"Negro" in the news

[Benjamin Barrett]

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_14156729?source=rss

Responding to an emotional outcry, the U.S. Census Bureau on Friday announced it would explore eliminating the term "Negro" from future surveys.

But the revelation this week that the Jim Crow Era word remains part of a question about race in the 2010 census has sparked a passionate debate...

Le said the decision to keep the term "Negro" on the form was due principally to the fact some older African-Americans still identify themselves by that term. In fact, in the 2000 census, more than 50,000 people chose to write down explicitly that they identified themselves as "Negro" in a section where the census allows people to provide additional information...

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100109/ap_on_el_se/us_obama_reid

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then-Sen. Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Obama is the nation's first African-American president.

"I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments," Reid said in a statement released after the excerpts were first reported on the Web site of The Atlantic...

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

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