Heard on The Judges: old-school, *real* "reverse racism"

[Benjamin Lukoff]

Usage of the phrases "the white man" and "the black man."
What's so offensive about this post? Wilson's merely describing actual
experiences.

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Brenda Lester wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Brenda Lester <alphatwin2002 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: old-school, *real* "reverse racism"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0' ><tr><td style='font: inherit;'><P>WG,</P>
> <P> </P>
> <P>I find this post offensive, especially how you describe the "FOB."  And what has black-on-black racism got to do with linguistics?   </P>
> <P> </P>
> <P>bl</P>
> <P><BR><BR>--- On <B>Wed, 4/23/08, Wilson Gray <I><hwgray at GMAIL.COM></I></B> wrote:<BR></P>
> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid">From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM><BR>Subject: Heard on The Judges: old-school, *real* "reverse racism"<BR>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<BR>Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 2:44 PM<BR><BR><PRE>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Heard on The Judges: old-school, *real* "reverse
> racism"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Or, perhaps, "inverse racism" may be the better term.
>
> A forty-ish, black, mechanic-defendant describes how he came to be
> involved with the forty-ish, car-owner, black plaintiff:
>
> "I told him that the engine which he had supplied had some serious
> problems that were going to be difficult to deal with, but he wasn't
> hearing that. He says to me, 'If *you* can't do it, I'll get _the
> white man_ to do it!'"
>
> That is, the customer indicated a belief that the real problem was
> that the mechanic, being black, simply lacked the competence to handle
> the job, whereas a white mechanic, being competent by definition,
> could easily deal with the problem.
>
> Interestingly enough, it was the mechanic that looked and sounded like
> an urban, Northern, middle-class, college graduate, whereas it was the
> customer that looked and sounded like some FOB (Fresh-Off [the
> Greyhound]-Bus) hick from the Southern sticks.
>
> Back in the day, belief in inherent black incompetence as opposed to
> inherent white competence was just about as strong among blacks as it
> was among whites. How else to explain Farrakhan's Observation? The
> now-infamous Minister Louis Farrakhan made the observation, back in
> the 'Sixties, when he was still basically nobody and not yet a
> world-renowned anti-Semite, that "Wherever, *on this earth*, there is
> a plurality[sic] of races, the *black* race is *always* on the
> bottom."
>
> Around 1955, friend of mine, after detailing the problems that he had
> had trying to rent a tux from the only such black-owned service in
> Saint Louis, when he could easily have gone to a white-owned service,
> instead, exclaimed, "That's what I get for dealing with the *black*
> man!"
> Strangely, this exclamation led to the use of "black man" as the
> standard greeting among members of our clique: "Black man! What's
> happ'nin'?" "Aw, black man, ain't nothin' to
> it."
>
> -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.
> -----
>  -Sam'l Clemens
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE></td></tr></table><br>
>
>       <hr size=1>Be a better friend, newshound, and
> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ "> Try it now.</a>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org