Tired of the Renaming

Every few months it feels like somebody online decides we need a new name for being Black.

Not a new movement. Or new strategy for improvement or empowerment but simply, A new label.

Now it’s Soulaan.
Last year it was Foundational Black American.
Before that we rotated through ADOS, Afro-American, African American, and just plain Black.
And every time we rebrand, we argue like somebody about to trademark culture.

I get why people do it.
They’re trying to separate lineage from umbrella terms that feel colonial or sloppy. They want a word that centers their ancestry, their struggle, their particular lineage of survival. I respect that instinct. But honestly so it’s exhausting watching us build new fences when the point was supposed to be freedom.

Saw someone write, “We renounce Africanness and Americanness.” Another comment followed: “In order to be Soulaan you need two Soulaan parents.” See what I mean? We escape one box only to design another with gold hinges.

Then I slide over to another black space and somebody’s insisting “Black American” now means every person of African descent living in the States.. Jamaican, Nigerian, Haitian, whatever. And somebody else snaps back that this “dilutes” the legacy of American slavery. It’s an endless echo chamber of who’s in and who’s out.

Meanwhile, Me a Black American Creole woman.. Istill get told I don’t fit the reparation circle because my ancestry carries Choctaw and French origins  So apparently freedom comes with a blood-test requirement now. That’s wild. My people were free before Emancipation, still got segregated after, and somehow that’s not enough to count?

Hey, I understand the craving for distinction. But every time we multiply the labels, the solidarity shrinks. Every new title becomes its own umbrella, its own hierarchy, its own little constitution. We trade one confusion for another and call it clarity.

The wild part is, these folks say “Black was a label given to us.” ..Okay, True.   And so was white. They accepted it and built a whole economic caste around it. Meanwhile, we keep remixing our name like that’s going to fix the power dynamic. Calling yourself Soulaan won’t stop the next discriminatory loan denial.

Half the time I don’t even know how to pronounce these new inventions. “Soulaan” .. is it so-lan like solange without the g? Or swollen minus the w? Because that’s exactly how it feels ....bloated, and unnecessary.

I just say Black. Simple. Direct. Powerful.
When the census or a survey asks, that’s my answer. “Black.” I don’t need ten letters to describe ten centuries of endurance.

Yes, I respect the right to self-name. But we’re drowning in renaming. Identity politics has become its own hustle,  We spend more time arguing vocabulary than building community.

You can’t escape Africa by changing the syllables. The bloodline doesn’t evaporate because you invented a word with better branding.

I love who I am,  I don’t need another syllable to make me significant.

So yeah I'm Tired of identity trend cycles that divide more than they define. Tired of being told my lineage disqualifies my loyalty. Tired of watching unity get lost in translation.

If you need a new name to love yourself, do you. But don’t expect me to join another renaming ritual when the word Black already carries every resurrection we’ve ever needed.

We are one.
We are many.
And sometimes the most radical thing you can do is to stop renaming what already has meaning.