What's in a name?

A few months ago I was in a workshop about How to Teach Biracial and Multiracial Students: Racial Literacy for Today’s Classroom. The Presenter started off the session with a simple question, “What are you?” I choose to sit at a table where I knew I would have allies. I will admit, being a person from a biracial background and one who all to clearly knows the meaning of White Privilege, based on outward appearance and outward appearance only, I was getting looks from participants not of my table. To those around me, I was out of place. Sitting at my table were an African American male, two African American females, as well as a male and female of Latino descent. We were sitting at a table in the centre of the room and all along the perimeter was White Privilege. Keep in mind, we were there for similar reasons, to gain the ability and experience to talk about race.
When the question was posed by the facilitator, “what are you?”, and interesting thing happened, no one talked and all eyes pointed to our table. Finally after the longest 30 seconds of my life, and I am sure of the facilitator’s life, someone answered the question, “I am Irish American”. A few seconds later, “I am Russian American”, followed by “I am Italian American”. Not one person from my table spoke up. I found this fascinating, everyone who labelled themselves during this small exercise, had white privilege. They all felt the need to define themselves. It got me thinking, why do these people, who from outward appearance seem to fit the loose definition of race we were all taught growing up, feel the need to differentiate themselves from on another by labelling? Why were the people sitting at my table not labelling themselves? Is it because they did not feel the need to do so, or was it because they knew everyone in the room had already given them a label because oft heir outward appearance?
As the session went on, one male from another table asked an interesting question, “Ok, so what do we call these kids who are biracial? What is the new safe term we can use?” As I looked around the room, I could see many of those in a privileged position hanging on, waiting for the wonderful answer to all their problems from the facilitator. In the meantime, I could feel a real shift in the aura around my table. We all sat there, not looking at the facilitator, not looking around the room, but looking at each other. I could not take the silence any longer. People were no longer wanting to talk about race, they simply wanted the “quick fix” to all their problems. I blew up…no sorry, spoke up. The following is a recap of my words: Why is it that the dominant Eurocentric society feels the need to give those around them a label? What is it that gives you the right, the power, the justification to do so? These names you give, YOU choose, are they ever what the group wish you to use? If you want to know what to call someone, here is a novel idea…ask them! Let’s take a look at naming though history. Seeing how we are in America, how about we look at the term that is given for Native Americans, Indian. Where does that come from?
From this question I got all the typical Columbus answers one would expect. When I shared the truth about this term, people flat out denied the true history of the meaning.
As educators, we must realize the hidden meanings some of labels we use for people carry. Unfortunately, the only people who seem to see the hidden meanings in these labels are those the dominant society choose to label.