N-word - def. not covered

[Salikoko Mufwene]

The racial category of 'Black' is defined differently from one polity to
another. Your first shock may start when you visit a place such as
Jamaica, where the category of 'Black' denotes a narrower category,
excluding those people claimed by the category 'Brown'. I am not sure
any more whether the Somali count as Nilotic or Semitic, but certainly
not as as North Africans. However, it is not unusual for people from the
Horn of Africa not to consider themselves "Black," though they are
automatically classified as such in North America. Same shock for
Mulattoes, who don't count as "Black" in parts of Africa but find
themselves grouped with "Blacks" in North America.

Sali.

On 12/1/2011 1:54 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> Can Somalia be considered to be part of North Africa? BB
>
> On Dec 1, 2011, at 7:18 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>> I have just finished reading "The Anatomy of
>> Blackness: Science&  Slavery in an Age of
>> Enlightenment", by Andrew S. Curran, which has
>> suggested to me some additional factors in the retort of the bicyclist:
>>
>>> "I am not a nigger. I am from Somalia, I go to
>>> school and I work. Do not call me a nigger!"
>> First, the reference to Somalia might not mean "I
>> am a recent African immigrant and therefore
>> cannot have become a nigger (yet)".  Rather, the
>> speaker might have been denying he was a Negro
>> (nègre) because he was from North Africa (a
>> "Moor", maure).  According to Curran, who treats
>> almost entirely with the French Enlightenment,
>> this was a distinction that arose during the
>> period.  (See also the etymology of "Moor" and
>> senses A.I.1 of "nigger" and A.1.a of "Negro" --
>> "sub-Saharan" --- in the OED.)  Perhaps it
>> persists today among North Africans (especially
>> Muslims) who want to be distinguished from "black" sub-Saharan Africans.
>>
>> Second, alleged characteristics of behavior, such
>> as laziness or lack of understanding
>> (intelligence), became indivisibly associated
>> with asserted physical (genetic) characteristics
>> of the "black race", such as a "dark" or "black"
>> brain: a Negro was inherently unintelligent and
>> unindustrious.  The North African from Somalia
>> might have been employing this racial stereotype
>> to demonstrate that he could not be a nigger --
>> he was intelligent (going to school) and industrious (working).
>>
>> Third, it's not just laziness that was associated
>> with the Negro, but lack of understanding,
>> criminality, immoral sexuality, etc.    I wonder
>> whether the OED definition of "nigger" really
>> needs to be extended to specifically refer to
>> laziness.  "2b. Any person whose behaviour is
>> regarded as reprehensible. derogatory" may be sufficient.
>>
>> Joel
>>
>> At 11/30/2011 10:35 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>>> Caveat lector: If not apparent from the subject
>>> line, this has a lot of offensive language.
>>>
>>> About a year ago, a Michigander white female
>>> friend of mine who is a transplant to Hawai'i
>>> shocked the other three of us in the room when
>>> she went off on a rant about niggers. To
>>> paraphrase, she said that a nigger was someone
>>> who didn't work, who lived on the government.
>>> She explicitly said that the word had nothing to do with race.
>>>
>>> I definitely can recall the word being used with
>>> the connotation of being lazy as a child. The
>>> OED provides a couple of definitions of the
>>> n-word where race does not matter. Nothing hits
>>> this exactly, however. I think the closest is:
>>>
>>> OED
>>> 2b. Any person whose behaviour is regarded as reprehensible. derogatory.
>>>
>>> The AHD is similarly close:
>>>
>>> 2. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive .
>>> a person of anyrace or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant,etc.
>>>
>>> Wiktionary has nothing even close.
>>>
>>> Not being productive is also made explicit, with
>>> a twist, in the HBO series _Sopranos_, sixth
>>> season "Kennedy and Heidi"
>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_and_Heidi).
>>> It is scene five, "Wrong Neighborhood." Tony's
>>> son AJ is hanging with his friends when one of
>>> them doors a bicyclist (played by Bambadjan
>>> Bamba). The bicyclist is black and the dooring
>>> friend calls the bicyclist the n-word.
>>>
>>> The bicyclist says, "I am not a nigger. I am
>>> from Somalia, I go to school and I work. Do not call me a nigger!"
>>>
>>> Here, not only is being productive the issue,
>>> but apparently being a _recent_ African
>>> immigrant evidently disqualifies him from fitting the definition.
>>>
>>> Benjamin Barrett
>>> Seattle, WA
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

--
**********************************************************
Salikoko S. Mufwene                    s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
The Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of
Linguistics and the College
Professor, Committee on Evolutionary Biology
Professor, Committee on the Conceptual&  Historical Studies of Science
University of Chicago
Department of Linguistics   773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene
**********************************************************

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