New/old racist etymology

[Joel S. Berson]

Another oscillation in a cyclic phenomenon.  See

Rael, Patrick. “Introduction,” in
African-American Activism before the Civil War:
The Freedom Struggle in the Antebellum North, ed.
Patrick Rael (New York: Routeledge, 2008), 18.

Rael, Patrick, Black Identity & Black Protest in
the Antebellum North (Chapel Hill: The University
of North Carolina Press, 2002), 85.

And for a discussion of changing terminology in
the now-expired twentieth century:

“A Note on Terminology,” in Black American
Reference Book, ed. Mabel M. Smythe (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976), xi---xii.

Joel

At 3/15/2013 12:36 AM, Jocelyn Limpert wrote:
>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:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > 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 times
> > 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 with
> > > 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 Äfrican-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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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