another "Negro" in quotes

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/23/2010 06:29 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>2010 Malcolm Gladwell in _The New Yorker_ (Oct. 4) 42: On Wednesday [Feb. 3,
>1960], students from Greensboro's "Negro" secondary school, Dudley High,
>joined in, and the number of protesters swelled to eighty.
>
>So even though it really was a Negro school, attended by actual people who
>actually called themselves "Negroes," it is potentially offensive (I
>suppose) to use the word in the once stylistically impeccable _New Yorker_
>without scare quotes that say, "We know that you think this word is/was
>insulting/demeaning but that was white racists talking, not us!"

This instance is ridiculous.  If "Negro" is the word chosen by
Gladwell, presumably "blacks-only", or some similar formulation,
could easily replace it in this reference to the 1960s Dudley
High.  If Gladwell wanted to clue us in that the word "Negro" was
used in some 1960s reference to Dudley High, he could have used a
relevant quotation excerpt containing the word "Negro".

Joel

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