New racist etymology

Fri Mar 15 16:57:55 UTC 2013

>...blatantly-racist...

Given the time and place, that was not only normal; it would have gone
quite unnoticed by 99% of non-abolitionist readers. (And there weren't many
fans of abolition in Richmond.)

JL

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Nathaniel Sharpe
<nts at bethlehembooks.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Nathaniel Sharpe <nts at BETHLEHEMBOOKS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: New racist etymology
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> While looking at early examples of "buck negro" I came across this
> blatantly-racist article from 1866 that uses the term "Africk-American."
>
> Date: Friday, April 20, 1866  Paper: Richmond Examiner (Richmond, VA)
> Volume: I  Issue: 102  Page: 3
>
> [begin excerpt]
> Miss Griffith had eloped with a buck negro, who was employed by her father.
> ....
> The Civil Rights bill will give the maiden her buck nigger, despite all
> the efforts of her parent to the contrary. The only thing she has to
> fear is the constancy of her gay Lothario. If her darling
> Africk-American citizen remains true during the weary hours of his
> imprisonment, she will have him...
> [end excerpt]
>
> On 3/14/2013 11:36 PM, Jocelyn Limpert wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: New racist etymology
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > For some time now publications like The New York Times and the Washington
> > Post have been on the fence about using "African American" or "black"
> > editorially. Articles just switch back and forth between the two,
> settling
> > on neither. And there is also a preference for the nonhyphenated "African
> > American," the reason being that other such designations, such as
> "Japanese
> > American," are not hyphenated.
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 12:30 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
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> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Re: New racist etymology
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> > ------
> >> On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> >> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> I guar-on-tee you that "buck Negro" is a "literary" confection.
> >>>
> >>> I never heard "buck (nigger)" in NY, but I've read them many, many
> time=
> > s
> >> in
> >>> stories about the South and, to a lesser degree, West.
> >>>
> >>> There's an old sea shanty verse from the 19th C. that goes,
> >>>
> >>> Who's been here since I been gone?
> >>> Big buck nigger with his sea boots on.
> >>>
> >>> When sung nowadays by (99 44/100 % white) harmonizin' folkies, it's
> >> altered
> >>> to the culturally-insipid-but-not-offending-anybody "Arkansas farmer
> wi=
> > th
> >>> his sea boots on."
> >> I think, as also in the case of Huckleberry Finn and such very
> >> enjoyable writings, the un-Bowdlerized original is the way to go. The
> >> truth leads to more breakthroughs than the lie. One of the reasons
> >> that I consider =C4frican-American"as a replacement for "black" is that
> >> I *clearly* remember when the absolute, very worst thing that you
> >> could do to a black American was to call him "black."Sure, on a
> >> drive-by insulting, you could upset a any colored fellow by shouting
> >> "Nigger!", if you really wanted to tear the the heart right out of his
> >> bosom, then the way to go was to call him simply "Black!" My first
> >> letter-to-the-editor was motivated by the common practice of using
> >> "African *blacks*" and not "African *Negroes*." What a gratuitous,
> >> entirely uncalled-for, unnecessary, embarrassing "racist" insult!!
> >>
> >> That _black_ is no longer regarded as the most degrading, humiliating
> >> epithet that anyone, regardless of his own race, creed, color, sexual
> >> orientation, or previous condition of servitude can apply to a person
> >> of any degree of sub-Saharan ancestry and has become simply another
> >> word, as innocuous as "white" as a racial denominator, is no less than
> >> a there-is-really-no-possible-way-to-characterize-it, phenomenal
> >> sea-change in the psychology of Black America.
> >>
> >> That _black_ is now being rendered "insulting" all over again by the
> >> loud mouths of random "African-American" assholes and their p.c.
> >> running dogs for the sheer assholery of it and "Negro" and "colored"
> >> are deemed even more insulting than "darky"and "coon," as though the
> >> history of the use of _black_ were empty of content and despite the
> >> emergence of large number of *genuine* Americans of immediate African
> >> ancestry into all aspects of American life - cf. e.g. the lical law
> >> firm of Krasno, Krasno & Onwudinjo - well, what can I say?
> >>
> >> EBONY and Jet went from "Negro" to "Black" - because "Negro" has a
> >> capital? - and from "white" to "White" - because "Black" has a
> >> capital? - but, as the oldsters retire, more and more
> >> "African-American" is beginning to creep into their pages.
> >>
> >> Sigh!
> >>
> >> --
> >> -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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