(no subject)

[Jerome Foster]

Re what to call Chinese and Japanse- the current PC term is Asian. Seems it
was once Asiatic but that lost favor sometime after WWII. Then it was
Oriental but that went out for some reason though my local supermarket sells
Oriental food and there is a market that sells only Oriental food run by
Asians who don't seem to object to the term. And as for "colored" The NAACP
has not seen fit to change its name....


----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 12:15 PM
Subject: (no subject)


> In a message dated 2/7/01 10:27:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Bapopik at AOL.COM
> writes under the title Re: Natchitoches Hot Meat Pie (1958)
>
> <<    (A delightful custom that has but recently disappeared is that of
> several
>  Negro Mammies who every day during the cold weather made up batches of
these
>  tasty items and sent them down to the business section well wrapped in
>  newspapers, for the late afternoon snacks.  One recalls the chanted
street
>  cries of the little colored boys as they advertised their wares:
>  "Hott-ta-meat-pies.  R-e-d-d-d hot.  Hot-ta-meat pies.  R-e-d-d-d hot!")
>>
>
> This is a use of the word "mammy" that I am not familiar with.  From
> Merriam-Webster's 10th Collegiate page 705 "1.  [synonym for] mama 2. a
black
> woman serving as a nurse to white children esp. formerly in the southern
> U.S."
> The women who made those meat pies were not, apparently, child-care
providers
> (else they would have little white boys selling their wares??).  Perhaps
this
> usage of "mammy" was similar to the slang usage of "mama" for "woman" as
in
> the song "Pistol-Packing Mama" or Betty Ford's CB handle of "First Mama".
>
> There was (is?) a well-known singing group called "The Mommas and the
Papas".
>  Every time I hear that name I recall reading (I think in Polly Adler's _A
> House Is Not A Home_) that "mama" and "papa" were terms for two types of
> Lesbians.  Any connection?
>
> Back to terms for races.  What do you call the race that includes most
> Chinese and Japanese?  It used to be "Mongolian" or "Mongoloid" (the
latter
> term cross-connects with Down's syndrome and should be avoided for that
> reason).  Now is it "Oriental"?  If so, then "Oriental" necessary includes
> Eskimos/Inuits of North America and Greenland, as well as some Finns and
> Lapps of Europe.
>
> There is a specific reason for African-Americans to dislike the term
"colored
> people."  I personally recall, from the bad old days of Segregation, that
the
> signs used to designate which race was allowed in a facility read "Whites
> only" and "Colored".
>
> Someone on this list objected to "Hispanic" because it categorized the
people
> it referred to as part of Spanish colonialism.  My understanding is that
the
> opposite is true.  The words beginning "Hispan~" (that's n with a tilde)
were
> used to DISTINGUISH people in the Spanish-speaking parts of the New World
> from Spaniards.  In Spanish vowels in unaccented syllables are pronounced
> distinctly, so "Hispan~o" (New World) and "Espan~ol" ( Spain) are not that
> likely to be confused.
>
> Now what should you call a person who emigrates from Spain to the United
> States?
>
>
>        - James A. Landau
>