This is a three part essay, all interconnected written over the course of a year, prompted by different events.
Part 1
The interview of President Obama by Mark Moran, best known as a comedian, was released days after a racially motivated murder of nine people at a Black church in Charleston. The entire interview is worth watching or reading but the headline all around the country focused on the President's use of a taboo word, only described as the N-Word. His larger message was the limits of any president in the context of congealed political values of a country and the constitutional limits on the position. He said that certainly race relations had improved in the country during his lifetime, but that the U.S. still has not been “cured” of racism. He said:
“It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not,” he said. “Societies don’t overnight completely erase everything that happened 2[00] to 300 years prior.”
His use of the taboo word was not studied, nor did he pause for effect, it was used to be an illustration of a term with a history, one that was brought to life by the events in a state that had elevated the power and glory of the struggle for independence of a "sovereign state" paid for by the death of it's young men in what they call the "War for Southern Independence." Central to this war was perpetuating the "peculiar institution" of slavery predicated on the inferiority of the black race to the white. Mr. Obama spoke matter of factly using the word in the context of the change in values of the larger society of which he was the leader to illustrate the intransigence of such caste distinctions articulating the specific word that reflects the internalization of that value.
Had he used the descriptor, "the N. Word" rather than the word itself, it would have been a perpetuation of the belief that controlling acceptable language is an appropriate way to rid a society of it's defects, what has been called, "man's inhumanity to man." The bowderization is of the tradition when human sexuality was seen as a danger, and all terms that described any aspect had euphemisms that protected sensibilities but made clear understanding of physical activities impossible to describe or depict.
Hate is as much a part of humanity as love, and maybe more ubiquitous. What Obama dispelled in this interview is that using such a specific word implies, or at least opens the door for the accusation, that the user is promoting this activity - be it of hatred or sexuality. A word with the meaningful rich history such as "nigger" is rightly part of the discourse among those who want to understand our world, some who want to lessen the animus of the term and, inevitably, those who want to revive it.
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Part 2
"Negro" the word, gets a reprieve - and a proposal
I'll begin with the link to the article that prompted this essay with the headline, ‘Negro’ is an acceptable term for black soldiers, U.S. Army says I happened to notice it because the absence of the word in our lexicon as I was attempting to write an essay that follows through on something meaningful to me, our democratic system of government. I knew what I wanted to say, and I had done the research that's as timely as an election for Congress that is too close to call. What makes this one unusual is that it's between a Gay Republican and the Democrat who is among the richest elected officials in D.C.
I was writing the background of political campaigns, trying to lay a foundation of the conceptual issue while not losing my readership, and was describing the history of voting rights when I had to include the ploys used in the Jim Crow South to exclude --- and here I wished I could use that word of respect of my younger years, as "blacks" just didn't sound right to me. And African American is stilted, and the very fact that I had to try to shape my essay, a difficult one, around the connotation of a hot button word disturbed me.
So I did some searching, and first found an article that explained that the authoritative Associated Press Style Manual says "black" used as a racial descriptor should not be capitalized, while this director of an anti-discrimination movement makes the argument that it should. (with many thoughtful comments that prompted my suggestion of adopting this change) So, even it I use this word, my choice of capitalization could offend some readers. My article is not about how words take on different meanings over time, and I wished I had this word, "Negro," at my disposal, so I googled whether there was a movement to preserve it when I saw that the U.S. Army was actually in my camp.
I won't deny that there are subtleties in descriptors of labels for us human beings. I would describe myself as a secular Jew, yet if I were hearing people I don't know say, "He's a Jew." and that was all I heard, I would feel some hostility. Jews have a history that makes such paranoia understandable. What I would prefer to hear is, "He's Jewish." and then the context would make the term used unimportant.
Here's the Army manual:
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Negro is an acceptable classification for “a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa,” according to section 6-2 of the Army’s AR 600–20 regulations.
The same clause — part of the Army’s equal opportunity policy — also gives the OK to use “Haitian” in addition to the more common black or African-American.
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The key to legitimacy of any term is that it provides information, not that every inference of one who hears it is legitimate. As a volunteer at the sprawling San Diego Zoo, there are often lost children who are usually quickly united with their adults. When a parent approaches we are instructed to call in to security a description of the child which is broadcast on all radios, giving "age, race, clothing etc" the detail needed to prevent a the rare possibility of this being a forced abduction.
There are light skinned "blacks" where using the two terms are contradictory, unlike Negro which does not have any such conflicting etiologies. And announcing the child's nationality is simply absurd. There are those who hate Jews and those who hate Negros, and censoring either word won't change their views. We do not have to have our communications limited by the use, or the misuse, of terms that have been deemed either malicious or only passe.
Thank you, U.S.Army, and stick to your guns on this one. But, they will not for the reason's described in another article in the same newspaper. This one is a month ago reporting on the outrage of people "disgusted" by the use of the description "dark Negro, for an APB for a man wanted for multiple shootings. The content of the video of the police chief and a woman irate over the use is telling. Her anger and that of the black reporter was for both the word "negro" and the further description of "dark" The video shows a brief sample of the pull down menu of twelve descriptions that were used in entering "complexion." Among them was listed "acne" which when I was a teenager having this affliction, I would have considered highly insulting. Yet, if I were being abducted or wanted for a crime I could understand why dissemination of such description would be appropriate. It doesn't define my character, guilt or innocence; just information of my appearance, the same as height and weight.
The Chief claimed he did not realize the word was offensive, and then promised that he would remove it from lists of description. A commentator then made the statement that "Negro was used mostly during the days of slavery" not knowing that up to the middle of the last century the world was used commonly among all races. Several years ago when this discussion was fresher, I predicted that in a few decades "Negro" will be equated with the demeaning hostile other N word. It turns out it's happening even faster.
As a society we will be denied the use of a neutral word that describes individuals with the outward appearance of groups with certain genetically defined characteristics. If labels of human beings impel some groups to violent hatred that is a tragedy, one that removing the word from the lexicon does nothing to remediate. In fact, it provides additional potency to these words, no longer being neutral but now perversely and unintentionally becoming a sharper expression of hatred.
And for those who make the attempt to transcend the animosity among political parties, races and genders to find a language that is clean enough to avoid the accent of one side or the other, with each lost descriptive term our language becomes more impoverished, and a difficult task becomes that much more so. See addenda for examples of this
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Part 3,
May 3, 2016
In response to the N word being used by the comedian at a White House Correspondents Dinner of 2016, a more extensive essay of my criticism of the event available here.
These are final words of Larry Willmore, who was the host-comedian:
Thank you for bing a good sport, Mr. President, but all jokes aside, let me just say how much it means for me to be here tonight. I’ve always joked that I voted for the president because he’s black. And people say, “Well, do you agree with his policies?” And I always said, “I agree with the policy that he’s black.” I said, “As long as he keeps being black, I’m good.” They’d say, “What about Iraq?” “Is he still black?” But behind that joke is a humble appreciation for the historical implications for what your presidency means.
When I was a kid, I lived in a country where people couldn’t accept a black quarterback. Now think about that. A black man was thought by his mere color not good enough to lead a football team — and now, to live in your time, Mr. President, when a black man can lead the entire free world. Words alone do me no justice. So, Mr. President, if i’m going to keep it 100:
Yo, Barry, you did it, my nigga, You did it.
This video describes a question to the Presidential press secretary about Wilmore's use of this word, and how the President felt about it, which was fine. It's telling that the subject of making a joke of his use of lethal drones didn't raise an eyebrow, just as Bush's riff on the non-existent WMD that triggered violent death and destruction with no end in sight. . What got the country's attention was, as described in the press, "the use of the N-word"
The word is so satanic that it overshadowed what Willmore was really expressing, which was a very personal statement, that I understand as this: "When we were children, being black meant we couldn't even head a football team, and you have demolished all of this. Those days the echo of "nigger" was heard by the mob of hooded bigots about to slaughter one of us. Now a hateful word for us is forbidden, yet I say it boldly in the new meaning that you have made possible, as a sign of great affection and appreciation for what you have done for our people. And for me, this transcends anything else. So I express it in a way that has a different meaning, ......."My nigger, my friend, you did it."
Here's Larry Willmore's talking about this on his T.V. Program. He conveyed the sentiment that I concluded above, but since he did not bleep the N word, as every other video had, he pointed out that the word he used was not nigger, which is an insult, but nigga, which he joked is a different "conjugation." and a sign of affection.
What Willmore inadvertently also demonstrated is that when we blot out the actual word, and substitute, The N word, there is confusion. The reader doesn't know whether what N stands for is Nigger, Nigga or Negro. All of the words become taboo, so language with all it's subtleties if further reduced.
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Addendum to all three parts
The following is a discussion of the principles of capitonyms based on this section of the Wikipedia article:
A particular example of where capitonyms are prominent is in terminology relating to philosophy, religion, and politics. Capitalized words are often used to differentiate a philosophical concept from how the concept is referred to in everyday life, or to demonstrate respect for an entity or institution.
(Skipped paragraphs)
As political parties are often named after philosophies, a capital letter is used to differentiate between a supporter of the philosophy, and a supporter of the party, for instance Liberal, a supporter of any Liberal Party, and liberal, a supporter of the philosophy of liberalism. The Liberal Party of Australia and Liberal Party of Canada are not philosophically liberal; thus, in these countries, adherents of liberalism are sometimes said to be "small-l liberals" to differentiate.[8] Similar examples are conservative/Conservative, democrat/Democrat, libertarian/Libertarian, republican/Republican, socialist/Socialist, and a supporter of labour/Labour.
The above principle would justify a bifurcation of the word black, which now can mean a color (technically, the lack of) , or even a metaphor for extreme difference as in, "between black or white." Just as democratic and Democratic are defined by the capitalization a difference that is well known in American English, so to the word "Black" with a capital letter would mean what the Army manual states it means; but with Negro replaced by Black:
Black is an acceptable classification for “a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa, this would replace the current manual and would incorporate the acceptance of the term "black"
The justification for this change is to place the term in historical context. "Democrat" does not represent an enduring set of policies, rather the political party that adopts differing positions at differing times. However, "democrat" is different, as it represents a philosophy of government with historical roots from the times of ancient Greece. Black, would be a word that represents a self identity of an individual that is removed from density of skin pigmentation. It allows clarity of communication as it no longer has the connotation of the extremes of differences, that at one time was the goal of some Black movements during the civil rights movement. It would even facilitate use of such sentences describing a bi-racial person as ,..... only became Black after college, where he had identified with the other part of his genetic heritage."
This proposal will not resolve all the issues, some contentious, over terminology of race and ethnicity, but I suggest it could be an improvement over the unsatisfactory choices that have evolved for current American English.
This is one example of confusion with only two accepted words for Negroes. I was reading aloud about the acclaimed film "Nebraska" from Wikipedia :
The film's lighting was designed to accommodate black and white screening, and was converted from color to black and white in post-production because Payne said he wanted to produce an "iconic, archetypal look"........The choice of black and white was made against the distributors wishes. A color version of the film was also produced in an effort to satisfy distributor Paramount Vantage's concerns; Payne said that he hopes no one ever sees it.
The person I was reading this to was not paying full attention so said she first thought I said that I said that a colored version was produced, thinking something else. She first thought that it was like other films such as Carmen, that was remade with a Negro cast as "Carmen Jones." Wizard of Oz had a "colored" production called "The Wiz." This Wikipedia article about the film, that while listing the names of the performers in the first paragraph, does not mention that it is an all black cast until close to the end of the article in the context of the commercial failure of such films.
This is an example of how such a prohibition of vital words in the aggregate leads to confusion, and when applied to many areas makes the conveyance of information, of reproducing other times with different values, all but impossible.
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Addenda:
Current study with extensive bibliography that evaluates the different assumptions about a fictional person with the only change being his description being Black or African American In a nutshell, Black men were lower on every scale than African Americans. The article use the abbreviation AAD to mean respondents of African American Descent, which is the definition of Negro still used by the Army, as described above. Of course the researchers did not verify the citizenship of all of the subjects of this study, but had no other choice but to use this inherently flawed word rather than Negro.
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It turns out from this article that the N.Y. Times started to use the capital letter for Negro in 2012, finally acceding to this argument posted only 111 years earlier that is very close to my case here, but with literary examples. Of course the 1903 argument was about the word when it was commonly used.
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