What's In A Name?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but don't tell that to the Boston City Council.

Led by City Council President Charles Yancey, members of that obstreperous body voted unanimously to delete the term "minority" from all official documents last December. Council members feel that "minority" denigrates those the term attempts to describe. But this seemingly innocuous linguistic battle says a lot about the role of labels in contemporary civic life: politicians love to categorize constituencies in order to manipulate them.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vetoed the resolution, saying it would "have far-reaching unintended negative effects on many of our citizens," according to the Boston Globe. Menino was right to veto the measure, but he failed to provide a compelling rationale behind his veto. He might start by pointing out the obvious: as an adjective, "minority" is quantitative, not qualitative.

Here's how the American Heritage Dictionary defines "minority": "The smaller of two groups forming a whole; a racial, religious, or other group different from the larger group of which it is a part; a member of such a group."

Thus the term "minority" is relative, as it describes any member of a smaller group when compared to the whole. A coterie of Swiss yak farmers is in the minority when transplanted to the snowcapped mountains of Nepal. And because the term comes without any pre-attached value, there's nothing pejorative about being in the minority.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "minority" described "the condition or fact of being smaller, inferior, or subordinate" in the 16th and 17th centuries. But usage determines grammar, and these days the term is simply a description of a quantitative state. The reasons for this lexicographical change appear to be historical: under an absolute monarch, being in the minority was unfashionable, to say the least. But one of the main gifts of the Enlightenment was a dedication to the protection of minorities--political, religious, and ethnic.

Now, Council President Yancey points out that "minority" is inaccurate, because thriving Asian, Latino, and African-American communities make up more than half of Boston's population. This might be the case--but if it is true, then why don't those groups that make up more than half of the population forfeit their minority status? Because Yancey doesn't want to do away with the special privileges, quota-oriented hiring practices, and contractual set-asides provided to key Boston constituencies because those constituencies are currently referred to as minorities.

And neither does Mayor Menino. According to the Globe, "In a written statement explaining his opposition to the ordinance ... Menino said that deleting a term with legal significance could undermine protections for African Americans and others in contracting, hiring, and service delivery."

Even leaders in the civil rights movement oppose deleting the word "minority" from city documents. As NAACP chair and University of Virginia Professor Julian Bond told the Globe, "The NAACP is primarily a domestic organization. In the domestic context the word 'minority' fits well. And it has the added advantage of being understood by most people."

In some quarters, the opposition to eliminating the term "minority" from Boston comes from distaste for potential successor terms. The City Council apparently favors the phrase "people of color," but according to the Globe, some say "this leaves out light-skinned people."

After the San Diego City Council banned "minority" from all official documents, council members chose to use terms like "underserved," and "underrepresented." Both terms, by the way, mean the same thing as 'minority.'

But if their measure ever passed, the Boston City Council would have a more foreboding precedent close to home. Boston College did away with "minority" some years ago and now employs the acronym "AHANA." "AHANA," besides being fun to say, stands for African, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American.

Why is "AHANA" foreboding? Because as Council President Yancey recognizes, "minority" is a relative term. Using phrases like "people of color" or a clunky acronym like "AHANA" only reinforces minority status. Rather than recognizing a salient demographic fact and moving on from there, terms like "AHANA" locate all the worst aspects of minority status in an individual's ethnic identity. And what this country needs least right now is more victocracy.

The larger question, however, is whether the government has any right to label an individual at all. At least the idea of minority is rooted in Christian concepts of the individual conscience, and the idea of minority rights protected by a large body of legal precedent. In contrast, when was the last time you read a book on the idea of AHANA rights? And how do AHANA rights differ from, say, human rights?

There will always be those who attempt to aggrandize power by fomenting division amongst groups of people. They do this by emphasizing differences and promoting a exclusive group identity that negates individual autonomy vis-a-vis a shoddy historical determinism.

It's no surprise that these ideologues would seek to eliminate the term "minority." After all, the ultimate minority is a minority of one. And there's no room for the individual in the tribalist's cosmos.

Matt Continetti is a Columbia College junior majoring in history.