[ SECRET POST #2786 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2786 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Legend of Korra]


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03.
[Digger]


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04.
[Transformers: Animated]


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05.
[World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor]


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06.
[Marvel]


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07.
[Benedict Cumberbatch]


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08.
[Orange is the New Black]


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09.
[Hemlock Grove]


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10.
[Hardy Boys]


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11.
[The Remains of the Day]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 033 secrets from Secret Submission Post #398.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

Has anyone noticed that certain last names only seem to belong to black people? I mean, most of them (the American ones, not the ones with actual African names) have very common last names like Brown and Jones and Wilson that a lot of white people have too, but some which I suppose are of English origin only seem to belong to black people.

Re: Certain last names and race

[morieris]

A lot of it is just using the surname of the slave owners families had from way back when.

(Is this going to be 'African American question week'?)

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

So why are there so few white people with some of those names? I mean, presumably the slave owners had some white descendants?

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

Those names you listed are pretty common last names for white people too.

Re: Certain last names and race

[morieris]

...Yeah? I couldn't tell you the minutia about how surnames were divvied up way back when.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

WTF, man. There aren't "so few white people with some of those names". They're common names, period.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

"(Is this going to be 'African American question week'?)"

Nowhere did they specify it was just about Americans. You remind me of that interviewer who referred to Mandela as African American.

Re: Certain last names and race

[morieris]

(the American ones, not the ones with actual African names)

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

On the slim chance this isn't a racist troll, please don't ever start conversations like this in public. Please.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

That's why it was posted here, anon... duh.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

How is this racist? It looks like a genuine question, and if you can't take that you seriously need to grow some thicker skin.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

Is this the same person with the golliwog comment?

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know why people think this is racist or a troll. It's true with my last name so I don't know why it wouldn't happen with others. I'm not colorblind, so it's impossible not to notice that I've never met another white person outside my family who has my common-English-word last name.

SA

[(Anonymous)]

And by common I mean as a name it isn't extremely common (which is why I can remember it whenever I meet someone else who has it) but as a word it is.

Re: Certain last names and race

[morieris]

Nor can I. I don't think I've ever noticed surnames that were exclusive to black people, but I have noticed a lot people share.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

OK. I am not American, and my ancestors were not African. However. My ancestors were conquered by Europeans, who forcibly baptized them into being Catholics or Anglicans (depending on whether Catholics or Anglicans got to a certain tribe first), and gave them names like White, and Blanchard (think the French "blanc" -- yeah, these would be the ones who were caught by Catholics), in order to forcibly Anglicize/"purify" them, etc.

IDK if the same holds true for the slaves, but it's entirely possible, that that is where these surnames came from.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

It'd help if we knew which specific names you're referring to.

Re: Certain last names and race

[queerwolf]

Can you give us some examples of these last names?

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

You see a lot of black people with dead president's names because after slavery, they got to choose their own last names, and well...They were seen as good/strong. So lots of Wilsons, Washingtons, Jeffersons, etc

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

iirc it has to do with the fact that many african americans didn't have last/family names when they were freed. many just chose a famous last name as their own, so today there are a lot more black americans named washington (and other famous english-y names) than white americans.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

I have a Jewish last name that was made up for a Russian census a bit over a hundred years ago, so I always notice when someone has it.

Re: Certain last names and race

[mekkio]

Those names may seem odd and not common for white people depending on which area of the US you are using as a base. If you go to the South, you can't throw a rock without hitting a white person with the name Jones. Why? Because that's where English/Welsh/Scottish immigrants settle in droves. That's a very common surname for those ethnic groups. Now, if you are in the middle of the country in a fly over state, a name like Jones is going to be rarer for a white person because the majority of white immigrants that went there were German, Scandinavian and Polish. Jones is not a surname for any of those groups.

Now, after the American Civil War, former slaves packed up their things and left in a great exodus to places outside the immediate South. Many went west. Before doing so they often took the surname of their former masters or took surnames that were common in the area. Which would be like Brown, Jones and Wilson. So, now you have this influence of English/Scottish/Welsh surnames in places like the Midwest but the owners of those surnames aren't white but black. But because most white people in that area are only familiar with German, Polish and Scandinavian names, it may only seem like Wilson, Jones and Brown belong to black people because you haven't been exposed to the tens of thousands of white people with those names. Why? Because those ethnic groups that have those names are not living in your area.

Re: Certain last names and race

[darkmanifest]

This seems like one of the better explanations for the phenomenon. Also didn't realize "Jackson" was an English and Scottish surname (dunno what I thought it was), so that explains a lot.

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

I think I know what you mean, OP, although I'm having trouble thinking of a strong example. A lot of it is that the African-American population of the northern and western US draws heavily from families in the south (a lot of blacks have roots in South Carolina for some reason), and the specific family names that ended up there back in colonial days didn't end up even in Anglo-Saxon parts of the north--or not as much.

Also, even in the South this can happen. When the Scots settled the Mississippi Delta, some families intermarried with blacks, while others stayed "pure." So a name that would be unremarkable for a white man elsewhere became a "black" name, while the other family names represent "pure" "white" families--in a given county. (This specific case is mentioned the book Never Is a Long Time.)

Re: Certain last names and race

[(Anonymous)]

There are a few names where I live (Southern US) that are like this -- very common among African-Americans, uncommon or non-existent among white people. It's a straightforward relic of the plantation system. Plantations had a large enslaved workforce and slaves often used the same last name as the slaveholder. If the largest slaveholder in X County was Mr. Pancake (not a RL example), that meant that at the time of emancipation there were maybe 5-10 white Pancakes to 100-300 black people with the same name. Even if half the ex-slaves take a different name and all of the white Pancakes stay in X County, the descendants of the former are going to massively outnumber those of the latter.

I don't know if the names you're thinking of have that history, but a fair number of names do.