N-word - def. not covered

[Salikoko Mufwene]

Just to back up Wilson's observations below. In my graduate student
days, I once invited a Moroccan guest to come out with me to a night
club in south side Chicago. He asked me if it would be safe for him. I
said, "if you don't talk, nobody will think you are a foreigner" (I did
not add "perhaps if you don't dance either":-) ) and you'll be as fine
as myself (in fact phenotypically more easily identifiable as foreigner
than him). The evening was uneventful and I hope he never worried again
about going dancing in a safe AA neighborhood.

Sali.

On 12/1/2011 2:56 PM, William Salmon wrote:
> Hasn't anyone here besides me ever actually _looked_ at photos of
> random Saudi or, especially, Sudanese "Arabs"? Would former Saudi oil
> minister, Prince Ahmed Zaki Yamani, look at all out of place at an
> NAACP meeting? Are there any Sudanese "Arabs" at all fairer of
> complexion than Johnny Mathis? Or even my own brothers, for that
> matter? Did no one else see the members of the troupe of Berber
> musicians on the Daily Colbert Hour, the other night?
>
> OTOH, there was the time when I casually mentioned to a Turkish
> friend, Engin - you know him, don't you, Larry? - that, when I had
> merely seen him around, I thought that he was some kind of black
> person, possibly from the Caribbean, he. was. Absolutely. Fucking.
> SHOCKED! STUNNED! MIND-BLOWN! His reaction was, in fact, so
> overwhelmingly, surprisingly negative that, if we hadn't already
> enjoyed a close friendship of over a quarter-century, I would have
> immediately cut him out of my life. As it is, the revelation that, in
> order to be my friend, he's had to overcome his "natural" antipathy
> for the darker brother has permanently colored<har! har!>  our
> relationship.
>
> Despite the darkness of his complexion, the bluntness of his features,
> and the curliness of his hair, it was simply beyond his comprehension
> that it could be at all possible for anyone to mistake him for a
> Negro. He forgot that "Negro" doesn't necessarily refer to the
> tar-black-skinned, Brillo-haired, thick-red-lipped, flat-nosed,
> blackamoor Sambo caricature in the United States, I reckon.
>
> The use of "n-word" in the subject nearly prevented me from realizing
> that there was anything of interest to me in this thread.
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> 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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org