‘African American' Is Awkward. It's Time to Use ‘Black.'

New York Times

5 days ago

In this episode of 'The Opinions,' the linguist and Opinion writer John McWhorter and David Leonhardt, the editorial director of Opinion, debate the politics of how we talk about race and identity and discuss whether 'Latinx' is a thing.
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The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
David Leonhardt: My colleague John McWhorter wrote a fascinating recent column arguing that it's time to retire the term 'African American' and return to using 'Black' loudly and proudly, as John put it. I kept thinking about that article after I read it because it reminded me of so many other debates we have about the politics of language, especially involving questions of identity.
John, in addition to writing for Times Opinion, is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, and he spent years mulling over many of these questions. So I asked him to come on the show this week and talk through a list of hot-button linguistic issues. John, welcome to The Opinions.
John McWhorter: Happy to be here, David. Thank you.
Leonhardt: You write so much about identity and language and politics. How did you get interested in that intersection?
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