Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

Chapter 1 opens with a question about how White people can discuss race with minorities without sounding or being racist. Acho focuses on labels, notably, on the differences between the terms Black and African American. Acho approaches the topic from a historical perspective. Most Black people in the US are descendants of slaves whose ancestors were violently removed from Africa. After the Civil War (1861–1865), emancipated Black people adopted different racial labels to describe themselves, including “colored,” which remained common into the early 20th century, “Negro,” which was used until the end of the Civil Rights movement, and Black, which became the dominant term at the end of the 1960s. The term African-American did not emerge until 1988, when Black leaders met to discuss the National Black Agenda.

Many objected to the hyphenated term, arguing that it presented Black people as a subset of the American population. Acho further problematizes the term. As an American of Nigerian descent, he does not identify with the entire continent of Africa. Further, the term Black is more inclusive because it can refer to the whole of the African diaspora. In the end, Acho encourages White people to ask when they are unsure of what label to use because different individuals have different preferences.