Ethnic-based terms of contempt

[Herb Stahlke]

And then there's Michelle Bachmann to Michael Steele.

Herb

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ethnic-based terms of contempt
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You're certainly correct there, Herb. I once received an e-mail from
> an old M.I.T. buddy. In my reply, I noted that he had used a
> particular turn of phrase that, theretofore, I had never seen or heard
> before from a (Northern) white speaker, though the phraseology was
> "standard" (FWIW, I put "standard" in quotes WRT BE to indicate that
> whatever is referred to is a general feature of BE, such that, if one
> wished to write a grammar of BE, one could state the the feature
> referred to is stone soul and wouldn't nobody be reading the grammar
> and saying "That's jive! Don't nobody be saying nothing like that!")
> in BE. He replied that my claim was unlikely, since he didn't
> associate with any black people.
>
> Naturally, in order to maintain close personal relations with white
> people, we black people have to overlook this, unfortunately,
> extremely common habit among white people of unconsciously "promoting"
> their colored friends to white.
>
> Needless to say, we colored find this to be really creepy, because, as
> far as we can tell, at least, it allows our white friends to maintain
> their  unconscious or sometimes, no doubt, conscious perception of the
> "real soul brother/sister" as an (undeservedly) overpaid,
> empty-headed, Cadillac-driving athlete or as a (deservedly) underpaid,
> empty-headed, Cadillac-driving welfare queen.
>
> But, what can you do? It's difficult to "top from the bottom."
>
> And it's an order of magnitude nicer than, "When I say 'nigger', of
> course I'm not referring to colored people like you, Wilson. Why, if
> they were all like you, there'd be no problems!"
>
> Tell that one to the Jews.
>
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Ethnic-based terms of contempt
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I used to spend a fair amount of time in my Language and Society
>> classes talking about whiteness, markedness, and race, with Robin
>> Lakoff's introductory and Ebonics chapters from The Language War as
>> required reading. Â To my overwhelmingly white, largely rural and small
>> town Central Indiana students it was a stretch.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
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>>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Ethnic-based terms of contempt
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, the subtext can escape your notice when it's not
>>> relevant to your own experience of life.
>>>
>>> In the last issue of TIME, a white man has written a letter to the
>>> editor taking black Harvard professor, Henry "Skip" Gates, to task for
>>> claiming that "nigger" is not necessarily a term of opprobrium when
>>> used between or among speakers who are themselves black. The writer
>>> states that Gates is wrong. "Nigger" is unequivocally an insult, under
>>> any and all circumstances. Period.
>>>
>>> The clear subtext: niggers don't know shit, even when they're
>>> discussing their own speech acts, regardless of their academic status
>>> or level of education or social position. What has led me to this
>>> conclusion? Why, the mere fact, that as a white person, this is my
>>> considered analysis of the situation. If I'm white, then I'm right,
>>> though I've not experienced so much as a nanosecond of the life of any
>>> black person.
>>>
>>> -Wilson
>>> –––
>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>> -----
>>> -Mark Twain
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:46 PM, Alice Faber <faber at haskins.yale.edu> wrote:
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>>>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
>>>> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
>>>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Ethnic-based terms of contempt
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>> I don't know that this was ever a term of contempt, but, in my younger
>>>>> days, people spoke of the "Texas fif(th)," a full quart of whiskey, as
>>>>> opposed to the usual 4/5 quart normally referred to as simply a
>>>>> "fif(th)."
>>>>>
>>>>> "Running on CP (colored people's) time" = "running late" was also
>>>>> quite common, in BE at least, back in the day.
>>>>
>>>> Funny, when I was in college (early 70s), we used to refer to this as
>>>> "Jewish time".
>>>>>
>>>>> Back in the '80's, I used to hear "nigger box" and read "ghetto
>>>>> blaster" used for "boom box." More recently, there's "reggin (_nigger_
>>>>> spelled backward) weed" used for poor-quality mariguana.
>>>>
>>>> I first heard the term "ghetto blaster" in the mid 80s, from a colleague
>>>> who was ordinarily the sort of person who would have gone out of her way
>>>> to avoid terms with potentially disparaging subtext.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ========================================================================
>>>> Alice Faber   Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  faber at haskins.yale.edu
>>>> Haskins Laboratories   Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
>>>> New Haven, CT 06511 USA Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  fax (203) 865-8963
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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