McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]

[Robin Hamilton]

Just before reading Joel's post below (which expressed my own reaction to
Tom's initial statement), I was minded to look up and refresh my
understanding of the term "pied noir", which to me as a Scottish speaker of
English (rather than a French speaker in France) always struck me as sort of
counter-intuitive.

Apparently (quick and dirty check in WIKI), it may originally have referred
to native Algerians, before being transferred to French descended settlers
living in Algeria, which is how I'd now understand it.

Which (provisionally accepting Wiki's observation without further
confirmation) makes a weird kind of sense, especially as in my
understanding, it was (is?) generally used pejoratively by native French
speakers.

[I have to say that when I first encountered the term many years ago, in
reference to Albert Camus, I totally misunderstood it and assumed that Camus
must have been a native Algerian rather than descended from French
settlers -- (mis)reading "noir" as if it mapped directly onto English
"black".]

Which brings me to the wording of my (incredulous) reaction when I first
encountered the authentic text of the 1870s Dublin song, 'The Night Before
Larry Was Stretched' -- "Jeezus, someone's dressed the damn thing up in
black-face!"

I'd been familiar with:

The night before Larry was stretch'd,
  The boys they all paid him a visit;
A bit in their sacks, too, they fetch'd-
  They sweated their duds till they riz it;
For Larry was always the lad,
  When a friend was condemn'd to the squeezer,
But he'd pawn, all the togs that he had,
  Just to help the poor boy to a sneezer,
    And moisten his gob 'fore he died.

-- Text from Farmer's _Musa Pedestris_.

Except that this wasn't what was actually sung in Dublin in the 1780s.  As
first printed, the song actually read:

De night afore Larry was stretch'd
de Boys de all ped him a visit
bait too in dir Sacs de all fetch'd
de sweated dir duds till de ris it
for Larry was ever de Lad.
when a Boy was condemd to de squeezers
he'd swet all de duds dat he had
to help his poor friend to a sneezer
and warm his Gob fore he died.

As it turned out, my initial reaction was wrong -- the song isn't dressed in
blackface, but reflects the use of an initial dental stop, where SE would
have a fricative, in Dublin speech of the time, a use which apparently can
still be found in some varieties of Dublin speech, both working-class and
middle class, today.  As also in some varieties of AAVE.  Which is curious
in itself.

But I'm reluctant to use the term "dressed in blackface" to refer to the all
too common phenomenon of written texts which reflect not living speech but a
literary derivation that can be perhaps traced back ultimately to Joel
Chandler Harris.  (Melissa ...

At that point, I thought I'd look into Melissa Bellanta's blog, The Vapour
Trail, and see what terminology she uses in this area, since among other
things, she's concerned with Larrikin verse and the nineteenth century
Australian music hall.

Lo and behold, it seems as if Australia is currently also experiencing it's
own version of A Harry "I mis-spoke" Reid Moment:

"It is no longer widely remembered in Australia that audiences here once
flocked to blackface minstrel shows back in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. In these shows, black people were depicted as
simpletons who thought of nothing but fried chicken and happy-go-lucky
dancin'. Even though that racist caricature has not survived in popular
memory here in the way that it has in the US,  where it originated (and even
though there are obviously huge disparities with regard to the two countries'
histories concerning race relations), it was still stupid for Australian
television to air material that brought those demeaning depictions to mind.
But as for the chorus of denunciations about these incidents mixed with a
sneering air of superiority from some American commentators - well, that
deserves a rant worthy of Joe Bageant in my view."

    --  http://bellanta.wordpress.com/

Hm ...  "blackface minstrel" rather than "nigger minstrel" show?

This has wandered, but to conclude:  is there a succinct way of referring to
texts which ineptly attempt to present African-American speech of whatever
period by deploying a narrow range stereotypical linguistic markers other
than saying they're dressed in blackface?

Robin Hamilton

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 1/16/2010 11:55 AM, Salikoko Mufwene wrote:
>>Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>The word "colorful" has nice connotations.  And black has some
>>>negative connotations.  The word "black" doesn't really describe
>>>Negro skin color.  Too extreme.  How about "black" in an African
>>>language that would sound nice?   Watusi?
>>>
>>How about using "Scot" or "Irish" or "German" in reference to all Whites
>>in North America?
>
> I wonder if Salikoko Mufwene has misunderstood Tom Zurinskas in the
> last part above.  Was he suggesting that some word from the Watusi
> language be adopted into English to refer to the alleged "black"
> race?  Not that English should use the word "Watusi" to refer to all
> "black" people?
>
> But there's more that's objectionable and distasteful in Mr.
> Zurinskas's message -- not just in the first part above but also in
> his other paragraph, which was
>>I've always thought the term "colored" was a nice term for Negro
>>people and that Negro was a neutral scientific kind of term, like
>>Caucasian (awe-droppers are forbidden to say cockasian).  Darkies is
>>not so bad.  It's even in my FL state song.
>
> (Unless he was being ironic here.)  But I personally don't feel
> sufficiently competent to speak up.
>
> Joel
>
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