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

[Tom Zurinskas]

They should have told Dr King, who in his famous "I have a dream" speech said "Negro" 15 times, "Black" 4 times and "citizens of color" once.

If race truly means nothing, we ought to turn to flavors; chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, almond and banana.  Anything else is rocky road.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling




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> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:13:08 -0500
> From: wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> One reason that "Negro" got discarded was the claim, publicized by
> Carmichael and/or Brown but dating back to at least 1914, that "Nee-gro"
> [often pronounced with contemptuous inflexion] is just a "polite form of
> 'nigger.'" The source was a belief that the "polite form" was used
> cynically as a code-word in the presence of the victims who, of course,
> could not "reasonably" object even if they caught on.
>
> The southern white pronunciation /nIgr@/, often deliberately equivocal,
> didn't help.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:55 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 1/18/2010 12:20 PM, Bill Palmer wrote:
>>>When I was growing up in Virginia in the 1950's, the few blacks I had
>>>conversations with, routinely used "colored".
>>
>> Was this because there "Negro" sounded to much like "Nigger"? So
>> "colored" was the term of choice among the other possibilities?
>>
>> Joel
>>
>>
>>>The local newspapers in all news stories involving blacks had the word
>>>"negro" following the name. This practice ended sometime in the 60's I
>>>believe.
>>>
>>>My great aunt and uncle (natives of KY, born in late 1800's) routinely
>> used
>>>"darky", and my wife's aunt, native of SW Georgia, born around 1890
>>>routinely used the term even when in the presence of blacks. Other than
>>>those examples, Stephen Foster was the only person I ever heard use that
>>>term.
>>>
>>>Bill Palmer
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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