"Blacks"

Why do some white people refer to all black people as "blacks"? Not "black people", "black folks", African-Americans, etc, but "blacks".

It seems as if they're not talking about individual people, but some homogeneous horde of formless, faceless others. I can't account for it myself because the notion makes no sense. My son is considered black thanks to the one-drop rule. Would they call him "a black" if they saw him with me?

All this reminds me of an offensive episode of "Californication". In it, Hank is anxiously waiting for one of the many women he's slept with to have her baby, so he can make sure it's not his. Eventually he ends up being present when the baby is born, and it comes out black. Not a little dark, but very dark-complected. So dark, in fact, that its utterly unrealistic. Most children are born with light skin which gets darker as they get a little older. While its common to use older babies in TV and movies because truly newborns aren't convenient--or available--this was way too over-the-top.

But the step-father's reaction was even worse. Yes, the woman Hank banged was with someone else. He solemnly held the child and showed it to its mother, proudly saying "I will raise this black child as my own". Why did he have to use the word "black"? Does it require clarification? Had the baby been born white as a polar bear, would he have needed to qualify his feelings by saying something like "I will raise this bastard child as my own"? Technically, that's what the baby is.

I was solidly offended. The unrealistically portrayed baby was used as a comic prop and treated as less than legitimate because it was black.

"Californication" doesn't have a monopoly on tone-deaf portrayal of black people though. "Family Guy" has developed a schizophrenic relationship with black folks. Cleveland, one of the main characters is getting his own show, premiering this Sunday. Once he's gone, Peter, Lois and the rest of the gang will no longer have their "black friend". They'll instead have to maintain an unsteady relationship with the few black or other POC who somehow end up in Quohog.

And let's not even get started on the slavery bit they did in the "Panic Room" episode....

Why do some white people view anyone who doesn't look like them as some threatening "Other"?