Philadelphia Tribune - Index

Philadelphia Tribune - April Magazine - Blogger Nation - Index

dents whose parents have named them in
honor of other family members like
Mamie, Delores and Cecil. Also, to
name a child an African name is a positive
connotation that has meaning and
beauty,” said Bell, whose two sons are
24 years apart. “My oldest son Sean
named his younger brother Sidney Tyler
because it was a ‘family naming
process.’”
Bell said that the unique naming of
children crisscrosses economics and race
in America, pointing particularly to the
extreme number of white children
named after soap opera characters in the
’80s.
“There were enough children
named Alexis, Krystal and Ericka
(Cane) to make the same type of
claim against white parents, but it
must be understood that white
people have the ability to revere
in one community what they
denounce in another,” said Bell.
Still, the reality of super-Black
names comes to bear on everything
from the ability to find suitable
housing to being hired.
Among the nation’s human
resources professionals, the methods
employed to ‘weed out’ undesirable
applicants starts and ends
with names, with those super-
Black names at the top of the ‘do
not call for interviews’ list.
According to a recent CBS
news report, a Black-sounding
name remains an impediment to
getting a job. During its investigation
it was found that of 1,300
classified ads with dummy
resumes, those with Black-sounding
names were 50 percent less likely to get
a callback than white-sounding names
with comparable resumes.
“A lot of times the name is all that we
see and it can be the determining factor
for tossing resumes directly into the
garbage,” said Valencia Walker, a former
human resources representative in
Washington, DC.
“The stereotype is that a female with a
super-Black name is more likely to have
children out-of-wedlock causing her to
be stressed before she gets to work. She
will often be late for work, she will have
8 TRIBUNE MAGAZINE APRIL 2008
‘issues’ with her supervisor caused by
her own attitude problem and she will be
the employee constantly written up for
being on personal phone calls or sending
personal e-mails during work hours,”
said Walker.
Despite the rather harsh nature of the
stereotypes, Walker said that they are
based on some level of truth that has
helped foster an unspoken and largely
unchecked ‘no-super-Black names’
mandate in offices around the nation.
So, is it possible to find a middle
ground that allows Black women to be
as creative and culturally responsible in
“
The stereotype is that
a female with a super-
Black name is more likely
to have children out-ofwedlock
... She will often
be late for work, she will
have ‘issues’ with her
supervisor ... and she will
be the employee
constantly written up
for being on personal
phone calls or sending
personal e-mails
during work hours.”
– Valencia Walker,
Former human resources representative.
naming their children as it is socially
assimilating?
According to the authors of “The
Causes and Consequences of Distinctly
Black Names,” Steven Levitt and
Roland Fryer, who studied the naming
practices of Black women and the consequences
of using super-Black names,
the answer is a resounding “no.”
Based on California birth data, Levitt
and Fryer show that in recent years,
more than 40 percent of African-
American females were given names
that weren’t given to even one of the
more than 100,000 white girls born in
the state the same year. Levitt and Fryer
posit that while Black names are associated
with lower socioeconomic status, it
is not the names that create an economic
burden.
“It’s not really that you’re named
Kayesha that matters, it’s that you live
in a community where you’re likely to
get that name that matters,” said Fryer,
who suggests Black parents not be
afraid to choose ethnic names. It also,
he says, suggests more broadly that for
Blacks to improve economically, they
don’t have to change their culture, but
should push for greater integration
in society.
“Perhaps when a woman is in
the hospital and has to provide a
name for the birth certificate a
counselor should be provided to
explain the magnitude of the
names that are given,” he continued.
Given that many unique
African-American names were
borne of civil rights and Black
power agendas that stressed cultivating
the uniqueness and diversity
of Blackness, it is no doubt
how and why the idea of moving
back into a sort of impromptu cultural
assimilation years later reeks
of ‘selling out.”
Perhaps the lone unifier among
the two positions is the suggestion
that African-American women
are incapable of naming their own
offspring. When fashioned along
such an argument, people on both
sides of the fence are rankled by
the implication.
“I don’t like the super-Black names at
all and find them a hindrance to social
progress, but to suggest that Black
women need a white person’s assistance
in naming their own children
slides us right back towards slavery
when we didn’t have a say,” said Bell.
“I suppose in the end, a racist white
person or intolerant Black person will
find fault with certain types of Black
T
people, irrespective of their names.”
Shantella Sherman is a doctoral student
at the University of Nebraska. She is
contributor to the Tribune Magazine.