Cultural Identifiers

Perhaps the best way to develop nonsexist, non-heterosexist, nonracist, and nonageist language is to examine the preferred cultural identifiers to use in talking to and about members of different groups. Remember, however, that preferred terms frequently change over time, so keep in touch with the most current preferences. The preferences and many of the specific examples identified here are drawn largely from the findings of the Task Force on Bias-Free Language of the Association of American University Presses.

Generally, the term girl should be used only to refer to very young females and is equivalent to boy. Neither term should be used for people older than say 13 or 14. Girl is never used to refer to a grown woman, nor is boy used to refer to people in blue-collar positions, as it once was. Lady is negatively evaluated by many because it connotes the stereotype of the prim and proper woman. Woman or young woman is preferred. Older person is preferred to elder, elderly, senior, or senior citizen (which technically refers to someone older than 65).

Generally, gay is the preferred term to refer to a man who has an affectional preference for other men and lesbian is the preferred term for a woman who has an affectional preference for other women. (Lesbian means "homosexual woman," so the term lesbian woman is redundant.) Homosexual refers to both gays and lesbians, but more often to a sexual orientation to members of one's own sex. Gay and lesbian refer to a lifestyle and not just to sexual orientation. Gay as a noun, although widely used, may prove offensive in some contexts, as in "We have two gays on the team." Because most scientific thinking holds that sexuality is not a matter of choice, the terms sexual orientation and affectional orientation are preferred to sexual preference or sexual status (which is also vague).

Generally, most African Americans prefer African American to black, although black is often used with white, as well as in a variety of other contexts (for example, Depar,ment of Black and Puerto Rican Studies, the fournal of Black History, and Black History Month). The American Psychological Association recommends that both terms be capitalized, but the Chicago Manual of Style (the manual used by most newspapers and publishing houses) recommends using lowercase. The terms Negro and colored, although used in the names of some organizations (for example, the United Negro College Fund and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), are not used outside these contexts.

White is generally used to refer to those whose roots are in European cultures and usually does not include Hispanics. Analogous to African American (which itself is based on a long tradition of terms such as Irish American and Italian American) is the phrase European American. Few European Americans, however, call themselves that; most prefer their national origins emphasized, as in, for example, German American or Greek American. This preference may well change as Europe moves toward becoming a more cohesive and united entity. People of color – a more literary-sounding term appropriate perhaps to public speaking but awkward in most conversations – is preferred to nonwhite, which implies that whiteness is the norm and nonwhiteness is a deviation from that norm. The same is true of the term non-Christian: It implies that people who have other beliefs deviate from the norm.

Generally, the term Hispanic refers to anyone who identifies himself or herself as belonging to a Spanish-speaking culture. Latina (female) and Latino (male) refer to persons whose roots are in one of the Latin American countries, such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, or Guatemala. Hispanic American refers to United States residents whose ancestry is in a Spanish culture; the term includes Mexican, Caribbean, and Central and South Americans. In emphasizing a Spanish heritage, however, the term is really inaccurate, because it leaves out the large numbers of people in the Caribbean and in South America whose origins are African, Native American, French, or Portuguese. Chicana (female) and Chicano (male) refer to persons with roots in Mexico, although it often connotes a nationalist attitude. and is considered offensive by many Mexican Americans. Mexican American is generally preferred.

Inuk (plural, Inuit), also spelled with two n's (Innuk and Innuit), is preferred to Eskimo (a term the United States Census Bureau uses), which was applied to the indigenous peoples of Alaska and Canada by Europeans and literally means "raw meat eaters."

The word Indian technically refers only to someone from India, not to members of other Asian countries or to the indigenous peoples of North America. American Indian or Native American is preferred, even though many Native Americans do refer to themselves as Indians and Indian people. In Canada indigenous people are called first people or first nations. The term native American (with a lowercase n) is most often used to refer to persons born in the United States. Although technically the term could refer to anyone born in North or South America, people outside the United States generally prefer more specific designations such as Argentinean, Cuban, or Canadian. The term native describes an indigenous inhabitant; it is not used to indicate "someone having a less developed culture."

Muslim (rather than the older Moslem) is the preferred form to refer to a person who adheres to the religious teachings of Islam. Quran (rather than Koran) is the preferred term for the scriptures of Islam, fewish people is often preferred to fews, and Jewess (a Jewish female) is considered derogatory.

When history was being written from a European perspective, Europe was taken as the focal point and the rest of the world was defined in terms of its location relative to that continent. Thus, Asia became the East or the Orient, and Asians became Orientals – a term that is today considered inappropriate or "Eurocentric." Thus, people from Asia are Asians, just as people from Africa are Africans and people from Europe are Europeans.

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