A few weeks ago, when Samuel Delany (“please call me ‘Chip'”) and I were at a gathering of friends at Michael Swanwick‘s and Marianne Porter“s home, he explained why he feels that spelling “black” with a capital “B” is racist. As is always true, Chip’s discourse was fascinating, keeping us spellbound. There and then, I knew I would want to record him on the subject.
So, here he is, helping me launch my new video interview series which shares its name with this blog: “What If? Why Not? How?”
Of course, the conversation went much further that the original, delving into the history of how the word “black” replaced “Negro” and “colored.” Chip also wandered his memories, telling me stories about W.E.B DuBois, the Delany sisters (Chip’s renowned activist aunts), Ursula K. Leguin, and others. And he commented on the public censure and ostracization of Mercedes Lackey when she described Chip as “colored” while on a panel at a SFWA conference. As always, Chip’s perspective is illuminating and his anecdotes fascinating.
About Samuel Delany: Chip is an influential social critic and teacher, as well as an award-winning author, whose books, stories, and articles cover the gamut from science fiction to essays. His website is SamuelDelany.com and you can follow him on Facebook.
About “What If? Why Not? How? The Video Series”: In this new video interview series, Sally Wiener Grotta dives into topics that matter with people whose ideas are intriguing and whose style of inquiry includes seeking open-ended discussions. These will include authors, of course, but also philosophers, scientists, rabbis and ministers, teachers and librarians, and so forth.
For years now, whenever I’ve spoken at book clubs, I’ve told my audiences, “The book you read is not the book I wrote.” That’s because reading is a participatory experience. We bring our personal histories, prejudices, expectations, hopes and concerns to our interpretations of what we see on the page. That, in turn, can color the narrative and dialog, often making our reading of a book uniquely our own.
I’ve understood that concept for so long that I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was blindsided by a friend’s adverse reaction to a word I had written. I consider the word in and of itself a neutral description. But as far as she was concerned, it was a highly charged, derogatory expression.
Okay, I admit it, I’m acrynomically challenged. It seems that new abbreviations appear daily on my twitter feed, in emails, even in articles of magazines that I think of as mainstream (i.e. written in “commonly accepted” English). And I’m sent scurrying to Google to try to find the newest definitions for acronyms that didn’t exist or meant something entirely different the last time I looked.