OF NAMES AND TIMES

The book “Colored People” by Henry Louis Gates Jr., reviewed in the Book Review May 8 is a disappointment to black Americans. It is unthinkable that a descendant of African slaves and chairman of the department of the Afro-American studies at Harvard University would, in the ‘90s, write a book in which he says to his two daughters:

“In your lifetime, I suspect, you will go from being African Americans to ‘people of color,’ to being, once again ‘colored people’. . . . I don’t mind any of the names myself. But I have to confess that I like ‘colored’ best.”

Gates should know that I and most of the 30 million descendants of aboriginal Africans, hence of slaves in America, do mind the name they are called. They have already rejected being called “Negro,” “Afro-American” and “colored.” Some of us have also rejected being called “African Americans” and “black,” except “black” is considered to be the appropriate name to use when a descendant relates to “white racism.”

While there may not be much hope for changing the mind of Papa Gates, I would like for his two daughters to know that 1) papa does not know best, in the matter of your true name and 2) your true name is “Americans of African descent.”

URIAH J. FIELDS, LOS ANGELES