The "articulate" black man. About a year ago, a friend proposed to me that there were certain words that were only used to describe a certain type of person, often due to an otherwise nonexistent respect for such people. One of the words he pointed out was "articulate" when used to describe a black man who could speak English eloquently. For whatever reason, I didn't want to believe that journalists and politicians were that predictable (me, naive?) so I did a LexisNexis search which was inconclusive. A majority of the references were to blacks, but there were also numerous references to other people, mostly white. Yet recently I've kept running across the articulate black, and am starting to become more convinced that the word is almost exclusively reserved for a well-spoken black man. In the January issue of Columbia College Today, it was noted that after Sen. Barack Obama's decisive election victory, President Bush called to tell him "You're one articulate fella."

Now I wonder, being not so well-versed in race relations or in sociology, does this sort of classification indicate racism? does it perpetuate racism? can i be articulate?