as early as 1817, 1831 (depending on source)
Black American documented as early as 1831
Black was used in Old English to refer to dark-skinned people. Black was not capitalized until recent years, so “She was a young black woman.” would make sense to say, though “She was a young Black woman.” is the better standard today, although not universally adopted. I personally prefer it capitalized.
Moor was used as early as the late 1400s for North African people, but had a somewhat flexible use where anyone visibly Black / Of African descent or the Afro Diaspora might be referred to or assumed as a Moor. Note, it has other meanings too, such as referring to Muslim people, but that doesn’t mean the person using it is going by the dictionary definition. Not really the way to go today, but okay in a historical setting (in my opinion).
Biracial (1860s), mixed race (1872), multiracial (1903) and multicultural (1940s) are also terms to refer to people of two or more races.
Occupation + description. Throughout history, many people have been referred to as their occupation. For example, the Carpenter, The Baker, the Blacksmith. Here’s an example of how you might go about using occupation and traits to identify a Black character in history. Here’s an example I came up with on the fly.
“You should go by Jerry’s. He’s the best blacksmith this town’s ever seen. Ya know, the real tall, dark-skinned, curly haired fellow. Family’s come here from Liberia.”
Offensive and less-sensitive terms for Black people
Blacks was used in plural more, but this is generally offensive today (Even writing it gives me **Thee ick*)
Colored was mostly used post-civil war until the mid 20th century, when it became unacceptable. This is not to be conflated with the South African Coloured ethnic group.
Negro/Negroes were also used as early as the 1550s. Capitalization became common in the early 20th century. I’m sure you know it is offensive today, though, admittedly, was not generally seen as such until around the 1960s, when Black replaced it. It does have its contexts, such as the trope “The Magical Negro” but going around using the term or calling someone that today is a lot different.
Mulatto referred to mixed people, generally Black and white, and is offensive today.
The N-word, in all its forms, is explicitly a slur, and there is absolutely no need to use it, especially in a casual manner, in your story. We’ve written about handling the N-word and alluding to it “if need be” but there are other ways to show racism and tension without dropping the word willy-nilly.
Deciding what to use, a modern perspective
I’m in favor of authors relying on the less offensive, more acceptable terms. Particularly, authors outside of the race. Seldom use the offensive terms except from actual direct quotes.
You do not have to use those offensive terms or could at least avoid using them in excess. I know quite famous stories do, but that doesn’t mean we have to so eagerly go that route today. Honestly, from teachers to school, and fellow non-Black students, it’s the modern day glee that people seem to get when they “get a chance to say it” that makes it worse and also makes me not want to give people the chance.
It goes back to historical accuracy only counting the most for an “authentic experience” when it means being able to use offensive terms or exclude BIPOC from stories. We’ve got to ask ourselves why we want to plaster certain words everywhere for the sake of accuracy when there are other just as accurate, acceptable words to use that hurt less people.
Disclaimer: Opinions may vary on these matters. But just because someone from the group cosigns something by stating they’re not offended by it, doesn’t mean a whole lot of others are okay with it and their perspectives are now invalid! Also, of course, how one handles the use of these words as a Black person has a different connotation and freedom on how they use them.
Since no country was mentioned, I’m going to add a bit about the vocabulary surrounding Black people during slavery, especially in the Caribbean. Although, Colette adds, if your Black characters are slaves, this begs the question why we always gotta be slaves.
At the time, there were words used to describe people based on the percentage of Black blood they had. Those are words you may find during your searches but I advise you not to use them. As you will realize if you dive a bit into this system, it looks like a classifying table. At the time, people were trying to lighten their descent and those words were used for some as a sort of rank. Louisiana being French for a time, those expressions were also seen there until the end of the 19th century.
The fractions I use were the number of Black ancestors someone had to have to be called accordingly.
¼ or ⅛ : quarteron or métis (depending on the island, I’m thinking about Saint-Domingue, Martinique and Guadeloupe)
In Saint-Domingue, it could go down to 1/64, where people were considered sang-mêlé (mixed blood for literal translation, but “HP and the Half-Blood Prince” is translated “HP et le Prince de Sang-Mêlé” in French, so I guess this is another translation possibility).
Use the 3rd person narrative to your advantage
If you are intent on illustrating historical changes in terminology consider something as simple as showing the contrast between using “black” for first person character narration, but “Black” for 3rd person narrator omniscient.
I liked how this was addressed in the new American Girl books
it’s set in Harlem in the 1920’s and there’s a paragraph at the beginning that says “this book uses the common language of the time period and it’s not appropriate to use now”
NYT: Use of ‘African-American’ Dates to Nation’s Early Days
The Etymology dictionary - great resource for historical fiction
Wikipedia: Person of Color
