"fellow" = "A black man" (UNCLASSIFIED)

Mullins, Bill AMRDEC Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL
Fri Apr 8 14:38:57 UTC 2011


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

>
> The colored fellow may have been, as is said these days, "fronting,"
> or faking it. Now that it's become possible to fuck over white people
> and live to tell the story, a lot of bruthas enjoy messing with The
> Man's mind, just because they can.
>
> I can't possibly know this, of course, but I really doubt that a black
> would become truly upset in the situation that Charlie describes.
> However, I can easily imagine that a black person would take advantage
> of such a situation to go one up - from the black person's POV - on a
> white person.
>
> Nowadays, it's nothing special amongst the colored for a person to get
> pissed off when addressed by a white person simply as another person
> --
>

This would explain some interactions I've had that left me puzzled.

Since I don't think I did anything wrong by addressing a black person
simply as another person, I'm not beating myself up about it.  But on
the other hand, I don't want to go around pissing people off
gratuitously if it's easy and straightforward not to.  So, is there some
preferred way for a white person to address a black person who is
otherwise a stranger?

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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